I talk about technology quite a bit, from eDiscovery standbys to emerging technologies that may never actually emerge. But there’s one thing that’s equally (possibly more) important that doesn’t get talked about enough and that’s soft skills.
Do not underestimate the power that soft skills bring to the table!
We live in a time when most people have too many things to do and not enough time to do it. Decision fatigue weighs us down such that figuring out what to have for dinner at the end of the day is too much for our brains to handle.
Homing in on that ability to make your clients’ lives easier through effective communication skills will do wonders for your career. Here are a few tips that have helped me in mine:
1. Always anticipate questions and preemptively provide answers in your initial email. If you can collapse the email flow from three emails (email/question/answer) to one (email with all the answers), clients will love you.
2. When providing options to your client, don’t just provide a neutral list. Instead, provide a recommendation with a prompt that opens the door for an easy response, so clients will love you.
Example: “If you agree with our recommendations, we’ll move forward on this now and follow up tomorrow with an update.”
3. If you’re about to kick off a series of requests, be sure to confirm all of those action items and decision points. Channel your inner McDonald’s drive thru line: read back the order to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Your clients will love that any confusion is cleared up before work begins.
4. Stay on top of communications. If you gave a client an ETA and you aren’t going to make it, let the client know in advance. Don’t make the client wait and then ask you for an update. Clients will love that you are on top of things and will usually be understanding if there’s a delay.
5. Shoot straight when it comes to giving bad news, but always come with a solution to fix the problem and how you’re going to keep it from happening again. Clients will respect the transparency and appreciate efforts made towards continuous improvement.
Soft skills are often underrated but they can really do wonders towards building a relationship with your client.