Introduction
Hello friends, in today's world, especially for the software industry, we may need to take care of a lot while dealing with a client(s) directly or indirectly. So today, based on my experience so far, I will try to explain "How to Make A Client Happy", especially in the software industries. There are so many ways I have found based on my 12+ years of experience in the software industry.
"Happiness"
This word is the main feeling in today's world and everyone needs it. Let's see how we can make our client(s) happy.
Below are some of the points we need to take care while dealing with Client(s).
- Do not make clients wait for a simple thing
- Prototype (Wireframes)
- Test the completed work
- Prioritize your task using Traffic Light Signal's Colors
- Dealing with Multiple Clients
- Togetherness (If client succeed we succeed)
- Do not hesitate to say "No"
- MOM (Minutes of a meeting)
- Acknowledgment
- Task Report in a timely manner
- Do something extra
So let's get started with understanding these points in depth.
Do not make clients wait for a simple thing
- If the Client asks you something and if you think that it will not take much time then we should take proactive steps to get it done and acknowledge them asap.
- Prompt reply from our side to the client(s), this increases more confidence in us and our services.
- If you think that certain tasks take more time to resolve the issue, then we should at least acknowledge to the client where are we and what would be the best solution.
Prototype (Wireframe)
- As we all know, visuals can communicate far better than long words.
- The prototype of given work gives the client more confidence about the requirement which we have understood.
- A demo of the work, how it would look, and how it would function makes the clients and developers crystal clear on the nature of the work/task.
Test the Completed Work
- Before you make your work/task published for the review from the client, it should always thoroughly tested before it reaches the client.
- We should be 100% sure that what we have published is, it should be 100% error-free and should meet all the requirements given by the Client.
- This way our published work will have less bugs/errors.
Prioritize your Task using Traffic Light Signal Colors
- Always set priority of the given tasks from one client or from many clients.
- For the best way to prioritize the tasks, we can use Traffic Signal colors to make it prioritize for our ease.
- Whenever a new task added by the client then based on a discussion and priority we can apply the color.
- Red = Highest priority. Orange = Medium Priority. Green = Low Priority.
Dealing with Multiple Clients
- When dealing/working with multiple clients, we should always set up a time slot for the work/tasks specific to the client so based on the priority we can swap it whenever required.
- We should use easy and user-friendly tool to manage all the given tasks from multiple clients, which makes our life easy :).
- Of course, here we can use traffic light signal colors to prioritize given tasks.
Togetherness (If client succeed we succeed)
- Togetherness - Make client realize that we are with you, maybe not directly but indirectly
- "We are part of your organization, not directly but indirectly". This feeling could increases more trust in us from the client.
- And this makes this sentence fulfill = "If the client succeeds we succeed !"
Do not hesitate to say "No"
- Saying "No" is never bad.
- It's really really important to be able to say no so you feel empowered while you still maintaining your relationships with clients.
- Saying no will surely help you to establish healthy boundaries and also enables others to have clarity about what client(s) can expect from you.
- If you are not sure or confirm for any task/work then say "No" to the client instead of fearing to say "No".
- In fact, I would say "No" will help to prevent us from somewhat unwanted and unhealthy situations.
MOM (Minutes of the meeting)
- Always prepare MOM (a document in which we put the discussed points and action items during the meeting).
- It should be formatted
- MOM should contain the below information
- Meeting Duration
- Date of Meeting
- Meeting Agenda
- Attendance Name with Designation
- Discussed Points
- Action Items with a tentative completion date (if required) etc.
- After completion of each meeting, an email should send across all the attendees with the attached MOM so that not a single discussed point left.
Acknowledgment
- Please make sure you always acknowledge the email of the client even if it is a line.
- Show your respect and proactiveness towards your client(s) by just an acknowledgment email that, 'Yeah, we saw your email and we will get back to you soon', based on the priority of the given task or query.
Task Report in a Timely Manner
- Daily Report, Weekly Report, Monthly Report, Milestone based Report - Based on the nature of the project.
- Sending task reports to the Client gives more clarity to the Client for the assigned tasks, pending tasks, and upcoming tasks.
- Forecast of the project milestones could be easy based on the Task Report
- It should be well formatted and contains all the meaningful information which could help the client easily.
Do Something Extra
- This is from my personal experience friends. Always do something which the client(s) have not asked for but could help the client(s). Something that they never thought about.
- Such work actually creates a feeling in the client(s) that we are directly, not indirectly part of the organization, "we are with you!"
- It could be any small task, but should be a value-added service for the client.
I hope you like this article and thank you so much!!