How Time Tracking Can Build Trust With Clients in Professional Services
To ensure your client understands the value of your time you need to be transparent. This is going to negate the possibility of your client having ‘sticker shock’.
Sticker shock is when potential buyers of your product/service may be surprised when they discover the cost of you service has increased in price.
A big problem in professional services is that often a quote on a project is variable which means a client may be confronted with the reality that what they want — is a lot more than expected.
Ultimately, this can lead to dissatisfied clients, lowered levels in trust and possibly negative word-of-mouth. All the above, having lasting impacts on future business.
To overcome the possibility of this happening and build trust with clients time tracking software offers the option of attaching time sheets to invoices (well…Hourly does).
By attaching time sheets to invoices you’re ensuring that, if needed your client can view everything achieved by you and your team. This means that you justify any increases in price through explaining and showing the extra steps taken to bring their new project to life.
Pro Tip: To further increase transparency between yourself and the client — give them access to project management software such as Jira or Trello. This allows them to see the achievements made by your team — and also increases regular updates and communication. Showing progress outside of just tracking your time is extremely important. Talking to the client about how you’re tracking really allows them to see the value of what you’re providing and they can put a face to the name.
In the end…
By tracking your time you’re remaining transparent with clients and physically showing them the effort out into the creation of their project. It might be hard for a client to visualise how much actual work is being put into their project if they don’t even understand what you are doing.
So, why not start tracking your time with Hourly? It’s free for 30 days and show your clients exactly what you did for their project.
