Who do you blame if things go wrong with your client relations? I put my money that it’s the client. It’s always that files have been sent too late, the client didn’t sign off on time or they simply started the project too late. It just couldn’t be that you simply didn’t make the extra effort to get things done on time regardless the circumstances. Or maybe there is something else?

Clients are our natural scapegoats, there is no denying. They are stupid, mean, don’t know what we are talking about and always think that our job takes only a minute or those “few clicks of a mouse”. And that is regardless of what profession you are in. They are so evil in fact that everywhere you go you hear stories how clients are the biggest nightmare of any business. Yet still, you rely on them, their business, testimonials, referrals, new prospect introductions, regular projects and so on to survive in business.

Quite often though, clients relationships are stained and no matter what you say, in many cases, the real problem is not the client and what they do. It’s what you tell them actually.

I hinted about small promises you make before in one of the previous articles on this site, however, I decided that this topic deserves its own post to explain fully.

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Pay half now and the rest when you have it. Sure, we can wait for the payment. Of course, we don’t mind that the scope of work has changed three times already.

Innocent statements, aren’t they? In fact, I bet that in your eyes, if you have ever said anything like that to a client, they sound as if you were the best vendor that walked on this earth.

You are being helpful. Understanding. Patient. Great, there’s no doubt about that, right? The trouble is, you are also a person that has just let someone else run his show.

…

The idea for this post came to me during a sales call I witnessed a couple of days ago. It wasn’t intentional, I simply overheard it in a hotel lobby. At first I thought that it is going quite well to be honest. Only after a while it struck me, no matter what the client said, the young sales guys answer was always the same, “yes”. And the client, naturally, was making more and more demands.

- We want you to work twice as fast. - Sure.

- We want you to charge us only half of your daily rate though. - No problem.

- We want the project to be delivered to our offices in a medieval cart with 25 virgins throwing rose petals right in front of it all the way. - Of course, great idea!

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Those of you who follow my blog closely have probably noticed two themes alternating in my posts recently, sales and customer service.

The reason for the first one is that sales is very close to my heart. I consider myself a sales guy and also selling is something I enjoy doing. I am also publishing a book on sales in February (you can pre order it 30% cheaper here by the way) and generally enjoy writing about it. The second one because I see a major decline in customer service, the area of business that I find to be the most crucial to its success.

Let’s face it, without happy customers your business can’t survive. You can be selling like mad but if you do not retain your new customers, you will never build a profitable company.

However, as simple as it sounds, making your customers happy seems to be a problem for many startups.

Today I want to shed some light on what you should and should not be doing to provide excellent customer service.

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Customer service is the heart of every small business. It is also one of the key factors that make or break the sale for you, or guarantee a repeat order.

In other words, how you treat your clients, on many levels, makes them want to do business with you, come back for more and tell others about you, period.

All of this is fairly known, or I have thought that it is. However, a recent research concluded in Ireland, where I live, showed that customer service on our little island here is down by a staggering 33%! Mind you, this is in a country where business was heavily hit by the recession.

I compared this report with experiences of some of my colleagues in other corners of the world and it seems that my country is not isolated with its low customer service problem. Many of the people I talked to voiced the same worries that with prices for goods and services going down, so goes the value of a good customer service.

And what seems to be even worse, a good customer service is not something that many startups consider their top priority. Sure, they have some idea of how to provide good service. They know that being nice to the customer, offering the best service and always trying to exceed the clients expectations pays off. They realize that the friendlier you are to the customer, the more likely he is to come back for more. They understand that it is them who have to solve any potential problems the client has, not the other way around. However practically all of them fail at two things, fully implementing all this in their day to day practices and getting satisfaction surveys to make that service even better.

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