Leadership Series | Client Enchantment

 

Enchantment … What does this word mean? Yes, it is a one-time act of creating delight. We all talk about enchanting self, enchanting others, enchanting a group of people, enchanting a nation, enchanting the world! What do you mean when you talk about client enchantment? Client enchantment is how you turn your everyday communication with your client into a charming experience that they will rave about. Client enchantment does not mean excluding yourself from the enchantment cycle, it means involving yourself in a higher level of engagement, respect, and trust that will occur over an extended period.

Client enchantment is the key to success. This involves a higher level of engagement, integrity, respect, and trust, that occurs over an extended period. Client enchantment is the result of engaging in a set of customizable tactics and strategies and putting yourself in your client’s shoes. Always remember that for any competitive industry, and certainly our healthcare space, the creation of high-quality work alone isn’t enough. You always have to go that extra mile and add value to your client. That is client enchantment. So, below are the few steps that you must keep in mind while dealing with your clients.

Care for your client: We all love to be valued. Think of the time when you purchased a handset. When you got an extra screen guard, or a separate handset cover along with your device how did you feel? Happy right? Because we all want value-added services. Similarly, when you go that extra mile for your client and provide them value-added service, you tend to satisfy your client.

Live up to your commitments: Under commit and over deliver – not the other way round. The basic art of client enchantment is to do what you commit. Always remember that you are the face of the organization, your commitments, your relationship, and trust-building play a vital role. As a leader, I feel that commitments that are not kept are nothing more than an excuse. Commitments will help you gain a sense of being worthy, competent, and knowledgeable. So, make and keep commitments at work.

Enjoy the work that you do: This is one of the hallmarks of a positive work experience. When you are passionate about your work, you will automatically be able to enchant your client. The workplace is your second home so why not make it a place that you enjoy? When you genuinely enjoy the work that you do you will automatically add value to your work and enchant your client.

Customize your communication: One size fits all, cannot be your operating system. All clients are different hence you need to deal with each client individually and understand their requirements separately. For example, one client can prefer an excel sheet while having a team catchup every fortnight, while another client may prefer a slideshow to be shared post every team catchup. Some clients hate email, others love it. Some clients might prefer short, formal, and to the point conversations, while others prefer an informal one. So, customize your communication and deal with each client separately.

Understand your client: As a skilled, talented professional it is your responsibility to know your client – his/her needs, challenges, their demand, and their thought process. This will not only help you to work on your projects seamlessly but will also help you to build long-term relationships with your clients. The more you know about your client and the larger world in which they live, the more effectively you will be able to understand how best to work with them and enchant them.

Have a positive attitude: The single most powerful way to enchant anyone is to have a positive attitude. Remember that we all are going through tough situation so try to help your client as much as possible. Render your maximum support to your clients. Always have a positive attitude and deliver your 100%.

Do the DICEE and follow the CUIKA: This acronym defines the five qualities of great customer service: Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Empowering, and Elegant. DICEE customer service is a full-featured Deep dive (deep) that shows you understand my needs (intelligent), comes with support (complete), makes me better (empowering), and is easy to use (elegant). As you create your project submission update, ask yourself if they are deep, intelligent, complete, empowering, and elegant. Just like how you would create your dashboarding/TABLE F (your table of frequencies/Facts) where you will plug in all your metrics and KRAs (Key result areas) to be tracked, monitored, and achieve results. CUIKA your efforts towards client enchantment. CUIKA (Collected, Usable, Integrity, Knowledgeable, Actions) a systematic way to evaluate the reliability of your performance data and how the data is being managed to enhance client experience with GeBBS. Meeting client SLAs/Metrics is a sure-shot technique leading to again the path of client Enchantment.

So, continue to use these above tips and techniques and enchant your clients every day. Your success is in your hand, start working towards it and achieve it.