Your client's expectations are sky-high. How do you manage to meet them without overpromising?
When faced with lofty client expectations, it's essential to strike a balance between ambition and realism. Here's how to navigate these waters:
- Set clear, achievable goals. Clearly outline what is feasible given time and resource constraints.
- Communicate progress regularly. Keep clients in the loop with updates to manage expectations.
- Offer alternative solutions. If demands exceed capacity, suggest viable options that still deliver value.
How do you handle situations where client expectations seem out of reach? Share your strategies.
Your client's expectations are sky-high. How do you manage to meet them without overpromising?
When faced with lofty client expectations, it's essential to strike a balance between ambition and realism. Here's how to navigate these waters:
- Set clear, achievable goals. Clearly outline what is feasible given time and resource constraints.
- Communicate progress regularly. Keep clients in the loop with updates to manage expectations.
- Offer alternative solutions. If demands exceed capacity, suggest viable options that still deliver value.
How do you handle situations where client expectations seem out of reach? Share your strategies.
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Only promise what you know you can deliver. Start small and deliver consistently for your client and you can get more ambitious as your trust builds
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As Simone Stolzoff says "we know intuitively that sky-high expectations are a recipe for disappointment. " Further, "A job, like a baby, is not always something that you can control.” What can be used the Balance framework quadrant, going clockwise below: 1. Growth: What areas would customer like to work on or be more involved in? 2. Communicate: Agree on the best time to give feedback on your work? 3. Motivation: Share what you’re proud of that happened recently, this week or this quarter. 4. Work task: Ask the customer what hurts, suggest what can make day-to-day easier? Out of reach expectations doesn't help. It only prorogates burn out.
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Clients do set sky high expectations by getting influenced from external factors. Setting up realistic goals which can truly add value in their current state for transformation into future state is critical. This can be achieved by 1. Discussing the cost and time parameters which will add due to additional features that are being demanded 2. Considering stakeholder engagement, suggest an alternate which can be delivered with existing resources. 3. Discuss possible dependencies, risk and compliance factors which will come into picture.
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Be comfortable with walking away from an opportunity with a prospect that isn't a good fit for you. It is hard to turn down opportunities but your gut will likely tell you that some expectations can never be met. Also consider that it is likely to be better to underpromise and overdeliver!
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You have to set very clear expectations for what can and can't be done. I always focus on availability, affordability, and quality. Then from there, we work to understand realistic definitions for what this means at the client level. The goal is to have a meeting of the minds for all three definitions. From there, the sale or upsell is easy. If you can't have a meeting of the minds on all three, then you have to be absolutely solid of 2/3.
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