Handling clients The human way!

Introduce yourself - I am Vivek, work with rtCamp, Pune. Lead the Sales division, and manage Key Accounts manager. WP 8 years ago.
Majority of my work experience involves client communication.
Over the years, while working with all the emails, Skype calls, Communication on Slack channels, Jira tickets, scrum meetings I tried to find thumbrule or set of rules that could help to manage clients and deliver results.
I came across best practices- I have implemented them, used them and learnt from them.
To simplify, I have categorised most my learnings into five basic questions. This talk will cover these questions and I hope they help you too. This talk would be useful for anybody who is into client facing activities.

You need to understand WHO is your client

Who is your client -
not who as in “name of the client” but who it actually is?

Your regular client communciatin look somehting like this mails, Slack, Trello etc. Who is your client among all this communication?

Your client is the team behind all that communication. Those small display pictures. The humans,

Image Credit - http://media.istockphoto.com/photos/multi-ethnic-people-portraits-picture-id498012796?k=6&m=498012796&s=170667a&w=0&h=YBT4Qhrar3mdX_109yULTOuXpv_-oN87jaYMOy4qhuc=

I took this picture a while ago to give an idea that your client is someone like you and me.

You need to understand that you are dealing with actual people, with emotions, with different backgrounds, different understandings.
Understand who all are in client’s team.
Is he a marketer who can talk authoritatively on a content strategy but doesn’t know about technical stuff. Or the tech person who knows the tech stuff but does not have 2-5 years vision of the product.

To explain how this helps -
So on one of our project, the person I was dealing with was the Editor of the a leading magazine. Other than feature developmentm, We were also working to optimise their site performance. I told her we are going to use CDN for static resources` == PAUSE. That was the silence I got. Se then I knew her print backrgound, so I explained that to buy a copy of that magazine she can just go to the nearest store instead of going all the way to the press where the magazine is printed, Saving time.

Understanding perspective allows you to tailor your communication to better give value. I read this somewhere - Line of emails are greater than lines of codes - hence you should emphasise more on this.
Find more about this person, reach out on Twitter and social media to know more.
You can go to sleep now :P

What is client’s business?
Does his/her customers expect from his business?
His business’ or product’s niche, the competitors
Why has he reached you
What he expects from you
Understanding his business from the customer’s perspective
Answering these will get you into the client's shoes
Perspective from his point of view / his customer’s Point of View

Image the product was yours answering WHAT will help you with this.
let your imagination flow- what would make you happy? This is the same thing that will make the client happy!

How many of you have that friend, who is always 5 minutes away? You call again and same response.
You feel less important when someone keeps you waiting without notifying - it kills the predictability of the plan.

Don’t let your clients ask for updates - Set expectations when they can expect a demo, delivery, daily update a performance report.
Be prompt and send updates.
If you are late then let them know. You will surely make next plan had your friend callled you himsefl and said that he wil lbe late by 5 minutes.

Don’t let your client wonder if you are working on a critical bug request they sent a while ago.

Maybe you didn’t send an update or understand what the client wants
Maybe you didn’t deliver what was exoected
Or maybe the things that went wrong was out of your control
Just say “sorry”! Even if it’s not your fault and move on and hope they will eventually come around

So you have answered the questions and done oyur homework
But how do you ensure that both you and your cleint get value out of it?
Through my experiences I have found the following
YOU NEED TO LEAD your client!
WAKE UP CALL
Your client is not a line of text- but he’s not a God either
You don;t need to bow to ideas that will prove bad for the project
You are the LEAD of the porject -so you need to go in the direction that is best for the proejct
Use your Experience and expertise to make the best call!
Maybe postpone the time line or next version release

Someone supernatural? No.

If you do, then you also have to be one to Say “NO”

Say Sorry. Doesn’t mean it’s your mistake.
The rule of thumb is to empathize
Put yourself in the clients shoes
You show that you are on their side because the business is their bread and butter

People forget - the most human flaw
And how to make sure you avaoid this?
Document voice calls? Email
Summarize and get them approved

How to ensure that you handle your clients such that they get max value for it
It lights a bulb :P
Be a part of your client’s success because - Your customer is your best salesman

Handling clients The human way!

Vivek Jain

Handling clients The human way!