The Principles of Elevated Client Service

At MSPC, we continuously work on improving client service and experience. It comes up in statuses, in huddles, hallways, on calls—everywhere. It permeates our culture and is woven into the fabric of our agency.

Everyone in the industry knows well that setting and maintaining clear objectives and outcomes with clients is highly detailed and nuanced work. Even more nuanced? Not losing sight of best practices or our highest quality work in the process.

By partnering with our clients, MSPC teams listen closely and work daily to improve—and innovate—our service experiences, all the while keeping a keen eye on the quality of our work. Tethering ourselves in our values and working collaboratively to focus on standards is how we maintain the highest levels of client service over time.

When asked to write for the MSPC blog for my debut post, this topic was top of mind, so I put together a detailed list of the principles we believe are involved in elevated client service and communications.

Offer Swift Solutions

When tactical or creative problems arise (and trust me, they will!), huddle with your team to try and offer your client multiple solutions. Ensure they are all acceptable and workable within best practices and timelines. Then: Listen closely to their reaction and always recap which solution they chose with timely follow-up.

Get & Maintain Buy-In

The best way to gain a customer is to earn the awareness, respect, and trust of those who may buy. Similarly, earning the awareness, respect and trust of clients is the best way to get consistent buy-in and create a healthy partnership.

Consistency is Critical

You are a partner to the client for all aspects of work from project management and budgets to process and building campaigns and everything in between. Consistent communication is what keeps it all on track.

The beginning of each client conversation over every medium should start with why the conversation is happening and end with what the expected deliverable is, and when it will arrive. Sometimes, it seems like overkill, but I promise you: this consistency builds trust on both sides of the relationship.

Own It

There’s only one way to look at a misstep and that’s as a opportunity to learn and grow. We flex this muscle by immediately acknowledging and owning any and all misses. When something goes awry, it’s always worth it to responsibly alert all stakeholders and take ownership.

By sharing good and bad quickly and frequently, we help to establish and maintain vulnerable and solid communications. This ultimately allows us to confront setbacks and disagreements as a client-agency partnership.

Elevate Facetime

If you’re lucky enough to get face-to-face time with your clients outside of a meeting, make the most of your time together by using this simple formula. Try to keep it light while you offer a mix of:

• One thing you’ve worked on together that went well.
• One thing you’re working on currently where you’re still working out the details.
• One idea for future work. It reinforces that you’re thinking long-term and, in turn, they’ll keep you top of mind when new projects come up.

Be Prompt & Proactive

By setting clear, thoughtful and reasonable deadlines and expectations, we allow ourselves and our client peace of mind, as well as space for creativity and creatively approaching unknowns–which will arise.

If a client emails to ask where a document or project is, we should take that as an immediate sign to improve the frequency and/or effectiveness of our communications with them. Listen carefully to their request and eliminate any defensiveness in your response.

Follow through with some thoughtful planning on your end to anticipate future deadlines and approaches.

Show & Tell

If you spy an opportunity to list steps or document research on how your team reached a solution for the client, do so. If you’re not sure if it’s appropriate to share a certain thing, ask a peer or your boss. Showing your work can be a powerful way to gain client buy-in and show them that they are top-of-mind.

Adapt & Act

While keeping the clients’ goals in mind, make plenty of room for adjustments along the way. The client hired us for our expertise, but before we apply our skills, we are obligated to look at things from their unique vantage (and pain) point.

Pencils Ready & Eyes on Your Paper

We’ve all been part of statuses that fell flat. With an agenda set ahead of time, and client input added, status meetings have the potential to be a critical conversation and discovery time.

It’s incredibly important to arrive at a status meeting prepared and in the headspace to solve problems for the client and your peers. Optimize everyone’s time with an agenda, and advance next steps by tuning in and listening closely. Ask questions to gain clear direction. See above for how to start and end the meeting.

I’m well aware I may take some heat for this next one, but, speaking of statuses . . .

I Hear That You Don’t Like Status Meetings

And I’m afraid they’re not going anywhere. The reality is: Setting reasonable deadlines and maintaining consistent communication rely on dedicated time with all stakeholders in one (real or virtual) room.

Deadlines matter more than all of the above combined because they have the largest immediate impact to build (or break) trust. This applies to internal deadlines with peers, partner agency and client deadlines.

Plus, sometimes there are snacks, right?

Your turn! What would you add? Share with us on Twitter by tagging @MSPCagency.

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