A designer’s guide to more effective communication with clients.
Introduction
Communication is an essential skill for designers to develop. Being able to express through words is as important as the visual representation itself. Remember that communication is a two-way street and it needs to be engaging. Formulate questions that will help you build quality conversations and help you understand your clients better.
This article aims to help you:
- Rethink the way you communicate with your clients.
- Make your clients feel more comfortable around you and your ability to deliver.
- Feel less intimidated by speaking.
- Understand the need for a clear goal and intent before any meeting.
- Formulate better questions.
An effective session of meeting can help align both the client’s vision and yours. That will help deliver more favourable solutions more efficiently.
Preparation before a meeting or presentation
Like most things, preparation is key. Always have a clear intent and goal before any meeting. Have a specific set of questions ready for your clients that will lead you to your answers and better understanding your client’s business problems.
Examples of questions you can ask:
“What are your current pain points?”
“How was your previous experience with your previous designer?”
“Do you have a specific timeline in mind?”
“When do you expect to see our first proposal?”
“Are you looking for an evolutionary or revolutionary logo for this rebranding project?”
“Is this project heading in the right direction?”
Speak less, listen more
In the event that it’s your first meeting with a potential client, refrain from sharing your self-diagnosis of their business problems. Though it may look like you’ve done your research. Always let your client state their problems first. If you feel that there are things that you’d like to point out which could potentially become an upsell opportunity, do it towards the end of the meeting or bring it up at a later stage after you’ve been officially appointed.
Undoubtably, it is common to get overly excited when you’ve landed a new client that you have been looking forward to work with. Chances are you have already established a handful of ideas that you might want to bounce off. Try to avoid giving away too much ideas on the spot, especially before you’re officially appointed.
While the idea is to speak less, make sure you take the lead in guiding the conversation or meeting. As an example, this will come in handy in situations such as, fee negotiation.
Clarity and confidence
Speaking with clarity and confidence is key in helping your client have more confidence in you and your ability to deliver. The tone and body-language is the most common things that you will have to work on. Both are as important as the content of our message.
While using jargons are tempting, it is advisable to use it sparingly. Each client’s ability to understand a designer’s jargon will differ. The main objective is always to make sure your client is able to fully understand your message and minimise any confusion.
Don’t feel pressured in delivering the “perfect” pitch or always having to say or ask something smart. Allow yourself to make some mistakes along the way and be okay to pause and gather your thoughts before you continue. Explore speaking at a slower pace, it can help calm your nerves and give yourself more time to process your sentences before speaking.
Most importantly, remember that it’s okay to admit that you don’t know something and ask for more time to before you answer any of their query. Take your time to process your new findings and information from your client.
Meeting face-to-face
With the advancement of tech sending everything online, mobile apps and email have changed the way we communicate. But face-to-face meeting still hold its value. Most of the time, these meetings surface a more honest reaction and respond from your clients. While these meetings are important to have, try to get the most out of face-to-face meetings as they can sometimes take up too much time.
Before each meeting ends, always recap and let your client know what to expect from you. And make sure both you and the client are on the same page. This will reduce the need to send multiple texts or emails in a day asking follow up questions in the next few days.
Be comfortable being yourself
Humans are programmed to remember emotions more than anything that’s been said. What you want to achieve at the end is to make your clients feel comfortable and excited about working with you. It’ll also make it easier for you to convince them of your idea or direction when the time comes.
Remember to have some flexibility and make necessary adjustments. If your client is starting to sway off topic, let them have it their way and when the opportunity arise, shift the focus back onto the project.
There are many tips and tricks around to help you improve the way you communicate, but don’t forget to feel comfortable to be your genuine self and sustain long-lasting relationships with people. By maintaining a good relationship and quality of work, that ensures they will still be a client even after the project. This also means it’s more likely that your satisfied and happy client will refer you more business.
