How to Stay Transparent With Your Clients

Transparency has recently become a focus for many businesses. Being more transparent about your services, pricing, and accomplishments will position you for success. However, when it comes to implementing transparency principles, many businesses back off.

This is especially appealing to clients and customers who expect more transparency and honesty from the businesses they support. Over 90 percent of consumers feel brand transparency is crucial in their purchasing decisions.

Here are some ways to establish transparent relationships with clients. 

Share Your Values

The deeply established beliefs that influence a company’s actions are known as core values. Values help distinguish a company from its competitors by establishing its identity and acting as a rallying point for personnel.

Establish strong values that permeate all aspects of your business, including your client relationships.

Scrum values are one example of a technique that can assist in shaping your values. The Scrum-based framework assists individuals, teams, and businesses in creating value by providing adaptive solutions to challenging issues. The Scrum guide identifies five qualities shared by all Scrum teams: commitment, openness, courage, respect, and focus. All employees should stay committed to upholding these values.

Maintain Communication

Clients are a company’s lifeblood. Maintaining effective communication with your clients is essential for developing long-term connections with them. Take the effort to be both professional and friendly while dealing with your clients.

Two-way communication is vital for client relationships. Maintain active listening and participation in the dialogue. If you’re not sure if you understood something, ask clarifying questions. Resolve concerns or issues in a timely and professional manner.

Establish communication channels and utilize client management software to provide regular updates on how projects are progressing. You may also share clients on project management platforms so they can see the work’s progression in real-time.

Be Honest

Honesty can help propel your company to long-term success. Being honest is one of the most effective methods to establish a work culture and gain the loyalty and confidence of clients and prospects. 

Don’t hesitate to tell clients the truth, even if it isn’t what they want to hear. Provide them with realistic timetables and discuss any potential issues that may arise during the project. Be precise in how you bill your time and in the deliverables you guarantee. When you say you’ll do something, follow through.

You can also utilize industry-specific templates to better lay out the processes and timelines. For example, if you provide content services you can use a content calendar to organize both internally and externally. Clients can provide honest feedback on your ideas in real time.

Provide Regular Updates

Keeping clients updated demonstrates that you value them and their time. If done well, keeping your clients informed can make them feel special, and they will reward your company for it. Effective communication can help you build client relationships and potentially generate more leads for the company. Create a schedule when updates will be provided to clients so that they may plan accordingly.

Keep them up to date in real-time by using online messaging apps. Establish a timetable for touchpoints so that both parties are ready with questions and feedback. Because you value your client’s time, make your communication brief, direct, and context-driven. Allow the client to provide feedback on how they think the work is progressing and what is going on with them.

Be Responsive

You must respond to clients in a timely and effective manner and demonstrate how important they are to you. When questions are asked, respond appropriately and respectfully.

Find a balance between quality and speed. Ensure you have all of the essential information before responding and be prepared to answer more questions during the discussion. Although you may encounter demanding clients, don’t let this deter you from providing the best work possible.

There may be those high-maintenance clients every once in a while who make your job more challenging. Establish some boundaries if required, such as establishing a call once a week to answer all questions in order to eliminate a daily flood of emails. 

Transparency is Important in Business

Being open and transparent benefits not just your clients but also your employees. Employees view corporate transparency as an essential factor influencing their job happiness. Transparency is also very good for business. Several polls have found that at least two-thirds of customers would do more business and pay more with a transparent business. Use available online tools to help your business become more responsive and transparent.