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Long term business associations, customer loyalty, positive word of mouth, are all necessary achievements for a business to be regarded as successful.
However, these achievements don’t come easy. Besides an unrelenting commitment to excellence, these achievements are also dependent on creating a business image that is credible and trustworthy.
Establishing credibility is all about transparent business practices.
With that said, building ‘transparency’ can be a tricky undertaking, especially if you are already doing everything by the book.
The thing is, being honest and showing your clients you are working for them honestly are two completely different things.
To build transparency with your clients, you must COMMUNICATE transparency.
So, how exactly does one do that?
Here are a few tips:
Timely Reporting
If you are a service business, reporting is an indispensable part of your job. Now, there must be some key performance indicators that may be most relevant to your work.
However, it doesn’t hurt to include additional data points to your reports to give your clients a more holistic picture of how your service is making a difference to their business.
Small details like this go a long way in building trust and transparency with your clients. You may include additional suggestions with additional data points. Who knows, doing so may enable you to upsell your services.
Honest Billing (No Room For Human Error)
Transparency in billing is one of the most pressing concerns for many clients. The only way to address this concern is by providing exceptional transparency.
This means, carefully monitoring the hours for which they are billed, and providing them with a detailed invoice.
The good news is, this process can be automated. By using an employee time tracking software , you can accurately record the amount of time you work for a particular client and bill them with absolute transparency.
Open Communication Lines
For any long-lasting relationship, be it professional or personal, strong communication is important. In the case of the relationship between a client and a service provider, the job of establishing clear and open lines of communication lies with the service provider (you).
Here, it is not just important to ensure that your customers know what to do when they require support, it is also important to ensure you have the necessary frameworks in place that enable you to provide a quick resolution.
Dedicate Project Managers
Dedicated project managers aren’t just another selling point. Although, as a selling point, they have a lot of appeal.
This is because dedicated project managers give your clients two very convenient things:
- A single point of contact for any information or grievances. Over time, working with the same person has a lot of benefits such as better understanding and efficient collaboration.
- An expert that knows what they are doing. Sure, you can be that expert too, but do you have time to talk to all of your clients and give them the kind of attention they deserve? If not, dedicating project managers to various clients and projects is a good idea.
Let Them Get To Know The Team
The project manager may be the single point of contact for your clients but it is a good idea to let them meet the rest of the team working on their project.
At the beginning of the project, when you let the client meet the team, they know exactly who is working from them. This way, they don’t feel like they’re working with a soulless corporation or that you are outsourcing their work to a separate vendor.
Conclusion
Communicating trust and transparency to clients does not require you to take any drastic steps. It only requires you to do what you are already doing, but in a more structured and customer-centric manner.
