Perfect Storms
At this present time, things are super busy and potentially super stressful for client service teams, AND for their clients.
The world is opening up more from the Covid pandemic restrictions every day in every way – yet at different paces and at times with lack of rhyme or reason.
Some businesses have benefited and grown, and some are casualties.
There are in fact many personal and professional casualties and a heightened sense of the effects and the cognisance of this is in the air.
It may be un-named but it is prevalent.
People are seeking freedom and some return to their perception of normalcy, but they are uneasy/fearful/anxious/uncomfortable at the same time… this is causing some changes in behaviour and certainly in our interactions with peers, clients, family, friends, strangers etcetera.
On top of this, there is now so much more that feels precarious or out of our or our client’s control……that edge of needing to proceed but what if we get stopped or delayed again and the unknowns of how long a delay may be if it happens?
So what does this mean for us as professionals in Client Service?
How do we manage ourselves and our clients in this time?
How do we keep a balance and stay true to our purpose:
- Build great long lasting relationships
- Do great work for our clients
- Make money for the agency
We’ve spoken about process and pro-activity and refreshed ourselves on some of our Craft of Client Service course learning’s regarding Meetings:
- Clarity of purpose for any meeting is key:
- The who, what, why.
- Knowing the outcome desired from that meeting, and remembering that what we want out of the meeting is also our underlying agenda.
- Using our skillful handling – preparation, pausing, listening.
- Circling back to ensure follow-up and once again that clarity exists for both parties.
But what happens when we’ve done all the above and the current unnameable unknown concerns in many of our client’s subconscious are put upon us in the forms we might experience unintentionally:
- Behaviourally: demands, attitudes, worries, threats
- Literally: constantly changing the brief and/or piling on more work than is reasonable for the time-frames expected
We land in a perfect storm…. exciting, challenging, unknown, lots of benefit, some concerns. In the Craft of Client Service we reflect, discuss and explore best practice skills for the storms we inevitably encounter.
– Laura
