In our never-ending pursuit of knowledge, the Red Deer team here (and guests!) just participated in Paul Boag’s webinar entitled 40 Better Ways to Deal With Clients. Of course, we already do a lot of what he was preaching, but there were several great tips and reminders when it comes to customer service and communication. A few that we discussed internally after the session include:
- Be excited about your clients’ project. Who would you rather have working for you: someone who is pumped about working with you or someone for whom this is just another job on the pile? If we can’t get excited about the work we’re about to do, we shouldn’t be doing it.
- Face-to-face meetings with clients are important. We’ve always believed in this and try to do this as much as possible. I’d also add that eating together is a good way to start a project.
- Educate your clients. At another point, Paul emphasizes that “clients aren’t stupid”. We know design and code, you know your business; we both bring something to the table and we need to share our expertise in order to succeed.
- Always present your designs as opposed to just attaching it to an email. It’s important that there’s context to the decisions behind the design. I fully admit that we need to make more of an effort here (and will!)
- Always do a de-brief at the end of the project. This is another area that Idea Market needs to improve. We need to discuss how things went, good and bad. And we need to take the time to celebrate our hard work at the end!
Thanks for all the great info, Paul!