My job involves a lot of client relations. Not as much as someone who’s title is “Client Relations Manager” but never the less, one of my measures of success is client happiness. The easiest way to maximize the possibility of their happiness is to call them every so often and give them a heads up on what’s going on. If nothing else, acquainting them with the ho-humdrum and other things involved in your project ensures that the only time they hear your voice is not when something has gone wrong.
Like, when you miss a deadline or an appointment.
Our house is in a state of being both horribly messy yet delightfully clean. We were supposed to have a carpet cleaning service show up yesterday “between four and six” and we had to move a bunch of furniture and other detritus out of the way, plus vacuum every carpeted surface. ((The “horribly messy” part comes from having furniture stacked and stored in places where they don’t typically belong.))
Four o’clock arrived and we were ready.
Five o’clock passed by and we were patiently waiting, playing Draw Something and Words with Friends (and reading).
Six o’clock came and went with not a peep. The service was, of course, out of the office as it was Memorial Day. Jenn got dispatched to pick up some take out chinese food so that we could eat something; I stayed home in case the people showed up.
6:20 and Jenn gets the call from the service asking to postpone until “tomorrow between four and six”. Our response was “how about between 5:45 and 6:00?”
I/we are extremely frustrated by this service call. It’s not like we couldn’t have been doing something else, and now our house is in a state of “where’s the couch” disorder for another 24 hours. Just one phone call much earlier to let us know that things weren’t working out would have made us much less unhappy; less unhappy enough that we wouldn’t have given them a downcheck on their reviews. ((We haven’t done that yet. We’ll wait to see how the cleaning goes.))
Client relations. Just talk to them. This is a lesson I’ve learned many times and hopefully others will take to heart, too.
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