The value of the service in the eyes of the client

Money is not the only way clients pay for complex services. They have to waste time and nerves preparing technical specifications in areas in which they do not understand. To communicate with unpleasant performers. For cooperation in a state of uncertainty: when it is unknown what the performer is doing, what the next step is and when it will all end.

Each such unpleasant moment can be attributed to costs on the part of the client. And the finalthe value of the service provided will be the difference between the benefits to the client and its costs.

To increase value, it is enough, on the one hand, to increase the number of benefits for the client and, on the other, to reduce his costs. But it's not that simple.

The most unpredictable thing about this formula is that everyone is different. And each client will have his own subjective set of factors that he will attribute to both costs and benefits.

Therefore, at first, when I asked clients what they liked about working with me and what they didn’t like, I received a lot of unexpected answers. One of these answers was: “I would like to see intermediate results of the work more often, so that I can understand that things are moving and not worry.” And I, on the contrary, then believed that if a client does not receive news from me during the work process, it means that he is not distracted from his business and will be even more satisfied with the result. Of course, this was completely wrong. Especially for my profession. And after some time I heard an answer from another client: “I would like to communicate less often. I have a lot to do, and we have to discuss your work every two or three days.” And what could I do with two answers that were opposite in meaning?..

Not all points can be found out by asking a direct question. If the client liked everything, he is unlikely to be able to say what exactly made him satisfied. But with complaints, the opposite is true: shortcomings are striking, evoke more emotions and are better remembered. So I had more than enough information about where I was wrong in the eyes of clients. This is why there are so many negative reviews on the Internet and so few positive ones. People are willing to take the time to vent their emotions on the offender, but not to praise someone. To be publicly praised, a product or service must have incredibly outstanding value.

Satisfying the individual needs and requirements of the client, as well as comfort in the processI would put it at the top of the list of benefits.

For example, I once went to practice vocals. They recommended a good teacher to me, we met with her, conducted a test lesson and decided to continue. I attended a few classes and then broke up with her. There were two reasons.

Firstly, for me, vocal lessons were a way to have a good time. Strengthen a skill, learn something new, communicate. The teacher attached much more importance to what was happening than I did, and, apparently, was going to make me a pop performer. The scales were overflowing when, in response to my request to skip one lesson (and it was paid for, and I did not ask for a refund), she hinted that “the clock was ticking” and that I needed to take my studies more seriously if I wanted to succeed. And so that I think carefully about whether I need this.

Secondly, the classes themselves were structured in this way: the teacher explained the theory, and then I had to consolidate it in practice. And as soon as I didn’t succeed the first time, I again had to listen to the theory for the second round. At first I said that I already remembered her words well and I needed time to try to put them into practice. But then he stopped doing this because the teacher’s behavior did not change. In total, during the lesson, several times I politely and patiently listened to the information that I had learned the first time, and did not receive what I came for: practice and a pleasant time.

The value of such a service was reduced to zero for me and even began to acquire negative values. We broke up. But in this situation, the teacher could, on the contrary, relax during class, allowing me to sing and herself to take a break from endless explanations. I could also have said at the very beginning that I was not ready to sell my precious time to people who were not focused on serious results.

When I taught interface design, I tried to prepare materials rich in unique information. So that students are motivated to immerse themselves in the learning process as deeply as possible - a kind of challenge - and after the course they have enough knowledge to reach a new level.

In practice, it turned out that only a tiny part of the students liked this approach. Many dropped out during the process, explaining that they had some life circumstances that interfered with their learning.

As an experiment, I greatly simplified the program and saw that people like it when they can do everything easily the first time. Moreover, even those students for whom this program was clearly too simple were satisfied. They were not only happy that they completed all the tasks without problems and answered all the questions, but also praised the course to others, ignoring the fact that it was clearly not for their level.

The value to these people was not the new knowledge I could offer them. They simply had a good time in the company of other students, increased their self-esteem, became convinced that they could easily cope with the program, which means they were no longer beginners and, in general, well done!

If I had known this in advance, I would not have spent so much time and effort preparing a more complex program, which was also more difficult to sell.

Plays a significant rolecompetenceperformer. It is almost impossible to evaluate it at the time of the transaction, unless, of course, the client himself is an expert. But after the work is completed (and sometimes during the process), the result will speak for itself.

I had the opportunity to work with illustrators who did not understand anatomy and composition. With illiterate copywriters. With designers with a superficial understanding of working with color and fonts. With advertising specialists who failed to attract a single client. This is a large list of specialists, and they all have one thing in common: they managed to sell me a service that they were incompetent to perform. And I only found out about this during the process or at the end of the work.

I myself do not sell services that I am incompetent to provide. If the client insists, then I explain that I am ready to try, but, firstly, I cannot guarantee good results and, secondly, in the process of work I will be trained at the expense of the customer. Many were satisfied with this explanation, and they were still ready to work with me.

Guaranteesadd confidence to the result and increase its value. For example, I guarantee my clients that they will like the result of my work, and I answer for my words with money. The only condition: if this happens, I will keep the result of the work for myself.

This approach solves two problems at once. Firstly, the client will be confident that I am maximally interested in providing exactly the result that he needs. This will automatically increase the value of the service in the eyes of the client even before it is performed, and will also affect the process of its provision: approvals from the first days of work, working with feedback, prompt amendments. All this is aimed at reducing the risk of a result that the client will not like.

Secondly, any potential scammer will be less motivated to contact me. After all, he will still have to first transfer me an advance payment, then, together with me, come to the desired vision, and then either admit that he is satisfied with everything, or come to terms with the loss of time and results. It is much easier for a fraudster to go to the contractor with a smaller check, without prepayment and with simpler processes.

By the way, abouttime. The value of the service can go to zero or even take negative values ​​if the client receives the result late. This happens in cases where the customer makes plans for the future based on the date of delivery of the work.

Imagine the head of a family who ordered a taxi to the airport, and the driver arrived an hour and a half late. Because of this, the entire family did not board the plane and lost a vacation in which significant funds had been invested. No free ride or apology from the taxi company will cover the damage suffered by the client.

One can imagine many such examples: a wedding dress not made for the wedding; an advertising campaign not prepared for Black Friday; a project that was not launched by the date solemnly announced to higher authorities.

Fortunately, in reality there are more often situations where missed deadlines simply spoil the client’s mood, but do not particularly affect the value of the service. It will be enough to warn about the delay in advance, apologize and announce new dates.

When clients come to me who need results by a specific date, I agree to take on the job only when I am absolutely sure that I will not let you down. This depends on two factors: my own workload during this period, as well as the potential ability of the customer to sabotage the deadlines. Controlling these factors requires more effort from me than during normal work, so it costs more.

The client delaying deadlines in the case of interface design is possible if he skips negotiations and, towards the end, overloads me with his clarifications, additions and everything else in the form of feedback. Therefore, when working within someone else’s deadlines, I exclude from the contract the clause that guarantees in money that the customer will like the result.

Courtesy and manner of communication. I address all clients as “you”. I do not give unsolicited advice, do not ask personal questions, and provide a credit of trust and respect. It always seemed to me that this was normal behavior characteristic of all adults, but how wrong I was!

As a client, I communicated with freelancers who switched to “you” even in cases when I politely refused them this transition. Those who allowed themselves to swear in conversations and correspondence, without talking about anything emotional or controversial. That's just how they talked.

Did this mean that I had encountered bad specialists? No. The manner of communication has little effect on professionalism. However, during such communication I felt discomfort, tried to end the conversation as quickly as possible and looked forward to it all being over. I paid such people not only with money, but also with my nerves and patience, which means that the result of their work was much less valuable to me.

The value of the work may be zero for the client if he does not understand why this work needs to be done at all. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to communicate about services in a language that customers understand. And be able to do this at any time upon request: before the start of work, during the process and upon completion. Let's call it well-builtcommunications.

Sometimes it is enough to explain why this or that stage of work is being done and how well it will affect the result. For example: “We need to do a competitor analysis so that your one-page website can compete with them on all fronts. This is labor-intensive work, so it costs extra money.”

And sometimes you can include such work in the general check and not go into details. “Your one-page website, when ready, will outperform competitors on all fronts!”

How to distinguish a curious client from one who doesn’t care about the process and wants the result is a separate question.

Prices and payment terms. If the client immediately knows how much he will have to pay for the service, he will be calm. Every time I tell clients that it is impossible to evaluate the next stages of work without completing the previous ones, they get upset. To somehow reassure them, I call potential price “forks” and the probability of falling into them.

It is very unpleasant, for example, after a visit to the dentist for hygienic cleaning, you find out that you now need to go to the pharmacy for a new toothbrush, floss and, possibly, an irrigator. If this was warned in advance, the value of the service would be higher, since the client would not be subject to sudden additional costs and waste of time.

It’s even more unpleasant when a restaurant asks you if you would like extra Parmesan in your dish, without warning you that it will cost you another serving. You only find out about this at the moment when the administrator brings the bill. For people who have limited budgets and perceive going to a restaurant as a festive event, the value of a holiday with such an outcome will be significantly less than the money spent.

The same goes for other services. If a freelancer issues an invoice for uncoordinated work, this is a reason for either a scandal or separation at a loss. I often use the second method. I pay the freelancer money and put him on the blacklist, because psychologically for me it’s cheaper than sorting things out and arguing.

Payment terms should be convenient and understandable for the client. So that there are always answers to the questions: “When?”, “How much?” and “How?” So that you don’t have to learn to use some new outlandish payment system. Or ask the question “Was everything in this payment legal from the point of view of the law?..”.

You've probably been in a situation where the seller reports that his payment terminal is not working today, and it would be great if the payment was a transfer using a phone number linked to a bank card. In freelancing, sending a large amount to a card to an unfamiliar individual is perceived as equally suspicious.

Plays an important role in my serviceclient's involvement in the result. I gladly accept any feedback with edits and comments from the first iteration. The more client comments are taken into account during the work process, the more valuable the result is for him. The more he is involved in it. And the more satisfied he will be. For example, I am showing an unfinished product catalog to which I have not yet added page navigation. And the client says: “Cool, but it would be great to add page navigation.” And instead of answering: “I was planning on it anyway, it’s just an intermediate result,” I’ll answer: “Excellent point! I’ll definitely add it!” It's just magical how clients enjoy this process.

Bottom line: the value of the service in the eyes of the client plays a big role in the work of a freelancer. If it is below expectations, the customer will leave and never appear again. If it lives up to expectations, he will contact you again and again. If it exceeds expectations, the client will tell others about the service and bring in new customers.