The Freelancer’s Guide To Client Services
Write Label has touched on the client services aspect of freelancing before. Let’s delve deeper into that topic today, since it’s a skillset separate from the writing, design or whatever it is you do on a freelance basis. No matter your abilities as a creative, managing clients effectively is essential if you’d like to make a freelance living, and it’s doesn’t necessarily come second nature. Trust me — I learned that the hard way! Effectively managing clients requires patience, people skills and assertiveness that not everyone possesses. Below are some guidelines on client services to make this facet of running your freelance business easier.
- Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Questions
Being good at your job doesn’t mean intuiting the customer’s every want or need. Be direct and ask them: what your specifications and expectations for this project? Besides the deliverables themselves, you need to gain insight into a client’s vision — because if it doesn’t align with what you ultimately produce, you’re not doing your job. Never hesitate to ask questions.
2. Be Polite
Maybe this one seems obvious, but…you’d be surprised! A cornerstone of quality customer service is interacting with people in a professional, personable manner. Working with a range of clients means you’ll come across some who are demanding, impolite, or just plain difficult. That doesn’t give you license to behave however you’d like. Always request feedback. Negative feedback is valuable because it provides the opportunity to grow and develop as a creative professional. Accept it gracefully and incorporate it going forward if possible.
3. Don’t Keep Customers Waiting
We live in an on-demand, instant gratification world — for better or for worse. Do your best to answer e-mails/messages quickly within the business hours you’ve set. If your client lives in a different time zone, discuss this challenge ahead of time and formulate a plan to work around it. Particularly demanding clients might not respect your work-life balance, but the rest expect reasonably prompt responses and proactive communication. If possible, complete work ahead of schedule. It demonstrates effective time management and allows for expedited revisions if necessary.
These are basic guidelines intended to serve as a primer on client services. So much of what you’ll learn about this aspect of business you’ll master on the job. And of course, you can turn to Write Label for freelance work without client wrangling!
