Giving away our best secret



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Any businesses that deal directly with clients (so, most companies) need to follow this advice to help make their clients happier. It can also lead to less stressful work for you and your team.

Most (if not all) problems that occur between two or more people in life have one thing in common. This is what Raph, our co-founder, realized a few years ago.

Any time a problem arises between people, most often it's caused by a communication issue. More directly, we've found the primary cause of these issues to be misplaced, broken, or unmanaged expectations.

Managing expectations is the key to keeping clients happy and maintaining a fun and productive workplace. Think about it. You tell a client a component will be delivered in two weeks, but it takes three. If you said the deliverable would arrive in three weeks, you'd be a hero, but instead, you need to apologize and deal with their broken expectations. I'm not saying that you should lie to your clients, but you should be careful with what you say, especially around deadlines.

Being careful about deadline estimates can also work in your favour when you're early. Imagine if the opposite happens. You expect to deliver in a month, and 2-3 days before the delivery date, you call your client and tell him you're ready. This is excellent news.

Managing expectations ended up being one of our biggest challenges, and is now our most vital skill. When you think about it, this can apply everywhere in life; with relationships, kids, parents, friends, and so on.