One thing that was drilled into my head while working at Tri-City Brokerage in San Francisco was "manage your clients expectations". I can't tell you how many times my boss, Brian Duffy, uttered that phrase. It was so often that I could hear those words ringing in my head before I nodded off to sleep. *Shutter...
Simply put: Do what you say you're going to do.
Here's a few die hard rules I live by:
1.) Communicate: If you tell a client you will call them back or shoot them an email by days end, DO IT. Even if you have no status update, you're fulfilling your commitment of communicating with the insured. Letting my clients know where we stand is key. You'd think this would be a simple thing, but this is where a lot of businesses get themselves into trouble.
2.) Deliver: If you give your client a proposal deadline, prepare your markets for that date. Make sure your underwriters are aware of your firm presentation date upon submission and deliver what you promised to the insured. In any industry, if you promise to have the product or service delivered by a specific date, make sure that happens.
3.) Be honest: If the marketing process isn't going the way you planned, let the client know right away. If markets are declining, communicate that to your client. The last thing you want to do is bring nothing to the table at the last minute. Sometimes what you think would be a simple risk to place, may end up being complicated for underwriters to rate or assess. Be honest with your client on how things are going. They'll appreciate this.
"Do what you say you're going to do" seems like it would be a simple thing to accomplish. But, it does take time, commitment and sometimes the assistance of some awesome technology to "manage your clients expectations". Lord knows my memory is fading and that's why I love technology! For me, I plug in all my reminders in my calendar so that no matter where I am, I can be reminded who needs to be updated and what needs to be completed. What do you do to manage your clients expectations?
These three rules apply perfectly well to what I do with Project Management, in healthcare or wherever actually. In fact, one could argue that stakeholder communication, schedule adherence, and identifying problems/barriers/risks/etc. is in fact the bulk of what a project manager does. Some rules are almost universal I suppose.
ReplyDeleteNice post. I love using short lists to structure my posts. Makes it easy to read. Keep it up!