ChicExecs Co-Founder and Co-President, Nikki Carlson, shares her secrets to flourishing client connections from afar on Newsweek blog. Here’s an excerpt from the piece summarizing key points.
While remote work comes with its own challenges, plenty of leaders love the added flexibility, low overhead, and reduced stress of working from home in their PJs. There’s so much to love about remote work, but it does make it harder to connect with employees and clients face to face.
Fortunately, you don’t have to ditch remote work to forge tight client bonds. You just need to tweak your approach to build trust, maintain communication, and help clients feel supported. Try these four strategies to build and maintain positive client relationships from behind a screen.
1. Establish Credibility and Trust Early On
First impressions matter, especially if you’re working remotely. You have to be on the ball, and that means establishing expertise and positioning yourself as reliable from the get-go.
Take advantage of the Halo Effect. This is the idea that people generally feel favorably toward someone when they first meet them. It might sound simple, but little actions add up here.
2. Pick the Right Communication Tools
You can’t meet clients in person if you’re remote. To keep the relationship cordial and productive, you both need to agree on which digital communication tools you’ll use and when.
For example, does it make sense to schedule a Zoom call every week to review status reports? Or would a simple Slack message do the trick? Choose tools that allow you to be super responsive, whether it’s email, phone calls, video calls, chats or text messages.
3. Gather and Act on Client Feedback
Clients want to feel like you take them seriously, so make it a point to source and act on client needs. Ending each client call with, “Is there anything we could be doing better?” is a simple way to gather feedback. Not all feedback will be actionable or realistic, but this still gives you an opportunity to gather helpful information.
Read Nikki’s full blog here.
