Allocating Time For Clients
When you limit time, you create pressure. Even the easiest tasks become stressful when they have a time limit.
This is why we’ve been called to answer the following questions.
What is the best way to allocate time for our clients?
How do we know when we’ve given our clients enough time to discuss all of the relevant matters?
How much time can we give a client before it is too much?
The Value of Time
I think we can agree that, for a good life, there needs to be just the right amount of time for everything.
However, there are countless different ideas of what “the right amount of time for everything” looks like.
This is why our contractual agreements with our clients do not contain allocations for things such as:
– Number of meetings between ourselves and clients
– Amount of time a meeting must take
– Number of phone calls or emails between ourselves and clients
Some clients want more of these than others.
Some not only want, but expect more time.
We must work with each client’s sense of value-of-time.
By leaving our time open, our clients get to go at their own pace – more comfortable to be themselves. This a great way to establish a good relationship with our clients.
Emails vs Phone Calls vs Meetings
It’s true that some conversations are too basic to have a meeting allocated for them. They can be undertaken in a single phone call, perhaps even across some short emails. These options save time.
The problem is that both options are less personal than a meeting.
To build a personal relationship with our clients, to establish ourselves as friendly faces who are reliable and present for them, we set time aside for our clients so that we can have a personal discussion that comprehensively cover multiple topics at once.
The time-saving factor of emails and calls begins to wear thin when you have undertaken dozens of them. The information transferred by each individual email or call might not quite come together as a whole in the end.
One single meeting can cover all of those small topics in one hit, in a single package.
These meetings leave our clients with all of the dots joined, a sense of the whole picture.
Client Comfort
The relationships we have with our clients are at the core of everything we do.
There is no “one size fits all” relationship.
We adopt a holistic, flexible approach to client relationships, via phone calls, emails, on line virtual meetings and personal meetings over a coffee.
It’s important that clients are comfortable once they understand that we are organised, trustworthy and transparent.
We strive to be the most personable and approachable Town Planning and Land Surveying Consultancy in Melbourne.
Allocate a phone call, or email, for us soon.