Achieving Better Consultant-Client Relationships

So you’re a social media consultant and you’ve got a service to offer the world. What now? You find a client; work your magic, and then what? More than just whipping up a strategy for your client, there are other things that you have to think of once you land a consultancy job.

Social media strategies are centered at building a better relationship between your clients and their customers. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to think about your own relationship with your clients as well. If you don’t, who knows when your business relationship would start falling out?

Here are some tips that I believe would help avoid such fall-outs from happening between you and your clients:

Learn when to say no. It sounds rather negative, but saying yes to every offer that comes your way is not really something you should do. Accept those that benefit both you and and client.

Be clear about what you can deliver. There’s no use setting up false expectations if you can’t put out what you told the client in the beginning.

Always update your clients. Give them a call or conference with them online just to give them a brief run through of what’s happening on your end.

Brief your clients of what you’re going to do. You’re going to have to lay low on the jargons if you’re talking to someone who isn’t that adept with social media terminologies. Just make sure you give them an idea of what you’re going to do on the project for transparency’s sake.

Tell the client that this is going to be a two-way relationship. If you need anything from them (company profile information and the likes), they should be able to provide them on time to make sure that your work won’t get delayed as well.

Overstepping should be avoided. In as much as you don’t want your clients telling you what to do, do not go beyond your bounds and tell your client what to do if it doesn’t concern social media at all.

Set only expectations that you can manage. You may start of as someone promising in the beginning, but failing to deliver what you promised will only make you look incompetent.

Make sure that communication lines are available when needed. At least when you need some information from them or they need to check up on you, you can always reach each other.

Payment schedules should be set and followed. This should be included in the contract signed by both parties. If a payment schedule is missed, issue a warning and wait until payment is made before you resume with your work.

Although it is assumed that the service provider is the one to work on keeping the client pleased, the responsibility of keeping the working relationship a pleasant one lies on both parties. If one does not cooperate, no matter how the other party tries to be accommodating nothing will happen to the project.

Have you got other tips to share to make the client-consultant relationship work better?