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How to Promote Open Communication Between You and Your Client

“The Lazy Manager’s Guide for Providing Half-Hearted Half-Headed Feedback to Your Employees.”

That is what the title should have been to this book that I came across last week.

The book was full of stock phrases to fill in employee performance appraisals. The book’s preface boasted that readers would never again have to waste time providing feedback to employees!

Reading the language and tone of the preface left me with a reoccurring thought: countless employees looking for—or at least desperately needing—feedback from their managers only to receive a white wash of clichés.

The book appears to be based on an assumption of hopelessness: nothing good ever comes from feedback anyway, so why bother. Employees might find authentic feedback useful: to build the skills needed to get a raise or promotion; to stay out of trouble; maybe even make a meaningful difference on the bottom line.

Employees need meaningful feedback, not only for their benefit, and the benefit of the company, but ultimately, for the benefit of their customers.

And they are not the only ones who need feedback.

Silent Clients Can Kill Your Business

I used to get really great burritos from this restaurant nearby: Juan’s. Then changes started happening.

First, the chicken was not as flavorful as it once was. Then Juan’s raised their prices. Then Juan’s took black beans off the menu. Then, they started putting a lot more pinto beans in the burrito than meat. Finally, they started to undercook the beans.

These changes happened over the course of a half-year or so.

One day when meeting my craving for a burrito, I decided to go elsewhere. Do you think Juan ever heard from me?

In the past, we were familiar enough for Juan to ask about my wife’s 92-year-old grandfather. I know who his favorite baseball and football teams are. But, I don’t go to Juan’s anymore. I did ask about the apparent change in the chicken recipe once. I got a talk about the upcoming Super Bowl in response.

I have not been to Juan’s since. Why? He has not asked and I have not told.

I practiced The Law of Two Feet. I have chosen to buy my burritos from someplace else. Living in California, I have plenty of options. If enough of Juan’s customers share my experience, Juan—a neighborhood landmark—will find himself out of business.

And he will never know why.

What is it about feedback that the book’s readers and Juan fail to grasp?

Without Feedback, Nothing Changes for the Better

In any human endeavor or relationship, nothing produces positive change better than feedback. When it comes to the vendor-client relationship, a business cannot expect to succeed without the free flow of information.

Feedback is not only a change catalyst, I assert that it is the duty you have to those you wish to see grow and flourish: such as your clients.

Feedback is the highest responsibility we have in relationship. This is part of the reason why it is done so infrequently, why vendors avoid engaging in it, and why a book can sell that helps you circumvent it.

How can you provide and welcome feedback—the free flow of information—in your client relationships without putting those relationships at risk?

Promoting Feedback in Your Client Relationships

It is natural for people who care for one another to provide feedback. However, it is not always easy to do this in a manner that is truly helpful for the other.

Here are steps you can take to make giving and receiving feedback easier and less risky:

Start at the Beginning

Rarely should a conversation start with feedback. It is a little like asking a first date for their hand in marriage or starting a car after it has run out of gas.

You have to prime the pump. Let’s assume that your client has had some time to use a new product of yours. Beginning the phone call with, “So, how is that new gold-plated, countersunk widget working out for you?” is likely to get a meaningless—if any—response.

It is not because your client does not want to tell you or has not formed an opinion, it is because the brain goes through a sequence when processing information. Start your questioning with subjects that are tangible and easy to access, what your client can describe with his or her five senses.

For instance, “Have you had a chance to use it?” “What was the problem you were having that you needed the widget to solve?” “What were the results?”

Let your client recall his or her sensory experience of your product or the problem it solved before you probe for his or her feelings or decisions about your product’s usefulness.

Make it Safe

In my early days of public speaking, I was given a note by my speech coach after a practice, “Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.”

The reason is for telling them what you are going to tell them is twofold. The first is reinforcement. But more importantly, giving your audience a preview gives them an idea of what to expect.

Expectations are one of the landmines of human relationships. If you can meet them, you can achieve your goals. If you violate them, it will disturb and distract your audience—whether your audience is many or one.

Building and meeting expectations promotes a feeling of safety in your clients.

Whether you are giving feedback to your client or receiving feedback and wish to respond, let him or her know what you are going to do and say, and why.

I have a particular phrase I like to use that seems to work wonders when I give feedback, “Can I give you some feedback on . . . (be very specific on the content)?"

Model Desired Behavior

I cannot help but smile whenever I give this advice. The reason? You cannot help but be the model for the way you are treated. Chances are that if you do not like the way your client is sharing information with you, it is because you are behaving the way you are behaving.

What does this mean within the context of feedback? Recall that feedback is the free flow of information between you and your client. How then can you expect to have a free flow of information when feedback is only one-way?

Information does not flow freely in a one-up or one-down relationship. Your client relationships need to be collaborative in order to be truly open.

If you are not receiving feedback from your client, give some. If your client is not open to receiving feedback from you, that alone is a subject for feedback and perhaps an opportunity to evaluate the appropriateness of the relationship.

Reward Open Behavior

It is as true for your clients as anyone else in your life: what gets rewarded gets done. How can you reward feedback? The reward can be as simple and fun as door prizes or free product or as meaningful as an increase in your standard of care and performance.

If you can meaningfully improve the standard of performance to your client, let them know how the information they shared with you allowed you to do that.

Better Information Leads to Better Decisions

Juan made some decisions, probably out of necessity, without the benefit of feedback. It is easy to understand why he would engage me in a talk about sports, rather than address my question about the chicken recipe. He wants to keep a sense of comfort between us. But while we were perhaps more comfortable in the moment, he has lost a customer.

The book I found in the store supports the commission of an even bigger sin in my view. By supporting or even promoting the “padding” of a feedback mechanism like performance appraisals with meaningless filler, the book aims to profit from managers who care nothing about their employees and who are not invested in their improvement.

That improvement on any level can have such far-reaching benefits throughout a company, as well as that company’s customers, makes this sin particularly egregious. By withholding information, these managers have given up on the idea that their employees could ever improve. I see this as a sad loss.

Improve the free flow of information in your client relationships, and your client relationships will have more meaning, you will discover new ways of providing value, and you will arm yourself with tools to keep your best clients.

Happy Client Retaining,

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© 2004-2007 Jeff Simon Consulting. All Rights Reserved. Wouldn't you love to peer into your client's head and know what they are thinking and feeling? Could you have better success at keeping and choosing your best clients if you could decode their behavior? Check out the Happy Clients Newsletter at: www.happyclientsnewsletter.com.

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