What’s the best way to screw up a relationship with a client? There are seemingly endless ways for this to happen in business. I’ve seen it over and over again in many different ways from damage to a home, serious delay in the delivery of a product or just plain bad customer service. There’s nothing worse than damaging that relationship and violating your client’s trust. Trust is the foundation of your working relationship no matter what business you’re in.
If nobody trusts you then you might as well work at McDonalds even though getting a job there could be difficult too.
The concept is simple to understand and even simpler to accomplish.
Do what you promise!
All anyone ever wants from you is to keep the promises you made. It starts when you’re very young and never changes. My 7 year old daughter just wants to know that I’ll be at the soccer game or that I’ll set aside 30 minutes to play chess with her tonight. Remember when you were young and made your friend promise to never tell anyone about that stupid thing you did? Do you also remember how violated you felt when the word got out anyway? In some situations it’s very devastating.
The concept is really no different with your clients. The sense of betrayal or violation may be much less emotional in business situations but it adds up quickly and can be fatal.
In the business world instead of saying ‘keep your promises’ we call it ‘managing expectations.’ The key difference between the two phrases is that you may not have specifically promised something to a client but they may have a certain expectation of how things are going to go. You need to reset that expectation as needed before it becomes a problem.
Being successful at managing client expectations is not difficult and starts with communication. Having consistent and open communication with your clients better avoids conflict and misunderstanding.
For example, when we start a new remodeling project we are very specific with our clients about what day we’re going to start, what we’ll be doing that day and what their responsibilities will be. We can’t just show up day one and start tearing everything apart! They need to know what areas to clean out and how we’re going to work around their personal schedules. Some of my most memorable business moments have been when I did not communicate well with my clients and things went awkward.
I hate conflict. I don’t like confrontation and hate to deliver bad news. This is why those memorable moments are from those situations gone bad. We were doing a kitchen renovation for a great past client. On their first project everything had gone very well and they were raving fans of our business. On this project we had a new field superintendent and I didn’t do a good job training and preparing him for this client. As she was leaving for work one morning he realized that we needed to get into one of her closets to do some work. Unfortunately she didn’t have a lot of time and wasn’t comfortable having us clean out the closet on her behalf. Needless to say she was not happy with me or my company. She was late for work and it was our fault. Had we told her about it in advance everything would have been fine.
This may not sound like a big deal but these betrayed feelings will add up.
It’s not hard to do what you say you will when you said you would. In other words, get the work done as promised, when promised. Other people use the saying, ‘under promise and over deliver.’ This is a great saying that we use over and over again in our business.
Nobody’s perfect, right?
I believe no truer words have ever been written. There’s a big difference between not being perfect and claiming you are. Own up to your shortcomings with your clients as a way for them to understand that things will not be perfect in your relationship but you’re going to work at making them as close to perfect as you can. You’d be surprised at how quickly this will build creditability with your client.
Word will get out about your business, good or bad!
Ignoring potential problems and thinking they won’t happen is not the way to go. Bring it up no matter how uncomfortable you think it may be. They need to understand what to expect and if things work out better than expected, you look like a hero.
Who doesn’t want to be their client’s hero!