In Start Your Own Consulting Business, the staff at Entrepreneur Press and writer Eileen Figure Sandlin explain how you can start a profitable consulting business, no matter whether your consulting business will focus on HR placement, computer troubleshooting, or anything else you can dream up. In this edited excerpt, the authors offer tips on providing customer service that will help you land new business again and again.
To succeed as a consultant, you must do everything you can to set yourself apart from the competition. You want to give your clients a reason to say, "I'm really glad I chose this consultant." One way to ensure this is to provide the best customer service on the planet.
One great way to do this is by communicating with your client often about whether his or her expectations are being met and if the project is progressing as desired. "At the end of the first month of a project, I always ask my clients whether they think value is being achieved," says California trainer and coach Susan Bock, who is a past president of the Association of Professional Consultants. "I'll give them a full refund and won't proceed any further if I determine it's not possible to deal with their unrealized expectations."
Fred Elbel, a web design and computer consultant in Lakewood, Colorado, takes a different approach to customer service: He actually gives information away free as a way to make a favorable impression. "I give a lot of free advice to customers--in fact, sometimes too much," he admits. "It could be information like how to back up a computer system. But what happens is that clients remember how I helped them, and they'll call me when they don't have the time or skill to tackle other problems."
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