Keep Your Clients Happy - Offer a Courtesy Service

Posted on February 12, 2008
Filed Under Clients, Principles |

One of the tricks I have found really effective in my own freelancing business is to offer a courtesy service to my clients. It’s inherent in human nature to want to feel that we’re special, that someone is thinking of us. That is why gifts work.

When you offer your clients a courtesy service, this gesture communicates to them that you are thinking of them as more than just a source of work and money, but rather that you value them and the relationship that you have with them. Courtesy services, like gifts, add an element of warmth to the client-provider relationship, and can be the key that keeps your clients coming back to work with you.

A courtesy service can really be anything, and will depend to a large extent on what particular services you offer and what your clients needs are. For example, one branch of my freelancing services is that I offer document creation, database creation, editing, and templating services. A courtesy service that I offer all my clients is that I will save and recover all their files for them at no extra cost, no matter how many years later they need them. Another courtesy service that I offer some of my clients is an online portal where they can securely log in and access all of the documents we have ever worked on together. I will also periodically send them DVDs with all the file backups. There are many other courtesy services that I offer in my other freelance ventures, so these are just examples.

Of course I choose and pick which clients to offer what courtesy service based on my observations of their needs and the requests that they make.

If you are a plumber, one courtesy service you could offer would be a periodic free follow-up on any job you do, or a diagnostic check up on other fixtures in the house. If you’re a web designer, you could offer the courtesy service of free updates for the first 3 months, etc. If you think about what you do, and what your clients could potentially need, you will probably be able to think of courtesy services that you can offer.

Below are some general guidelines that I follow with respect to selecting and offering courtesy services:

Make the courtesy service something that your clients need but may not have thought of asking for. This will make more of an impression to them.

Do not announce your courtesy services until you are ready to offer them, and only to the client you are extending the offer to. The reasoning behind this is that you want to make it special, you want to make your client feel special, and you want to be a step ahead of your competition.

Choose a service that appears costly or intensive, but that you know you can deliver at minimum loss to yourself. For example, I have a lot of storage on my hard drives and servers that I don’t use, so the cost to me to offer a retrieval service is minimal.

Be consistent and follow through with your courtesy services. This will make an impression on your clients especially because they are not paying you to do it, so it will show them that you place value on them.

Make sure that you mention that this is a courtesy service to a valued client. By having that on paper, there is no risk of future misunderstandings should you decide to withdraw the service.

If you decide to terminate the courtesy service, accompany the termination with a polite note, and if you’re willing to continue to offer the same service on a paid basis, make sure the client knows that it’s their choice. Ideally though, it is better to continue to offer it as a courtesy service so that your client doesn’t feel deceived.

What courtesy services can you offer your clients?