Caring for Clients: "It's PR, not ER"
At the begining of any client partnership, it's important to set expectations and boundaries.
But, sometimes, you want to serve the relationship so much up front you provide a ton of extra value, and find its difficult to regain control.
You're now in hot water and the team's stressed.
There is an art of balancing urgency, dedication, and care, while working with clients that doesn't also overwhelm them.
Like in an emergency room (ER) where every second counts, client services often creates feelings of immediate attention and responsiveness.
3 themes of how the client services business can feel like working in an ER:
Urgency and High Stakes:
Medical emergencies need immediate action - a life could be on the line.
Clients often request rapid responses. They can be non-critical issues that seem like crying wolf, but may bubble up into something later.
Or, there's a real problem that could impact the success of their business.
However, when everything gets labeled in emails as "urgent", bad habits build and quick solutions can become the norm. One-off help from your team to fix "just this one thing..." can be hard to get out of.
The partnership then quickly feels like urgent care is the state of work.
In cases like these, issues/requests need to be 'be triaged' to determine which ones need immediate attention versus those that can wait.
*Tip: Creating risk registers, lessons learned, and pre/post-mortems from previous engagements can be healthy medicine for the project team. Taking a step back to re-align on expectations and goals can also reset the tempo.
Empathy and Communication:
In both settings, effective communication and empathy are key.
ER professionals must convey information clearly to patients and their families without loosing their cool.
Project teams must actively listen, address concerns, and communicate with clients in a way that builds trust.
Making people feel heard and valued (on both sides) makes the partnership stronger.
*Tip: Even if you can't provide an immediate solution or something is out of your scope, I've found that by being candid and offering a real recommendation goes a long way in building trust.
Continuous Learning (have a growth mindset):
Professionals in both fields must keep up with the latest knowledge or will left behind.
You wouldn't want to work with a doctor that doesn't know the latest research or have the appropriate tools in their department.
You wouldn't want to trust a project team that hasn't evolved in their thinking and strategy.
It's crucial for the project team to understand the client's real business problems, industry, market changes, and emerging technologies.
Embracing a continuous learning environment enables you to develop and understand best practices, sharpens problem-solving skills, and creates better opportunities to develop personalized solutions for clients.
That’s the thing about client services. "It's PR, not ER" is the notion that while this team might not deal with life-or-death situations, the urgency, dedication, and challenges faced often mirror the high-paced environment of an emergency room.
It's also a good saying to remind yourself to relax in times of stressful client service work. :)
To recap:
Set expectations and boundaries with clients at the start
Create risk registers, lessons learned, and pre/post-mortems from previous engagements
Take a step back to re-align on expectations and goals to reset
Empathy rules
Build trust by giving real, candid recommendations, even if a solution is out of scope
Adapt a growth mindset