Whether you are new to UX or have been in the industry for years you know that client relationships are important. Regardless of agency or enterprise UX you are beholden to stakeholders or clients. In order to succeed you should earn trust and develop a working relationship with your clients. This ultimately will make your life easier as you navigate through the ups and downs of a project. This article contains 5 tips and tricks to working with clients and fostering good rapport.
Like in any other business your partner needs to trust you for the relationship to thrive. This works similarly to UX where you are the expert and the client is leaning on your advice to reach a goal. As a partner, take care to be truthful and honest about the situation regardless of it is painful or not. For example, is the design going to take 3 weeks when they wanted it to take 2 - TELL THEM. Has the recruiter fallen behind on getting enough people for usability testing - TELL THEM. The truth can be painful but if you are clear in communication and providing solutions it helps mitigate issues.
TAKEAWAY: Use your emotional intelligence to determine how to deliver both good and bad news to your clients. Attempt to always be on the side of truth in these conversations and always have a solution on-hand when delivering upsets.
I've seen it countless times: a confident UX consultant rolls onto a project and agrees the every wild and crazy idea the client blurts out. They promise the world and by the end of the project the reality of what was delivered pales in comparison to the original promises. Do not agree to fulfill every request or the design will be overwrought and you will be designing blue-sky solutions without context or user feedback. This can be absolutely catastrophic for a business relationship as you are overpromising and underdelivering.
TAKEAWAY: As requests come up take note, listen and analyze the potential solution - if the request is too far-reaching or out of scope then matter-of-factly tell your client it will be worked on later in the project.
Ensure from the beginning of an engagement that you and the client are aligned on its outcome. Do this by asking questions such as 'what outcomes are you trying to achieve?' so that you are looking at it from their lens. In addition, asking specific questions such as 'we have agreed on 10 wireframes for this round of testing, correct?' will help add specificity. This will all help to ensure that the project team is marching toward the same goal as the client and ultimately you reach the same destination.
TAKEAWAY: At the beginning of a project and subsequently throughout ensure that you are in alignment with the client. Setting up small, low impact alignment meetings can be a strong ally to ensure you're always in alignment.
Clients love brief, informative updates on the work you are doing for them. You can call it a status update or a check in but the outcome is the same: providing proactive updates to the client on your UX work. This is an unobtrusive way to give them project updates without all the gory detail that they do not need to see or know about. In addition, it gives a boost of confidence and will allow them to fill in any gaps or suggestions on their own time.
TAKEAWAY: People love feeling like you're thinking about them. Sending a brief 'check-in' to your client on a weekly basis is a good way to inform them on progress and next steps in any engagement.
While working with clients oftentimes details can often get lost in a mess of emails or glossed over by sheer volume of information (requirements, requests and design considerations). By the time you know it a deadline has passed and you're in trouble because you weren't aware it was a request. Here is a tip: clean up the messaging, summarize your understanding and echo it back to the client for approval and the option to add anything that was missed. That way, you and the client both have an understanding on what you heard and can both have a nice summary of expectations.
Takeaway: Ensure to summarize and echo back the details you heard to avoid any mishaps with clients. This can be a simple bulletpointed email that you send once a week.
The theme throughout this article is improving communication with the client. The UX and client relationship takes work and communication with a bit of finesse to master. But using a few of the tips above can greatly improve that relationship and they do not really take much effort to implement into your project. Give some of them a shot and let me know how they work!
