5 Tips for Maximizing Client Communication

Communication is an essential way to build client trust. Here are five tips for doing it better.

When clients come to you for help with their technology infrastructure, you become like a doctor for the essential systems that keep their business running. They want to trust you. Trusting a near-stranger with something essential to the survival of your business is hard, though. The way you communicate with them is akin to a doctor’s bedside manner. Would you trust a doctor who didn’t explain the surgery he was about to perform, never followed up to see if you survived it, and who treated you like someone who could not understand what he was about to do? 

For many MSPs, communication is a sore point. It is complex, requires the ability to translate technical language to someone who doesn’t speak it, and can be time consuming. If you don’t think you are doing enough to build trust through communication, you are not alone. One recent study found that nearly half of MSPs admit that their clients do not completely trust the security of the services their organization provides.

Are you doing these five things to maximize communication with your clients? 

#1 Don’t hide things

It seems obvious. Would you trust a doctor who hid things from you? A partner? A friend? When you hide problems, people will assume there are other things you are also hiding. Somehow, though, in technology there is a belief that people don’t want to know when something is going wrong.

“There's a stigma in most technology industries, that if something's wrong or you don't have the right answer, you need to hide that,” says Dan Keltner, Professional Team Manager at Intrust IT in a recent webinar. This is a myth. Communicating about technology is just as important as explaining an upcoming surgery or discussing relationship issues. Having difficult conversations is hard. But it is a necessary part of communication.

“Part of the trust relationship you're building,” says Keltner, “is to be able to say, here's what's going on.” Even when what is going on is that the project will be late, the scope missed  something, or there is a disaster in the making. “We would all love every project to go perfectly. But it just doesn't happen that way,” he says. “Telling clients about problems is uncomfortable at first. But it builds trust.”

#2 Make the onboarding spectacular

When sales or a referral brings a new client to the company, the very first evidence they have of your competence, technical smarts, and organizational prowess is the onboarding. Long before they get a taste of the managed services you provide, they will form a first impression based on this initial interaction. Make it spectacular.  

“That kick-off project – the onboarding – is an opportunity to tell them, ‘Here's what we're going to do for you.” And then to follow up and do it,” says Keltner. “It’s a huge opportunity to start building trust.” 

Treat that onboarding like the important project it is. Come up with a system for executing that project. And get everyone on the team to understand that onboarding a new client is a priority, an important project, and an opportunity to shine.  

#3 Do what you say you will do

It sounds simple. When you say you will do something, do it. But when you are running an MSP, a sizeable team to execute projects, and a large portfolio, what you say you will do becomes a detail you have to track. This is harder than it sounds. But being someone who does what they say they will do builds enormous trust.

“I had a colleague that used to call this your ‘say/do ratio,’” says Keltner. “If it's high, we trust you.”  

Having a high “say/do ratio” ratio shows people that when you are communicating, you are doing so with intent, not merely telling them what they want to hear.

You can’t do this on your own. It requires that your entire team get in on the effort and that your internal communications are clear and detailed around projects.

“As we've been building a team, we focus on finding people that are interested in maintaining a high say/do ratio,” says Keltner. If the project manager says one thing, and the engineer does something else, this is the same thing – to the client – as the MSP having a low say/do ration. This is a team effort. And that requires excellent internal communication and intentional communication with the client.

#4 Create a detailed plan and share it

Ultimately, building trust and communicating well comes down to being able to manage the details of the work so everyone on your team understands what the client believes you have promised. Not only does this effort build trust with the client, but it also puts rails around your scope and prevents scope creep. But it requires detailed, clear, and frequent communication around the nuts and bolts of the work.

“In a perfect world, I start by meeting with the team that created the initial quote and go through it point by point by point,” explains Whitney Salee Risner, Project Manager at Optimized IT in a different Moovila Webinar. “Then I break it down into who needs to do what and who owns what. Next, I come up with timelines and time estimates for each task. After that, I recreate that in a readable format for the client, giving them an overview of what the project is and what I believe our end goal is.”

Once the client agrees to that and all the work assignments have been made to the team, the project becomes official. And, at this point, everyone should have access to the project details so there is no confusion. All further communication about the project execution should lead from those details.

“It is all clearly distributed. Everybody has it,” says Risner. “I have clearly outlined and given ownership. I have documentation of everything from the beginning. That's how I hold everybody accountable, because I'm always talking to those points.”

These are project management best practices, which are built around communicating with everyone – including the client – about the specifics and the execution of the plan.

#5 Show the charts

If a picture is worth a thousand words, according to the old adage, what are charts, timelines, and custom reports worth?

If you use Moovila Perfect Project, sharing the timeline, task ownership, project details, and up-to-the minute custom reports with the client is a matter of inviting them into the project. They can create a customized dashboard that shows them everything about the work you are doing for them. They can see how their failure to sign off on something affects the work downstream. They can chat with the team assigned to work with them right from the project.

All the data in your projects is filtered by permissions, so clients won’t have access to anything but their own projects at the level you decide is appropriate. But your team, and the work you are doing for them, will be at their fingertips.

Opening this line of communication and giving the client access to detailed information at their fingertips, brings deep, modern, technical communication to your relationship with the client. It helps to bring the client, mentally, into your team and offers them a rich stream of communication options. It also showcases your ability to use technology to create business excellence, which – for a tech services company – is a terrific bedside manner.

To hear more from MSP leaders like Daniel and Whitney, check out our on-demand webinars.