Since starting Cobalt & Sapphire, we have had the pleasure of working with businesses of different size, shape, and personality. Each day we are learning more and more about how we can communicate and interact best with our clients who often have their own preferences for frequency and method of communication.

Through this learning process, we have been able to improve our day-to-day operations on how we manage to work with a variety of business owners. We look at it like this: our clients are like our “bosses”, however as business owners, we also bring some degree of authority to the table that is leveraged into the dynamics of working with these small business owners. As we continue to grow, we are always working with new clients, meaning there is no perfect formula on how to manage your clients. But experience does teach, and here are some of the valuable lessons we have learned this past year.

The key to setting boundaries successfully is to set them early on in the relationship. For example, if you do not want to take calls at 10 pm, make sure your client understands your working hours from the first day that they hire you. Granted, during a busy project you may be working longer hours that would warrant a late call. But in general, we have learned that if you don’t want to receive 10 pm calls, don’t pick up. It is that easy. If you answer to every after-hour call you are indirectly telling your client that 10 pm works for you. Return their call during the hours you initially laid out and after a few times, they will get the hint. (P.S same thing applies to text messages.)

The biggest mistake you can make is allowing your client to set expectations for you or your company and you not set expectations in return. We communicate to all of our clients what is expected of them to complete the project at hand. This ensures that they can either meet our expectations or connect us with someone in their company who can. For example, when clients ask us how long a website will take we give them a timeline based on a perfect world where files and information are sent efficiently. What we do differently from others is that we flat out tell our clients that this project will only move as fast as they do. We work hard to stay on schedule and finish our tasks quickly and we expect our clients to help us move the project along. Of course, you will encounter clients that never return your emails or phone calls, but voicing your expectations from the beginning can hopefully mitigate that as much as possible.

As we mentioned above, business owners might not get back to you right away and that is okay. Keep a running list of what you need to discuss with them once they do respond to your email or return your phone call. It can seem unprofessional and scattered if you email four times in a row because you hit “send” before gathering all of your complete thoughts prior to your response. We have all had moments where we remember a question or concern after hanging up, and that is okay, you are human. If it is a time-sensitive question, by all means, send them two emails in a row or call them back. We are recommending, however, that you do not make this a habit. Keep detailed notes on the status of your projects and what needs to be discussed when you have precious moments of your client’s attention.  

Each business is unique in its own way. Each requires various degrees of attention and it will be important for you to learn how to best work with your set of clients as your relationship grows. Leave a comment below with any additional advice or any client stories you may have, or contact us, we love to chat!