5 Secrets Of Effective Client Communication (Part-2)

Believe it or not, client communication is way too important than you think, especially in this modern era of digital marketing strategy. We deal with numerous digital marketing agencies on a regular basis and more than 90% of our clients pass somewhat an hour a week on reporting. And here reporting does not mean account management or optimizations, it only means reporting. Allen Ezail Iverson, widely known as ‘the Answer’, a former American basketball player, said that that practice was important to his role. You’d better be getting all the time you can spend on reporting, by making sure that you’re communicating the value really providing to each client.

In Our Previous part, we have discussed transparency and empathy. In this article, we will discuss the rest of the secrets for effective client communication.

3. Context

Contextualization is a process where the challenges or questions get framed within the bigger picture. It is very common for a client to be frustrated with something that’s not in your control. In this situation, you have only so much to do for your client as an account manager. So, how can you overcome situations like that? You need to contextualize the problem. You shouldn’t deflect or get defensive, after validating their frustration, you ought to try to frame the problem in its broader context. You and your clients have to be on the same page with a view to making everyone’s expectations successful.

The other instance denotes to seasonality. When monthly or quarterly performance takes an unexpected turn for the worse, the problem should be framed in a historical context. You should prefer a yearly performance review rather than a monthly one with a view to making sense of below-average performance.

4. Self-awareness

Out of all pillars we ‘re talking about, this is probably the one that is the most absent in everyday life. Think about a colleague in the office who got a call, answered it and kept talking with a loud voice for ten minutes. Are you thinking that he will apologize? He will not. He even didn’t care that he made a fault and caused some trouble. Now that’s called lack of self-awareness.

Self-awareness means distinguishing and recognizing the roles you each play, especially in the context of communicating with a client. It is pretty straightforward; just like being transparent. Your client runs their business. You run their online accounts. That’s the pretty picture of the entire scene.

It is important that both you and the client let this distinction inform how you communicate with each other. Its quite impossible for you to know your clients’ business like they do. Though you are the digital marketing expert, you are going to have to put off their judgments sometimes. But you must keep in mind that there’s a huge difference between deferring to clients’ judgments and letting clients get into their accounts.

5. Flexibility

The fifth and final key to communicating with clients is your ability to adjust to different personality types. You can’t be sure about which client will treat you like a friend, maintaining the personal relationship, and which client will be strictly business, wanting you to talk about nothing but the work. Each and every client is different in nature. But the more personal engagement you can have, the better the result will show up.

It is recommended to keep things natural. You can’t decide the relationship to go one way or another. They’ll open up only when they want to. You have no other option but to be flexible. Clients can be different, some of them would want to be your friend while some of them would only want to know about their accounts. Hereby, flexibility is your essential key to success. In the end, you have to give the client what they want.

Approaching Client Communication Strategically

It may look like a difficult and daunting task to communicate with clients. There’s a very little section between a Venn diagram with grouping keywords and Talking to humans. However, your efficiency as a digital marketing account manager, even the success of your agency, depending on your ability to report and collaborate effectively. You’ll have to struggle to retain clients if you can’t implement the tips and insights provided here.

Alternatively, it will be way too easier to be successful as an account manager if you take the steps to be more transparent, empathetic, self-aware, contextually minded, and flexible, you’ll start noticing an improvement in your client relationships in no time.

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