Here Is How to Impress Your Clients (Besides Your Writing)
Your customer service skills are a big part of your marketing success as a freelancer
I haven’t always been a writer. At one time I worked as an account lead in an internal agency. My job was to manage a team that worked with our nutrition brands to create premium marketing content.
In this position, there were a couple of questions you asked yourself regularly if you wanted to be successful.
Did the Brands like working with you?
Were you dependable and delivered on the value you promised?
If the answer was yes, you could expect positive survey comments come review time. If you were late with deliverables, hard to get ahold of, or even difficult to communicate with, your scores were bad.
Much of what I learned during those years staying focused on my customer service skills, plays a lot into what I’m doing today building my freelance writing business.
If you want to do well, it’s not only about your writing. You have to focus on the overall experience you’re providing for your client too. Here are my top seven tips for impressing your clients as you build your freelance writing career.
1. Do your research
With Google at your fingertips, do your research online. Look at a client’s LinkedIn profile, read through their website, and get an understanding of what they do.
When meeting with clients for the first time, have 2–3 questions in your back pocket ready to go. Of course, you want them to provide you with an overview of themselves, their business, and current challenges. But if you want to make a good impression, be ready to ask them some of the things you need clarity around as well.
This shows you are interested and engaged from the beginning. By doing some prework before the meeting, you position yourself as a partner to be taken seriously. You’re someone bringing their “A” game from day one.
2. Promptly respond
If you want to impress clients, you want to be prompt in responding when they send you an email. There is a strategy to be gained here.
When receiving an email, readily respond with three easy words — confirmation of receipt. This tells your client right away that you have received what they sent. Added to that email should be a line about when they can expect a more detailed response to the question/issue they are emailing about.
You can eliminate unnecessary anxiety simply by confirming you have read their email. You don’t necessarily need to supply a detailed answer right then and there. Confirming you have viewed something and then working on a response, lets your client know you’re on it.
3. Provide detailed recap notes
My manager was big on making sure detailed recap notes were sent to the brand teams after meetings where a plan of action was discussed and follow-ups were needed.
Whether it was a meeting put on the calendar by the agency or brand team, it was always the account staff’s responsibility to send out recap notes via email following the meeting so it was clear what action items were discussed, and who was responsible for the next steps. Sending them before the end of the day is ideal, but generally, if a recap is sent within 24 hours, that’s great.
What does sending recap notes do for you and your clients?
It shows that you’re organized, accountable, and also a great collaborator wanting to push a project forward. Not to mention it’s a wonderful resource to reference in your email when you can’t recall some of the details when you sit down to write.
When you take on the task of recapping a key discussion between you and the client, you are reminding everyone what they need to do. It’s a detail that becomes an important part of the customer service experience you’re trying to deliver.
4. Help your clients prepare
Once you have established an ongoing long-term relationship with a client, part of the perk is readily understanding their content needs.
For example, if you work with a client or publication for several months, you may start to get the hang of what type of work they are looking for and if seasonality makes a difference based on your past experience.
Is there a need for holiday-focused material?
Does the changing of the seasons impact the type of reading material for their audience?
If there is a yes to any of these questions, you can proactively help them plan ahead. When your efforts and planning help make your client’s life easier, your value increases exponentially.
5. Give your clients a proper heads up for time off
If you want to be a trusted and reliable partner, it’s important to give your client a proper heads-up for planned time off. Letting them know as soon as possible when you intend to take a break allows your client to also adjust their expectations accordingly. Maybe they will need to find another writer while you are out, or maybe you can discuss different deadline options if it makes sense and benefits you both.
The last thing you want to do with your client is to blindside them. Sure, there will be life emergencies that sometimes leave you in this position. But don’t allow it to become the norm in your working relationship.
6. Be transparent about where you are in the writing process
If you want to be seen as a collaborator, part of strengthening your partnership is being transparent. As a writer, that could look like sharing your drafts along the way or being honest when you need an extension.
There are some clients where showing them work-in-progress drafts could be an incredible mistake creating much more work for yourself. But other clients may come to really respect your openness and willingness to be transparent in the creative process. It may also help lessen their anxiety about an approaching deadline.
Consider the type of client you have. Be honest when you need more time. Use your best judgment based on how well you know them and their work style.
7. Always seek to be a collaborative partner
Consider how easy it is to work with you. Imagine the client asking, “Does this person make my life easier?”
If the answer is yes, chances are you’re doing the right things to deliver great customer service. If the answer is no, don’t be surprised to see the work slowing down or coming to a complete standstill.
For you to truly know what a client is thinking about your output, ask them for constructive criticism. Show them it’s important you know how you’re performing and want to understand ways to improve your collaboration moving forward.
You are in the people business as much as the writing business. If you aren’t known for being easy to get along with and easy to communicate with, then you’ll never be seen as a great collaborator.
Final thoughts
Your likability and friendliness as a freelance writer are as important as your writing deliverable.
If you want more work from clients, it’s essential to always monitor how well you are doing from a customer experience standpoint as well.
To ignore developing these skills would be a career mistake.
