Client development and new business are key to keeping a client services company afloat. But once the new business is won, building strong relationships with clients and keeping them happy is even more crucial.
What’s most important when developing and maintaining client relationships, especially in a technical context? We spoke with three Colorado tech companies to find out.
John Myers is president of Tack Mobile, a Denver-based design and development company. Tack works with clients like Hunter Douglas, Tendril and the Colorado Rapids on everything from iPhone apps to connected devices.
What are the features of your favorite client relationships?
Trust is the largest factor in a successful client relationship. We rely on clients to provide domain knowledge and be responsive and engaged, and they rely on us to be experts at what we do and drive the things that we are good at.
A quick way for a client to sabotage a project (in our field or otherwise) is to make a pattern of overruling an expert. This, I'm sure, tends to happen less with (for example) brain surgeons and pilots but we do come across this often with UX in particular.
What are the general keys to good client relationships?
Setting expectations and communicating often (internally and externally). We also believe a good design and development partner must be proactive and provide strategic value in our field as part of our core competency.
Who plays a role in maintaining your client relationships?
The designers and developers doing the work are the key – good work is the cornerstone to a good relationship. We have an engagement manager on every project that ensures communication and expectations are continuous.
How does your company culture play into your approach to managing client relationships?
We're doing very creative work (especially development). Having a standard 9-5 with a dress code can be stifling, so we do not do that. We do focus on structure and process, which makes things less stressful, without imposing arbitrary hierarchy and rules. Transparency is also key to building trust with peers.
We're in this business to be happy and fulfilled by working on challenging projects with great people, and we need an attractive working environment in which to do that.
What’s the biggest challenge you face?
Sincerely, sharing how good we are at what we do. Design is a bit easier because you can see it, but development competency is harder to demonstrate to someone who is not technical. We've lost projects in the past only to have the winning agency reach out to us and ask us to do it white-label, which is extremely frustrating.
Tom Miller is a senior manager at Credera, a tech, UX and management consulting firm with an office in Denver. Their clients range from National Geographic to Gold’s Gym, and they offer a variety of services like app development, system integration and cloud services.
When you think about your strongest client relationships, what’s a common thread?
When I think about who our best clients are, it doesn’t go along industry lines. It’s really about shared values. Sharing core values makes for the best projects and best partnerships.
Our core values include integrity, excellence and humility; it’s about approaching a situation looking for the best outcome for the partnership, not just one of the parties. We have to think, what can we do as a partner to make life better and easier for our clients?
What are the keys to good client relationships?
One of the biggest things is one of our core values is humility. To me, that’s something that’s a bit unique in the consulting space. We never walk in with a client and pretend we know the answer. We have to remain humble with our clients and look for the best solution. We’re more willing to raise our hand and say this project’s not a good fit, but here are some vendors who would be a good fit. That builds trust to keep those relationships going for a long time.
Who plays a role in maintaining strong client relationships?
Because of the way we’ve grown our business, all people relationships are important. It’s just as important for me to be managing an executive level relationship as it is for an entry level employee to managing relationships. This way, we have an understanding of what’s happening at every level of the organization.
At the same time clients are interviewing us, we’re also interviewing the clients. Can we fulfill the needs of the project from a technical delivery perspective? Do we have a shared vision for what the right outcome might be? If the client’s expectations are unrealistic or aren’t in alignment with our values, we’d turn that project down.
What’s the biggest challenge you face?
Consistently managing expectations and keeping an eye on the originally agreed-to scope. In our business, that’s the special sauce. How do you agree on what success looks like? Long term products are especially challenging, because things change as it goes on.
The key to a good client relationship is ensuring the scope stays consistent, and when it changes both sides need to agree.
Pete Burridge is founder and CEO of Greenhouse Partners, a Boulder-based agency that works with large clients, like Ball and CU, along with tech companies like the18 and DigitalGlobe.
What do your favorite client relationships have in common?
When you work with people long enough, you end up with a level of trust that exists with regard to the work product, which allows for a chain reaction that opens up conversation. There’s more risk being more upfront, but you end up with a higher-quality work product. It’s always good to be able to have fun — it’s great to be able to feel like you have a lot of things in common.
Our average client relationship is around 12 years, and we've been in business for 17. Some of our clients, including Coca-Cola, have been here since the beginning.
What are the general keys to good client relationships?
Trust. You really have to, as an agency and as an individual, prove yourself through the work product. It’s about the work first. Quality goes across projects large and small. Service is important too: are you thinking about the client and the work you’re doing for them in a way that anticipates what’s coming? Going beyond what’s been requested?
After you establish yourself with regard to the work product and you’ve generated that trust, you can work on a more personal connection. People make the mistake of trying to become close to their clients personally before establishing trust in the work.
Who plays a role in maintaining client relationships?
It goes across the whole firm — we have a very flat structure. Our only job titles are partner, senior associate and associate. Each account has a strategy and creative point person. They lead the team. That allows everybody to take individual and team ownership over the relationship and the client work. Our teams are customized based on skillset.
How does company culture play into your approach to managing client relationships?
Our culture is driven by our vision and our values. Within that, one of the values I think relates to client relationships is collaboration. We’ve hired people that come from diverse backgrounds — only about a third comes from traditional agency backgrounds. Another third is from the client side and another third comes from outside the industry. Bringing those perspectives to client relationships leads to a lot of discussion and debate, and the collaboration ends up making a better work product.
Do you have any advice for newly-minted agencies?
At the beginning, capital preservation is everything. When people are starting a services firm they have to be very careful to extend their runway.
Trying to do everything or jump at every opportunity and getting out of your core competency is usually detrimental. You end up missing opportunities core to who you are, and people are spread too thin.
People in Colorado should work hard to both mine relationships and try and grow their business within the state, but also nationally. There aren’t that many states where you can really support an ongoing number of new firms and services where you’re really competing solely on quality of output. People have to think about diversifying their revenue stream outside of Colorado.
Photos via featured companies. Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Have a tip or know of a company worth covering? Email us.
