As with any business that is selling services or products, the customer is everything. Without customers, there would be no business and no income. Therefore, as a freelance worker in charge of one’s own income, it is essential to have a customer-oriented attitude and approach to one’s work. Here are some basic strategies to use in order to ensure that you are keeping a customer-focused business strategy.
When working as a freelancer, depending on the type of services one provides, one will often be working remotely from the clients. In order to instill a sense of trust and also keep clients in the loop on their projects, checking in throughout the day, providing updates on the status of work, keeping a sense of the timeline, and an ensuring an ability to connect about questions that arise, are all essential. This reliable method of communication delivers a strong sense of collaboration, teamwork, and proves that one’s services are trustworthy and that you are accessible for their needs.
Communication is key as a freelancer. Nothing instills doubt in the mind of a client as fast as a non-responsive communication style. If the client feels they cannot contact the freelancer and get a response when they need it, how can they trust that the work is getting completed thoroughly and on time. Responding promptly to messages is an immediate way to ensure that clients won’t feel neglected. While it can be overwhelming feeling the need to be ‘on-call’ all of the time, it is possible to use a variety of strategies to manage this demand, whether it means batching tasks and responding to all messages at once every hour or every couple of hours or taking off allocated times during the week where you won’t be able to respond right away. This is all possible, it is just essential that clients know this in advance, so they do not begin to grow frustrated when suddenly they cannot get a response.
The best way to hold oneself accountable to completing the work, and to ensure that the work is delivered fast and up to the client’s standards, is to establish clear timelines from the start of the project. Depending on the size of the project, this can be broken down in multiple ways. If, for example, one is writing an e-book for a customer, the freelancer can outline a series of deadlines for a rough draft of each chapter, a deadline for the revision round, and a deadline for the final copy so that there is a clear project trajectory from the start, allowing them to manage the client’s expectations and one’s own workload. This can also be integrated with pricing structures, charging fees for the completed work at each step of the way rather than an overall price to be paid at the end.
One of the best ways for clients to be sure that freelancers have their best interest in mind from the start, is to offer revision rounds or edits to the work as part of the package. This allows for the freelancer and the client to work out any misunderstandings that may have developed between the instructions provided and the work produced, and it allows for the client to reflect on the product they receive and decide where they may want changes. Going into the project knowing that there will be revision rounds also puts clients at ease knowing that the freelancer will re-work the product to cater towards their needs, and alleviates some pressure from the freelancer, as well.
