As a professional, you’re used to chatting back and forth with your clients pretty regularly – perhaps even on a daily basis. Creating and maintaining relationships with your clients through regular communication is key to keep customers coming back to your business over and over again, regardless if you are providing a service or selling a product. Having good communication skills can strengthen these relationships, too.
Brushing up on your communication skills is always a good idea, no matter how long you’ve been a virtual assistant, freelancer, or other type of business owner. As we all know, growth is an essential part of this industry as well. You have to consistently work to increase your client base, which requires you to be able to communicate in an approachable and effective way.
Ready to learn how to do this? Here are a few tips on communicating clearly with your clients.
Communication Tips
Keep all communication clear and concise
Just like you, your clients don’t have time to read a long, drawn out message during the day. Plus, we can only pay attention to messages for so long. Keeping your communication concise ensures that they are reading the entire message and are able to digest it all in one setting. Some ways that you can make sure that your communication is clear and concise are:
- Use bullet points and short sentences. Be sure to not make your sentences choppy, though.
- Use proper grammar. Tools like Grammarly and ProWritingAid can be great assets to use (by either getting the free version or upgrading to a paid membership).
- Make sure all the information you include is relevant to the conversation.
- Don’t try to use fancy language. Be relatable and friendly, while still maintaining a professional tone and connection with the client.
Use a project management system
Project management systems are a great way to communicate with your clients. They help keep everything organized in one place, rather than having several different email chains going at once. They also serve more than one purpose for working with clients, as you can also keep track of your assignments or tasks there as well. However, don’t become dependent on automation from project management software to communicate for you. You should still be maintaining regular communication with clients and checking in periodically for any questions or concerns they might have.
Practice self-awareness
As a professional, you have to practice self-awareness not only in communication with clients, but in general. Being aware of your business principles, values, and brand lets your clients know that you are confident and capable to handle tasks and assignments for them. Having self-awareness also allows you to practice things that are helpful in communication, like active listening. You should always have an open mind and actively listen to both yours and your clients needs.
Set and maintain boundaries
Setting and maintaining boundaries is one of the most important things you can do to communicate clearly with your clients. Respecting the time of both yourself and your client shows them that you value
If you are using a project management system to communicate with your clients, turn off your notifications at a certain time each day. Let your client know your “business hours” and do not deviate from them, unless an extenuating circumstance has taken place. Set your business hours based on what you are comfortable with. This helps you protect your peace and doesn’t force you or your client to stay connected 24/7.
Ready to start communicating effectively?
Now that you’re equipped with some great tips for communicating clearly with your clients, it’s time to put them into action. At AIM Social, we place a large emphasis on good communication and practice it with each of our clients. To learn more about our services or for help growing and scaling your business, contact us today!