Stop trying to please everyone: the right approach to making clients happy
Understanding where and how to invest your energy in the first step on the path to building solid and rewarding client relationships
Here’s a counter-intuitive idea: going above and beyond for all your clients is a waste of time, energy, and resources. Notice we said all clients—the idea of exceeding expectations and delighting your clients has become something of a truism in business. While its intent is admirable, it’s a scatter-gun approach to doing business for the cold hard reasons that first, not all clients are equal; second, it’s a scatter-gun approach to managing client relationships.
There is a better way. One that involves intentional, directed effort based on understanding what each of your clients expects and wants, with the aim of building relationships that drive loyalty and value for all involved. Let’s start with what underpins relationships–energy.
Ask, don’t guess
Your starting point is to understand your clients’ satisfaction levels. Businesses need to monitor this, preferably with hard data through surveys or other feedback where you expressly ask how satisfied they are with your service. Don’t assume you know how they feel. Get the facts. If the facts show high levels of dissatisfaction, first look at the content–the type of service you are providing to ensure you are delivering what they want. The next step is how you deliver your service. And that comes down to energy in the relationship.
Where’s the energy?
Energy is a quality that is hard to define, but we all know when we feel it. In a relationship, energy creates a connection and allows the relationship to grow and thrive. It fuels our emotions, motivation, and our passion. Without it, the relationship can quickly become stagnant and unfulfilling. This applies to business because business is, after all, about establishing relationships and managing those to be mutually beneficial to you and your clients.
How to measure energy
Here’s a simple yet powerful tool for measuring energy and understanding its implications. Place your contacts with clients in one of three categories:
Up: you are exceeding expectations, and the client is excited.
Neutral: you are meeting expectations and the client is content.
Down: you are failing to meet expectations and the client is disengaged (or worse).
Understanding the energy levels will help you build and execute an effective client service strategy where your energy, time, and resources are not overspent or underspent.
Client service strategy
Ideally, you want your clients to spend most of their time in a neutral state where they are feeling content. This doesn’t mean ignoring them or keeping them in a neutral holding pattern where the relationship can feel dormant. You still need to proactively maintain the relationship, keeping clients engaged with the occasional energy up activity. The up energy comes from those moments when you really delight them. Just like in personal relationships.
If you are wanting to keep your clients in an energy-up state be aware that it is a hard strategy to maintain. To keep energy up consistently, you need to keep shifting the goal posts as expectations can get out of hand. Failing to meet these creeping expectations can have the opposite effect, and becomes an over-servicing nightmare, draining your bottom line, and dropping the client’s energy. You do not want to leave clients in an energy down state for too long (if at all!)
Your client service strategy considers two components:
Must-haves: the baseline expectations of service. Fail here, and you lose business.
Maybes (or Favours): things you can offer from time to time that provide a lift in energy, big ones can be special one-off, or very irregular rewards that drive long-term loyalty.
Next, consider what you are prepared to offer at each level and ensure this is shared with your team. What are the must-have levels of service? What is your program of maybes and favours you or your team can offer to clients to make them appreciate you and build loyalty? Maybes do not have to be expensive but should be something personal your client will value.
Don’t let favours become must-haves
A critical part of your strategy is, like any relationship, having healthy boundaries. When offering a maybe, ensure your client understands that you are giving them something over and above your standard service level. If a maybe or favour becomes standard practice, it will be devalued and become a maybe. Like tickets to the football each year. Are they expected, or are they pleasantly surprised when you make that call? What about something like shipping? If you offer a loyal client express delivery for special circumstances, they will appreciate it. However, if you offer it too often, you will potentially turn standard delivery times into a source of dissatisfaction. You will burn out yourself and your team (and your back pocket!) trying to keep up the pace.
Get creative
Your maybes and favours need to be genuinely rewarding. To channel Marie Kondo, they should “spark joy”. What would they appreciate or be surprised to receive? Knowing that means talking to them and understanding their world. But when you deliver, it creates a genuine upshift in energy. Whatever you choose to deliver, make sure everyone in your team understands what it is, when it can be offered, and why. This is the critical takeaway about client service strategies: you cannot provide and set clear expectations to clients in you are not clear yourself.
