At the root of a successful project lies a happy and satisfied client. It is far more complicated than that statement implies. To have such a client you need to have provided them either what they need or what they have directly asked for. Assuming you have a valuable product/service the only other thing that can stand between you and a successful project are client expectations. If you haven’t managed those expectations, you might as well have shot yourself in the foot while running a race.

Is it important?

I’d be willing to bet the farm on it, if I had one. It is so important in fact that if done improperly, you could have a disgruntled client. We’ve all heard the saying that a dissatisfied client will tell at least ten of their friends. How would your boss feel, if that were your fault.

It is important to make sure the client knows what they’ve bought. It should be continually reinforced throughout the process. In the case of our website design and development projects, when finalizing a content architecture for a client, I am continually making sure it is as accurate as possible before receiving final approval. While changes are possible at any stage in the process, at some point it will require additional time, money and effort to accomplish some changes. After all you wouldn’t wait till your house was built before you told the contractor that instead of that closet, you’d like a bathroom. So treat client expectations as if the final payment rested on everyone being on the same page throughout the process.

Are you going to be perfect?

No! Don’t expect to be either. Let’s face it, you will not be able to (nor should you try) to please absolutely everyone. At some point, and unfortunately it happens, you will have followed the same steps you’ve done a hundred times and someone will not be satisfied. You will not have provided service-x like you said you would or you didn’t produce product-y the way they had it in their mind. Despite your best efforts, some people’s expectations can’t be met thoroughly. Don’t take it personally, learn what you can from the experience and move on. I’ve had instances where Sales sold a project without issue, I personally managed the project from concept to creation also without issue, then someone who wasn’t involved in the process from the beginning stepped in and threw a monkey wrench into everything. (Yes, they wanted the closet to be a bathroom & didn’t see why they had to pay for the renovation.)

Are there any step by step guidelines?

There are no step-by-step guidelines to follow to achieve this success. While you can operate with some very general guidelines, each client needs to be managed individually for optimum success. As soon as you try to rigidly follow some outline, you’ve removed your greatest asset – YOU!

Great! Now what?

Now you have a good track record with only minor speed bumps along the way, so now what? It’s time to change! Open yourself up to client feedback and re-evaluate what you are doing and see what you can do better. Even policies and procedures that produce successfully managed clients can be improved upon. Don’t be afraid to survey your clientele and ask what you could have done better. This type of feedback is worth more than gold to your organization. You should always be re-evaluating and making adjustments along the way. In the end this will benefit you and future clients.

If you have any questions or want to share your issues or insights, feel free to comment below.

Good Luck! I know you can do it!

Have you ever caught yourself wondering where certain words come from? I’m a word lover. I love learning new words, big words, fancy words, and then of course using them as often as possible. Consider it just my way of being an intellectual. As any good wordsmith will tell you, the origins and history of words can be quite interesting. Today, I’d like to take you on a quick journey to understanding blurbs.

We’d better start at the beginning

Back in 1907 and American humorist Gelett Burgess published Are You a Bromide? for a special booksellers-convention edition of 500 copies. Burgess designed the book jacket which featured a good-looking young lady. He named her Miss Belinda Blurb and the copy on the back of the book read, “YES! This is a BLURB!” Even though the book has been long since forgotten, the word Burgess coined stuck. The rest is history as they say, but how are they used today?

How are blurbs used?

As you may have guessed, blurbs are all around us, but they didn’t start out that way. We’re familiar with the ones movie advertisers use like, “One of the best films of the year!” or “The summers must see film!” Their use has migrated from books to TV to movies and finally into the lingo and usage for the Internet. Blurbs are really just short advertisements, especially on the Internet.

Blurb n. – a brief advertisement or announcement, esp. a laudatory one: She wrote a good blurb for her friend’s novel. (source: dictionary.com)

1. A blurb on a book or a film can be any combination of quotes from the work, the author, the publisher, reviewers or fans, a summary of the plot, a biography of the author or simply claims about the importance of the work.
2. On the Internet a blurb is used to give a brief description or promotion of an article or other larger work. (wikipedia.com)

How to make the most of them

Blurbs can be extremely useful if used correctly. We use many types of blurbs on Cirrus ABS website design solutions.

• News blurbs
• Events blurbs
• Testimonial highlights
• Featured products or services highlights
• and so on

You see really any brief description or summary can be considered a blurb on your website. The real trick is how carefully it has been crafted. Just as you spend significant amounts of time on your traditional advertising needs, you should spend time thinking through these elements. Let’s take specifically about news blurbs for a moment. Things to consider would be the title of the news article, the date in which it is going to be published, and if you have one, the summary of the news article. Remember the information is no good to anyone if they don’t click on it or read it, so make them want to.

So how do you know if your customer service needs attention? If you are not really serving your customers; If you are not putting their needs ahead of your plans; If you are not providing them with the necessary paths to make purchasing your products or services easier — then your Website needs some customer service ‘tender loving care’.

I am personally tired of wasting my time and spending what little expendable income I have at places that don’t really care about me. Call me selfish, old fashioned, or judgmental if you’d like, but I know I am not the only one who feels this way.  It doesn’t take a poor economy or falling sales to put a spotlight on customer service.  When it comes to the Web it only takes a few differentiators to increase the likelihood for conversion.

I have 5 specific options that could help you improve your customer service online. Let’s get started:

Tip #1 – Increase the visibility of your Contact Information

Believe it or not this is often the first major turn-off for visitors. Where the heck is the phone number? If a prospect can’t easily find the ways to contact you, they will leave. People are too busy to spend needless time looking for something as important as a phone number or a contact form. Do not hide any of these contact methods from them. So present this information frequently and make it highly visible on the site. The worse thing that could happen is that they pick up the phone and call, which wouldn’t be bad at all.

Tip #2 – Track all leads with a CRM

So the phone is ringing and people are now contacting you, what’s next? Having these contact requests automatically imported into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is often overlooked. Yet this could be the simplest way to make sure your leads are followed up on. There’s nothing worse than a prospect filling out a contact form and no one following up on it. What does this say about your business? Many CRM’s will not let leads be deleted, they will only allow a status change. Making it much easier to make sure they are followed up with, contacted, and acquired as a client. As an added bonus these leads, which will include an email address, will certainly come in handy for future email campaigns.

Tip #3 – Live Chat

Now that you have your contact information front & center and you are tracking these leads, it’s time to take it up a notch. Offer live chat on your site. What if someone wants to ask a quick question without actually calling, or taking the time to fill out a contact form? Live chat is quickly becoming a standard customer service tool on Websites in all industries. It offers a quick and painless method of staying anonymous while getting the information you need. Anonymous is a no-pressure incentive for these prospects to interact with you when they otherwise might not be willing to use the traditional methods. Don’t be afraid, these services are very affordable and quite easy to setup on your Website.

Tip #4 – Answer common questions/objections in advance

“You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers” was a slogan made popular by Radio Shack. They had the right attitude and you want to translate that same attitude on the Web. By providing the answers to frequently asked questions, you can position yourself anywhere from an industry expert to a reputable business. No one knows your business like you do, so don’t you think others should know this fact as well? Don’t stop there though; overcome your prospects objectives before they even have them. You already do it as part of your sales process anyway, so integrate it on your Website as well. Then you can answer their questions, when they arise with, “No Problem!”

Tip #5 – Offer Resources

Lastly, have you ever needed some additional information or needed to fill out a form before you could proceed? If that’s happened to you, why not provide this to your visitors? You can offer a technical specifications .PDF, a whitepaper, or even a client portal for increased communication. These are just a few simple resources that provide added value and position you as someone who cares.

True customer service is more than just providing a product or service; it’s about making it easy to deal with you. Trust me, if you don’t do it, your competitor will and if you were the client where would you go?