ManyRequests is a client portal and client requests management software for creative services.
Client-customer communication is essential for every business.
Technology has advanced well past email, and your company should too. Below are 7 ways to improve communication with your clients – without ever touching your email inbox.
What is client communication?
Before we jump into how to improve how you communicate with your clients, it’s important to establish what client communication is.
Client communication is any type of interaction you have with your customers. This can refer to past, present, or future communication, with current clients or prospective ones (cold outreach counts).
Your client communication is a direct reflection of your brand or business. It can help you build long-term client-customer relationships. For this reason alone, you should always work towards improving this aspect of your daily operations. It can make or break your business.
Once you master client communication, you’ll be able to create lasting relationships with your customers. Let’s take a closer look at how you can improve yours.
1. The customer is always right (sort of)
The customer is always right has been a cornerstone of customer service since the early 20th century.
While it may be tempting to cave to your clients’ every want and need, there’s another (more interesting) way to look at this idea.
Make your business all about your clients and not all about you. That doesn’t mean that the customer is always right – it means that you’re always looking for ways to better serve their wants and needs.
Before you do anything in business, consider your customers’ specific problem and how your product or services could fix it. The moment your clients notice and begin to trust and want to build a relationship with you is a major moment in your client communication – celebrate it!
2. Email is old news
There is one massive issue with emails: they are sorted by time, not by client.
And when you manage hundreds of different requests from dozens of different clients, this can quickly get out of hand.
Plus, emails can easily slip through the cracks. What if there was an easier way to make sure all of your client’s written requests go answered?
Rather than managing dozens of back and forth emails, you can use the ManyRequests thread feature to stay on top of your client communication. Plus, our client area is sure to impress your tech-savvy customers as it looks like your own, personalized app.
If your clients do happen to prefer email, you can still send them task updates through our software that will land directly in their inbox. When they reply, it automatically gets added to the proper thread. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
3. Communication is key
It may be obvious, but it must be said: communication is key to client communication.
As a customer, there’s nothing more frustrating than feeling misunderstood or ignored. No matter how busy you are, remember: your business is all about your customer.
Keep a line of communication between you and your customer at all times and you can’t lose. When your project lives in a project management software, you ensure that the project manager, customer, and your team have access to important project files at all times. That way, your client will never feel ignored, and that’s a big win for client communication.
4. Time is precious
Respect your clients’ time in the same way you’d want them to respect yours. There’s nothing worse than missed or forgotten meetings, unanswered messages, and unnecessary hold-ups.
You can avoid these kinds of time-suckers with project management software. ManyRequests has several tools that can help save time for both you and your customers.
Our software features a specific client area that will help give you an overview of everything you’re working on, important deadlines, as well as the ability to enable automation.
You can streamline your client communication and make sure nothing falls through the cracks, which will show your clients how precious their time really is.
5. Attention to detail makes a huge difference
Is there anything worse than finding a mistake in a message you shared with a customer? That cringe-worthy moment can be easily avoided if you pay attention to detail. You can show your clients how much you care by being mindful in everything that you do for them.
That means proofreading, staying organized, and paying attention to what they tell you (as well as having the ability to read between the lines). You can show your clients that you care by:
- Reaching out after an important meeting to share key points
- Catering your product or services to their specific needs
- Stay on top of your client communication by replying to questions in a timely and helpful manner
- Implementing a project management software to make working together seamless.
If you give your clients the attention they deserve, completing a project from start to finish can be easy – not to mention enjoyable.
6. Your team matters
If you don’t have a quality team, they can’t give quality customer service. Quality customer service includes quality client communication.
Your team can only perform as well as the tools they are given. Consider implementing a project management tool that can help your employees thrive. ManyRequests features ways that make task delegation easy:
- Automations that automatically assign certain projects to certain people
- The ability to share important files with your clients
- Internal comments that only your team members can see
Your team’s performance is a direct reflection of your management skills as well as your brand as a whole. If you provide them with the means, they’ll find a way.
7. Know your brand
Is the way you work an accurate reflection of what you want your brand to represent? If you’re not sure, a good place to start is by taking a look at your client communication. A brand or business that doesn’t care about getting back to customer requests quickly or doesn’t have systems in place that cater to their client communication isn’t a brand that anyone wants to work with.
Potential customers want to work with brands and businesses that are known for their stellar client communication. Consider using these tactics to create a brand image you’ll be proud of:
- Ask current clients for feedback to determine where you could improve.
- Create client communication guidelines for your team so that everyone is on the same page.
- Review and revise the way you interact with your customers often.
- Invest in project management software to streamline your client communication.
Wrapping up…
No matter what way you look at it, the way you keep in touch with your customers is an essential part of running a successful business.
Ready to step up your client communication game? Sign up for ManyRequests here!