4 Essential Tips for Building Stronger Client Relationships

Strong client relationships are essential to your revenue. 

Satisfied clients are more likely to become repeat customers and spread positive word of mouth about your business. 

Plus, recurring clients are generally willing to spend more. As expected, upselling someone is easier when you’ve proven your worth. 

Read on to learn 4 tips for building long-lasting client relationships that generate profits for years.

#1: Set realistic expectations

To ensure your client becomes a return customer, set realistic expectations from the start. That means defining key aspects of the project, including: 

• Scope,
• Budget,
• Timeline, and
• Deliverables. 

In other words, don’t oversell your abilities to land a client. 

In the long run, clients value dependability. They want to count on you to do what you promised — no delays, overspending, or any other fuss. 

It’s the easiest way to cement a positive reputation and get referrals quickly. 

However, to promise realistic results, you must know precisely how much time your team needs for various tasks. 

Don’t worry — you can collect this information automatically with a simple time tracker like Clockify.

As your staff tracks time spent on various tasks, Clockify automatically generates visual reports in real time.

Also, Clockify allows you to easily view reports from previous projects and see how much time is needed for similar tasks. 

With this information, you can always make estimates for new clients with great precision. 

#2: Take a personal approach

Your clients should feel like you’re taking a personal interest in them. 

You can do it in multiple ways, such as:

• Adjusting your communication style — some clients prefer communicating over the phone, while others are more comfortable with emails, messages, or video calls. Use the clients’ preferred mode of communication as much as possible. 
• Remembering personal details — if your clients share personal information about their lives, remember it and make references at suitable times. Knowing their children’s names or remembering their birthdays will help you build rapport quickly. 
• Touching base regularly — check in with your clients frequently, instead of waiting for them to contact you. Such a proactive approach will help you get ahead of potential issues. 

A personal touch is sometimes enough to differentiate you from the competition, especially in crowded niches. 

With the right approach, clients will view you as a valuable partner in their endeavors — instead of a mere service provider. 

#3: Provide progress reports

Even if clients don’t ask for them, providing reports regularly will leave a lasting impression. 

In Clockify, you can track progress regularly through a Weekly report for each project. 

The Weekly report breaks down each hour of your team’s time in any given week. 

You can apply filters to show the hours spent on specific projects and export the report in PDF, CSV, or Excel formats. 

Sharing such reports with your clients helps you establish a trustworthy reputation. 

Time reports helped Scott Distasio, a seasoned personal injury lawyer, build trust among clients: 

“Detailed time reports bolster trust as they provide transparency. During negotiation settlements, we might log hours spent on research, correspondence, and strategy sessions. Clients can see all the unseen work vital to their case — communication with healthcare providers or opposing counsels, strategizing for courtroom appearances, and meticulous documentation.”

#4: Be flexible within reason

As anyone working with people can confirm — clients don’t always know what they want. 

Or they don’t understand the scope of your services. Or they decide to go in a different direction mid-project. 

To retain clients and avoid miscommunication, you need to meet client demands whenever possible. 

Still, you shouldn’t agree to unreasonable changes that result in a workload your staff can’t handle.  

It’s a difficult balance to maintain, but it’s possible — as long as you have a clear view of your team’s workload at all times. 

Luckily, Clockify’s Schedule menu provides everything you need to assign and schedule tasks on a dynamic project. 

The Schedule screen shows a color-coded timeline of each project and associated tasks. 

A simple drag-and-drop function lets you quickly reassign tasks and ensure no one is overworked. 

You can also set maximum daily hours for each team member. 

If you overbook anyone, a red line will appear over their schedule — immediately signalizing the issue. 

With this handy scheduling system, you’ll be able to: 

1. Get the most out of your employees without overworking them, and
2. Provide more value to your clients. 

Improve client relationships with Clockify

A time tracker such as Clockify can help you improve client relationships by:

• Showing information you need for accurate estimates,
• Generating reports you can share with clients, and
• Scheduling new tasks without overworking anyone.

With Clockify, you can achieve all of this and more — without creating tons of additional work for your busy staff.

The platform is affordable, simple, and easy to set up. And if you need assistance, Clockify provides everyone with 24/7 support via call, chat, and email — even free users. 

Stop taking time for granted and start building your reputation as a dependable, efficient partner.