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As a freelancer, you need to provide great customer service all the time, otherwise success will never be in the cards for you - remember that. Fortunately, you have an edge over bigger companies out there: you can personalize your customer service and thus take better care of your clients. In fact, this can completely set you apart from the rest of the competition and send you straight to the top. Remember: if you take good care of your clients, they will take good care of you.
But how can you actually provide good customer service? Well, what you need to do is fully understand what your client needs and wants, and make sure you update him all the time when it comes to the projects you have to take on for him. Here are several tips that can help you out if you are having trouble providing customer service.
Check Your Emails Right Away
The moment I wake up, the first thing I do is check my emails and reply to the ones that I received overnight prior to beginning any work. Once you have a lot of clients, though, email can waste a lot of your time and you might end up spending most of your time replying to them than anything else - right? Well, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. By replying to all of my clients' emails without fail, I have actually gained all of my their trust. So, the lesson here is: replying to emails fast will make your clients very grateful in the long run.
Call Your Clients
If you hate replying to emails that much, then just grab your phone and call your clients instead. In fact, doing this might even amaze them completely as they will see how ambitious you are in the way you handled their concerns, questions and problems.
Follow Up with Your Clients
Even though you've finished their projects, don't forget to follow up with your clients every now and then. Ask how they are doing and whether they need any help with anything. This can actually get you more billable work in the future and will also show them how much you really care. So, don't just keep track of the projects you are doing right now, but keep track of the ones you have already done in the past, as well. This happens to be extremely vital in the world of freelancing - especially if you want to give it all you've got in the customer service department. Getting more work out of it is just a bonus!
Give Your Clients Some Guidance
A lot of the time, your clients get lost when it comes to their project needs and wants. In fact, a lot of clients make the worst decisions ever - and how do we deal with it? We ignore it. Whether it's a bad website idea or just horrible design sense, in general, we don't tell them what we think. However, it does pay to open their eyes sometimes (provided you do so nicely, anyway).
All you have to do is try to give your clients some guidance on how to make better decisions. Most clients will appreciate this a lot since it shows that you care about them. Anyway, when they see the actual results in the end, they will be extremely pleased and you might even get more leads out of them.
Set Strict Working Hours
Yes, you work at home, so you may not have to set "working hours" per se, but you do need to set hours for when you're "open", so your clients can get in touch with you during those times. Of course, you will then have to be ready for emails and phone calls that might come in during those hours, so you can assure your clients that you are available for them when they need you.
To provide even better customer service, you might want to give your personal number to more important clients, which you can pick up even when you are "closed". This would be especially useful if you have bigger potential clients waiting to make a decision. Let these clients know that you will give them your personal number if they choose to work with you and that you would be willing to answer their questions anytime. Naturally, you shouldn't provide this service to all of your clients, but it would be a great idea to give it to the bigger fish in the sea. Think about it.
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