The most important key to sustaining your Virtual Assistant business is through retaining your existing clients. This will lead to long term income and often times, many regular referrals, in fact, my biggest new client intake comes from existing clients recommending my services.
So, we need to make sure we keep our existing clients happy, and that they are well taken care of at all times. I have some experience working in 4 and 5 star hotels, which allowed me to really bring a remarkable element of customer service into the relationships with my clients, which otherwise wouldn’t have existed if I wasn’t always trying to keep hotel guests happy and coming back to stay again and again.
So here are my “Top 3 Tips,” which are absolutely paramount for retaining clients:
Tip #1 – Always Do What You Say You Are Going To Do.
Don’t ever think that there are any casual arrangements in business – there aren’t. If you say you are going to do something, whether it’s send an email, make a phone call, do a piece of work — no matter how small it may seem, always do it.
This is something which is vitally important to gain the trust of your clients, because without their trust, retaining them hangs in the balance. If you truly establish this feeling of trust, unless something goes horribly wrong, or changes in your business, I believe you will have a client for life.
Tip #2 – Never Miss A Deadline.
Don’t ever commit to a deadline unless you know that you will be able to meet it. If you promise Tuesday night and you send it Wednesday morning, you have missed the deadline and you have broken one of the golden rules of good business.
Learning when to commit is something I learnt over a long period of time. I was always very eager to please, and would take on lots of work with insane deadlines and I would often be sitting there until 5 or 6 in the morning in order to meet them – I always did, but it was tight and I was a zombie the next day. So please, always set yourself reasonable deadlines, and if you know you can make it, then go for it, but if you have any doubt – it’s much better to inform the client that you will need a longer deadline, potentially risking losing the work, rather than to take it and let them down. The repercussions from one breach of trust can be serious, even from something seemingly insignificant at the time.
Tip #3 – Always Be Impartial.
I always try to remain impartial with clients. I will never give any preconceived opinions unless someone specifically asks for it. I try to keep all my communications based on fact and my own personal experience. I always try not to give a response based on my emotion. For example, if the client has been rude or is very upset, I must sympathise with the way they are feeling, and try to be the “Grown Up” in the matter, by taking control of the situation, offering a solution or a resolution — without getting too involved.
The best way to avoid such conflict is to always be very clear and concise from the offset with clients, about what they can expect from you and also what you expect from them. Don’t allow the client to be subject to any unusual surprises, whilst you may decide you don’t want to work on Wednesdays (which is of course fine, it’s your business, your terms), the client needs to know too, as they may have something planned for you to do every Wednesday which they haven’t mentioned yet, and if this is the case, they may question their decision on hiring you when you cannot fulfil their requirements.
Tell Us, “Do You Have Any Tips To Retain Clients?” In The Comments Below…
