Do you love your clients? Should you love your clients?
We are passionate about nurturing our clients’ success and delivering effective solutions to help them achieve their goals. Recently we were approached to help a long-standing client brand an upcoming event with a compelling theme and promotional materials. We love being their go-to source for outside-the-page thinking, that’s our brand promise. And we don’t stop at the idea stage, we execute. By all signs, we nailed it! We were excited to set the theme and deliver an outstanding design solution to build anticipation and participation.
What happened next is a message to us all. Design prototypes in hand, our client shared them with a colleague who is a printer. The printer greeted my client with a hug and offered to print the required materials for next to nothing. My client was seduced by the hug and the pricing, forfeiting essential criteria with promises that no one would notice the difference.
While we insist our clients avoid competing on price, I wonder if I should have hugged this client. With many of us working at a distance rather than face-to-face these days, we all need to find ways to ensure our relationships are secure.
Five simple ways you can "hug" your clients are:
- Invite them to events of interest, e.g. speaker presentations, golf tournaments, sport or cultural events.
- Invite them for coffee or a meal to get to know them better personally.
- Endorse them, e.g. online, or provide them with a testimonial or recommendation.
- Send them referrals.
- Send a personal note of appreciation by email, text or mail.