No doubt about it, great customer service is wonderfully subtle — the little things that add up to everything — like a rep from Zappos.com sending flowers to a customer who didn't return a pair of shoes she got for her mother because her mother had died. But dig a little deeper and you will see that the subtlety of great customer service is a subset of well-defined boundaries and expectations.
There is a basic trade happening for all creative businesses: your customer is paying you to create art for them. Implicit in the trade is the customer's obligation to tell you what kind of art they want and your obligation to deliver it when and where they want it and to tell them what they need to know along the way. Easy enough — if you lay it all out before you get started. Recipe for A LOT of stress if you don't.
We have all heard of clients calling at 2:00 in the morning, demanding five presentations, not paying their bills on time, skipping appointments, etc. Too often, I hear a sense of pride (or resignation) in being willing to accept all of this behavior in the name of great customer service. Just not the case. And not because of the need to sometimes speak to your client at 2:00 a.m., provide five presentations, accept a skipped appointment or be flexible in payment, but because, if you haven't set the boundaries in the first place, you get no VALUE out of your willingness to break them.
By setting and communicating your boundaries and expectations to your client, you create a much more inclusive as opposed to intrusive environment. If clients don't know where they stand with you, then the natural feeling is to think that somehow they are intruding on you and your business. This then makes them MORE demanding of you (they are paying you after all). Ironic to me — by not communicating and setting boundaries at the start (i.e., doing nothing), you wind of doing and giving so much more than if you had.
If clients feel included in the process, they will be invested in your success and you will have the freedom to do your best work for them, even if there are snafus along the way.
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So true. I’m dealing with/learning that lesson right now with a couple of “side projects” I took on, and this was great to hear. Your posts are always speaking into what I’m going through at the moment. Thank you!
Thanks so much for all of your insightful articles! I really appreciate your perspective and learn so much about being a better business-person by reading them!