Helping businesses deliver experiences, not just products and services

5 Rules For “Thrilled” Clients

It goes without saying but, just in case, I will say it again.  Clients are the lifeblood of a business.  Knowing that businesses don’t have a business if they don’t have clients, why do companies struggle with service? I have five rules for “thrilled” clients that I use to guide our business.

Before I get into that.  I recently ran across the 2011 rankings for businesses who have the dubious distinction of being “best” of the worst.  What you will notice in the list is that there are certain industries that seem to be much more prevalent than others.  Think of the new opportunities that EXIST within these industries to create value that the market hasn’t seen.

While you chew on that, here are my five rules for thrilled clients.

Rule #1:  Do What You Say You Will Do-  I owned a branding a design firm for a period of time.  I guess it was just a phase I was going through.  One thing that struck me about graphic designers.  Damn they were unreliable.  Always overpromising and under-delivering.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.  For a graphic designer to be gold, all they need to do is get their work done, on time and they were put up on a pedestal.  This rule is simple enough.

Rule #2: Get To Know Your Client and Allow Them To Know You-  Why is social media so important?  It breaks down the barriers between entities and their clientele.  Even in industries where you may not work with a client/customer on a personal level, there are communication vehicles available for sharing.  Being authentic with the public isn’t just a nice idea, it’s essential for doing business today.  I recently spent time at Jonathan Sprinkles Presentation Boot camp.  He has a great line for up and coming speakers, “The audience won’t hear you until they know you.”  You can apply this principle to your business in general.

Rule #3: Set The Right Context-  This rule is a little harder to get right up front.  This develops through trial and error on working with past clients.  As you work with clients, you start to uncover the holes in your communication process at the beginning of your sales process.  Setting the right context ensures that you are working with the right clients and that they know what to expect from you throughout the use of your product/service.

Rule #4: Understand The Experience You Want To Deliver- The Business Blueprint works in the realm of Total Experience Design (TXD).  The critical starting point when designing experience is, “What is the experience that you want to deliver?”  You don’t have to be the Four Seasons but you should have an understanding of what you want your clients/customers to sense as they work with your business.

Rule #5:  When You Screw Up, Own It-  You are going to screw up.  As much as we business owners want to be a perfect, robotic creature.  We aren’t.  We are living, breathing, fallible humans.  Screwing up isn’t the issue it’s how you react to it and own it.  Jason Fried recently reminded me of this in a recent article in Inc.

The common theme with these five rules?  Communication.  The better you communicate at all points of the client experience as people use your product/service, the more likely that you will build a long lasting, productive relationships with your end users.

What are your rules for building great client relationships?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 at 7:45 am and is filed under Total Experience Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.