I had my eyes opened by a client late last month. A prospective client in the US had emailed three of my existing clients with a list of questions relating to the services I provide for them. The responses they gave I was very happy with – feedback is always good for your business, and the soul! However, there was one comment one of my clients made, that had me thinking a little more about how I handle my clients, and the workload that comes in. I’m going to share it with you as I think it might also prompt you to think about how you service your own clients and the information you seek from them in order to provide what they need.
One of the questions asked was this:
If you had to list an area of improvement for her, which area would it be?
And the response was:
Kathie needs to educate her clients on the time frame she needs to complete a job. In other words, clients should provide instructions in good time so as to allow Kathie time to complete the job without the “urgent†requirements due to late instructions.
My immediate thought was that I thought I did seek my client’s instructions as towards their timing and needs, but when I re-read this message I saw something else in it. It wasn’t my asking for their timeframe, it was my letting the client know my timeframe. In other words, if a client is asking for me to get something done I need to tell them of my need for being advised in advance that the job is coming up. This isn’t always necessary but there are times when clients want something urgently and if I’m already working with other client work and hadn’t known of their forthcoming need, then it’s hard to meet their request without it becoming an urgent need. I should then advise them for future similar needs it would be good if they could let me know a week or so in advance, so I can ensure that I’ll be able to meet their timeframe. And if I diarised that item, I could then contact the client a couple of days beforehand and remind them that they were planning to get such-and-such to me by xxx and is it still going to happen?
So, you ask the client when to expect work from them and you set aside time in your diary for that work, and then it doesn’t arrive at that time; it might arrive a few days later, or in one client’s case over 2 weeks later – what then? Keeping in contact is the best answer, I believe. If the work doesn’t arrive as expected contact the client and ask them what’s the ‘new’ timeframe now so you can reschedule it. Remind them that you need to receive it xx amount of time prior to it being completed, being sent out, actioned or whatever. The value of a VA is the same as a PA in this case – reminding the client of their commitment to their own business and in order to achieve what they’re setting out to do, you need to have xxx by xx.
Some years ago I had a client who used to ring and want something done on demand, even to the point that he wanted me to drop everything I was doing and drive down to his office, because of an urgent need at his end. One time I politely told him that I wasn’t sitting in my office waiting for him to call, but if he’d like me to do that, I could quote him a rate for 40 hours a week and I wouldn’t take on any other clients. He immediately apologised and saw things from a different point of view :-). However, what I should have done was ask him to diarise his needs such as newsletters, promotions of competitions, etc and then let me know a week in advance that he had need of my services for those things and could I book it in? He was just so used to ringing and saying he had to get something out tomorrow – I got the impression he was probably like that with everyone.
How do you deal with clients who have needs but can’t always deliver the work when you’re expecting it? Or they’d known about something for several weeks but only tell you the day before? Perhaps you were even vaguely aware something was coming up, but because you were concentrating on the day-to-day things you had in your office, you just hadn’t noted that something might have been a bit further down the track? I’d love to hear your comments. KMT
time management, clients, diarise, planning, educate
Yvonne says
What a great article! And very timely for me. I am facing some time management issues with some of my work flows and believe by implementing your suggestions, I will be able to lessen the amount of “urgent” jobs I am handling.
Thanks
Yvonne
Tracey Lawton says
Hi Kathie,
This is a great topic – thank you for discussing it. When I started to get
busier I realised I needed a system that would allow me to anticipate or
schedule in client’s work. I designed a really simple spreadsheet with the
weeks along the top and the client’s down the side. I encourage my clients
to book work with me in advance so that I can put this in my schedule. For
regular clients I can book in so many hours for them each week, and because my
spreadsheet totals the number of hours booked each week I can see what my
commitments are and what I have left.
I find that it’s really working, not only because my clients can get ‘booked in’
so to speak, but when I get an enquiry for new work I can look at my schedule
to see if I can meet their deadline. It not I tell them ‘I can’t do it for
you this week, but I do have free time the following week.’
This system works well for me!
Best wishes,
Tracey
Anita says
Kathie
I’m in a similar predicament at the moment. I have a client who has given me an unrealistic timeframe and I’m struggling to come up with the right words to tell her that it’s also about my time. She is a retainer client which makes it hard but I think she expects me to use her 2 hours a week in that particular week not the 8 hours over the course of the month. Does that make sense?
I like to ask clients their timeframes so that I can make sure I get them done but at the same time how do you tell a client that they need to take into consideration my time allocations.
Anita
kathiemt says
It is a challenge but probably better now than keep putting it off. Why not ask this particular client if their needs have changed (which might mean increased hours for you) or if they actually just want the whole 8 hours done in one week? Explain to them you need to plan your time so you can service all your clients without putting some work on hold whilst trying to manage something else. One of my clients is very busy and periodically she’ll say ‘are you doing my work today?’ in which case I just answer ‘yes, I’ll get done what I can in the 3 hours but then I need to get other work done that is booked in also’. It helps remind her that I’m not just there for her exclusively 🙂
Good luck!
Anonymous says
Thanks for this article, it was very useful for me.
Paul Cooley says
Great article! Thank you for that. I am in the middle of looking for some VAs. We’ll have to talk.
Thanks for the great post!