Practical Ways To Manage Client Expectations
Managing client expectations is one of the most important aspects to maintaining a long-lasting and rewarding client-agency relationship.
However, understanding and meeting client expectations can be challenging, particularly when workloads and needs vary significantly from one client project to the next.
Thankfully, there are some things your team can do to outline and manage expectations from the start.
Here are five tips for managing client expectations so that everyone stays on the same page.
Ways Of Managing Client Expectations
It is impossible to ensure success within your company without knowing the importance of customer feedback. If you can establish great relationships, you are better equipped to manage client expectations. Nowadays, consumers dont hide their bias for brands that give high-quality experiences. According to a Walker study, it is believed that soon this factor will become more important than the price and product in deciding on buying.
When clients select their preferred brand, providing a high-quality experience should be one of the most significant objectives of the company. You cannot ensure that by prioritizing the expectations of your client. You must understand how you can communicate effectively with your client from the start. This is the only way to interpret their demands and fulfill them, which improves your brands reputation and may even open the door for new business opportunities.
Managing Client Expectations: How To Answer 3 Common Questions
01.28.20inCompliance & Regulation
Being an auditor has given me the opportunity to speak with many of our advisors and see, firsthand, the best practices theyve implemented for working with clients. But even with their own established procedures in place, they often wonder if what theyre doing is enough, and are curious about how other advisors are managing client expectations.
Based on what Ive seen in the offices Ive visited, Ive noticed that there are three common client questions asked most frequently. Here, I provide answers to help you better prepare for when your clients come to you with these questions.
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Learn What Is Possible
The first part of managing client expectations has very little to do with the client. Its about your agency knowing precisely what you can and cant deliver.
There are three primary components to this:
- Experience Based on your work with similar clients in the past, what results are you confident of achieving? For example, if a client expects a cost-per-lead of $20 and you have never achieved anything less than $30 for clients in the same industry, there is a notable gap in expectations.
- Resources Do you have the skills and resources in-house to deliver the outcomes youre promising the client? The last thing you want is to promise the world to a new client and then realize your team doesnt have the capacity, or the know-how, to deliver.
- Tools Do you know the limitations and opportunities of the software tools you use to execute client deliverables? No tool does absolutely everything you need it to, so be sure you dont say yes to everything the client wants without ensuring its possible.
Understanding what youre good at allows you to set boundaries and pursue expected client outcomes with confidence.
Be Pessimistic Not Optimistic When Costing Projects
Everyone likes to strike a bargain, which is why most clients will try and haggle you down on price. So when costing up projects, go that little bit higher. Not sure what to charge? Figure out how long you think it will take and then double it a client will most likely take a third off your estimate, but you’ll still have enough room for contingencies.
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Is Sriracha Sauce The Same As Franks Hot Sauce
2 Sriracha is a hot sauce that contains more vinegar than other hot sauces. However, unlike sriracha, which is mostly reliant on chilies for flavor, the hot sauce, which contains a variety of components, is quite sour. This is due to the fact that vinegar is another important component. A blast of heat is experienced when you taste hot sauce, which is accompanied with tart vinegar.
Open Up Your Time For Questions And Clarification
Every time you meet with clientsno matter if youre working with renters or buyersyou should open up the conversation to any questions the client might have. This is the perfect opportunity to provide clarification that can go a long way towards managing expectations and avoiding misunderstandings.
Simply state your desire to make everything as transparent and clear as possible. If your client has any questions or concerns, they should feel as if they can bring them up with you.
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Set Metrics To Measure These Goals
Now that youve discussed deliverables and timeframes, its time to determine the metrics that are best to measure the results you’re achieving.
While agreeing on measurables, be clear and concise about which metrics are important and why.
Your client will need to be educated as to why a specific metric will effectively measure a specific deliverable.
Choosing the right metrics should be just as important to you as it is to the client.
Avoid Project Pitfalls Through Critical Conversations
Most project problems stem from poor communication, finds Dean Schuster, user experience design strategist and principal at agency truematter.
This is especially a problem when making complex digital products, he cautions. To run a successful project, we must guide our clients carefully and skillfully with a few critical conversations before we even start working.
Dean therefore recommends that, when onboarding clients, you must:
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What Is The Most Popular Hot Sauce In Mexico
Valentina is arguably the most popular Mexican hot sauce in Mexico. This might be the most classic hot sauce you could choose, and it goes with practically everything. This sauce uses puya chiles and the flavor is more chile-forward than vinegar. Use Valentina with your main course, especially seafood!
Be Upfront About What Happens If Plans Change
This could be as simple as adding a line that details that if approvals are missed, the timeline will be moved back to reflect the delay in approval from the client. It might also be a conversation where you detail the possible risks in the project, how you are working to prevent these from holding up the project, and what your backup plan is. Its ultimately your job to get the results, so you need to be considering what could prevent you from delivering a project on time.
This helps the client to adjust their expectations that things always go smoothly. There are roadblocks and setbacks in most projects. They just need to trust that youve thought through how a detour might impact their project.
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Managing Client Expectations When Their Outcome Is Uncertain
Managing a clients expectations can be hard, but its necessary. In this article, we will go over things to consider when managing client expectations.
Legal.io
Its always ideal to get a good outcome for your client. However, its not always reality. Managing a clients expectations can be hard, but its necessary. In this article, we will go over things to consider when managing client expectations.
Help Your Client Understand the Situation
Its your job to know all the ins and outs of your clients legal situations, but making sure they are knowledgeable is just as important when it comes to managing expectations. You never know what they know until you talk about it. Walk them through their case, and take the time to listen to their questions. Limiting surprises will help both of you.
Discuss the Process
Letting your client in on your approach to their legal situation is a great opportunity to expel assumptions or currently-held knowledge that may be incorrect. On top of your ethical obligation, it also allows for your client to ask you questions, giving you an opportunity to dispel any misconceptions about the case or area of law in general. This further builds trust in your method.
Let Them Know All Possible Outcomes
Ask Several Questions
Continuously Redirect Their Expectations
Personalize the Experience
Repeat Information Back To Clients
Whenever your client explains something to you, repeat it back to them in your own words, so theyre sure you understand them. This is a very simple technique that clients appreciate very much. Everyone wants to be heard and understood, even in the business world. Once you have listened and shown your understanding of their expectations, you can begin to set your own expectations and manage theirs. For example, if they have a timeline thats unrealistic, they will be much happier to listen to why it might take a bit longer if they feel like you care and understand where theyre coming from.
Paw Vej, Financer.com
Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.
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Tabasco Hot Sauce 2500 Shus
Another household staple is Tabasco Brand hot sauce. They make a variety of new flavors, branching out from their original recipe, but the original is truly special.
Tabasco can bring a bland meal to life with just a few small dashes. Just three ingredients go into this sauce zingy vinegar, red pepper and salt. The proportions work just right for sandwiches, pizza and pretty much anything else.
The heat level is stepped up a bit for Tabasco, reaching a claimed 2,500-5,000 SHUs on the Scoville scale, depending on the batch. This is tolerable to most but is noticeably spicier than Franks.
Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce
Avery IslandSuch is Tabasco’s reach that you can find it almost everywhere in world. But despite its vaunted history and global span, how does Tabasco stand up to other Louisiana hot sauces? Well, its hot, first of all, with a sharper kick than similar vinegar-based pepper sauces, causing one to use it more sparingly. But that tang of vinegar and distinctive red pepper flavor is both unmistakable and tasty. “It’s a Louisiana staple, but I feel it brings too much heat to the table for the amount of flavor it comes with,” Ken says. “Of course, it’s still a good go-to for seasoning red beans or other dishes.”
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Identify And Regularly Revisit The Client’s Goals And Expectations Of The Process And Outcome
As the case unfolds, do not rely on initial consultations and first impressions to assess a clients expectations. Over time, stay in touch with the changing views and emotions of the client. This does not make you a therapist. This provides you the offensive and defensive tools you need not only to manage the client, but also to leverage their thoughts and emotions to improve your representation.
Set Objectives Limits And Expectations
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Ensure that you and your client are on the same page and have the same end goals before the start of the project.
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Avoid setting unrealistic expectations. It’s ok to say no.Explain your position and offer a more realistic alternative.
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Be clear about the role you and your team members play in the project.
It’s easier to manage a client once you gain their trust!
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Set Expectations Around All Areas Of The Project
In addition to the scope and timeline, itâs also important to talk about and set expectations around other areas of the project. Talk to your client about:
- how your agency works
- how you will communicate with each other
- what your expectations are in regard to the client giving input into important discussions.
- how you will be handling risks, issues and changes, and
- how you will report on progress
Anticipate Your Clients Needs
Your clients will have more confidence in you when they arecertain you understand the nature of your job. While it is important toanticipate what your client needs and the problems that may arise as theproject progresses, do not assume anything. Listen attentively to your clientand ask questions for clarity.
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Actively Involve Your Clients
One of our favorite strategies in exceeding client expectations is making sure our communication is unrivaled by other agencies. Clients often tell us horror stories of not understanding how a project is coming along, or not being able to contact someone working on the project. This gives them a bad agency experience, which is incredibly disheartening all around.
We make sure that never happens by not only keeping our clients informed with regular updates, but by also giving them access to our project management systems. Clients can see what our designers and developers are working on, have finished, and still need to do. Additionally, we make sure that our clients can always contact someone from the team thats working on their project! Sometimes, we even build dedicated teams for those clients with extremely long term, ongoing projects.
Another way that Codal goes above and beyond to impress our clients is by providing ongoing support. We dont just abandon our clients after the project is complete! We make sure we give them options for getting ongoing support, and can even help them answer developer tickets as they come in.
Agile Doesnt Mean Unplanned Or Random
Timelines are important in the context of longer engagements as well. Just that you now share micro-timelines for individual features or tasks on a continuous basis. Sticking to the agreed-upon timelines will significantly minimize the possible delays. Using productivity tools is a good way to go about managing time. The accountability of possible delays in the project then rests not solely on you, but the client as well.
Pro-Tip: Give yourself sufficient buffers and try meeting timelines consistently.
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Communicate Directly And Regularly
Direct and regular communication should be a top priority to manage expectations effectively. Set a specific time to check-in with your clients, such as every Monday or the 1st of every month.
Not only does consistent, open communication help your clients understand whats going on with your project or campaign, but it also helps to address and resolve any issues or delays along the way rather than allowing them to build up and cause a bigger problem later.
Dealing With Poor Portfolio Performance
Unlike the situation where a client’s portfolio is performing relatively well, if the client’s rate of return is trailing the , you will need to be able to provide a good explanation.
Match the client’s investment performance with the goals that they gave at the beginning of your relationship. If the portfolio is growing at a sufficient rate to achieve those goals, then external market performance is, for all practical purposes, irrelevant.
You aren’t alone in all of this. Countless advisors have gone through these exact same situations. In the late ’90s, there were some advisors who did not jump on the dotcom bandwagon. As a result, these planners had to continually explain to clients that they were invested more conservatively than the markets, according to their respective risk tolerances.
Once that bubble burst in early 2000, those same clients would have felt relieved that their managers did not invest in those “sure thing” securities. You might not experience such a validating event like the tech bubble burst, but if you have your clients’ best interest at heart, you should have little trouble putting their situations in perspective and their minds at ease.
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It All Comes Down To Setting And Managing Client Expectations
This meeting happened over 10 years ago when I was just starting out as a digital project manager. It shows how unset expectations can lead to disappointment and quickly cause conflict. It also illustrates why those early stages of a client relationship are so crucial.
The agency I worked for at the time was still losing its baby fat and I encountered many of these meetings where I had to work doubly hard to reset client expectations. Since then I have learned a great deal about how to succeed as a service provider and make sure my clients have a great experience from the get go.
Manage Your Clients’ Expectations
Managing client expectations is one of the most difficult, and often frustrating, aspects of the financial planning business. Although many clients can be quite reasonable when they lose money in their investments, there will invariably be a few who are determined to vent their frustrations at you via telephone, in writing, or in person.
But there are a number of things that advisors can do to help prevent most of these outbursts. That’s by helping clients create expectations within the bounds of reality. It sounds almost too simple, but when clients are better educated about what they can expect from their investments , they are less likely to be outraged by things that are beyond the planner’s control. This article will help you understand how to manage your clients’ expectations and make the most of your relationship with them.
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I Know You Think You Understand What You Thought I Said But I’m Not Sure You Realize That What You Heard Is Not What I Meant Alan Greenspan
I was talking with a client when he said:
“If I give in, well work the rest of our lives for free.”
I hate this. My customers and I start out liking each other. We do a great job, but they dont appreciate it. Three months after their last payment, were still doing so-called punch list items that werent really in the original scope of work. Were working for free and theyre unhappy.
Customers always want things beyond the original scope. If I keep on giving in, well work the rest of our lives for free. If I refuse, theyll trash our reputation, which theyll probably do anyway. This is no way to live.
What do these people expect from us?
