A Few Words on Communication

One thing that is becoming more and more important in business is good communication. It’s always been important. But in our ever-connected world, it’s more important now than ever. We receive notifications from the auto repair shop, the dry cleaner, and Starbucks when their services are ready for pick up. We all want information when we need it and in real time.

Studies show over and over that poor communication is directly linked to company failures. So we choose to put a heavy emphasis on communication in our own business. And not just because we don’t want to fail. We want to provide the best experience for our clients as possible. And that all starts with great communication!

If you have been struggling with how to communicate with your own clients, this is for you! If you haven’t been getting the response you are looking for from your clients, or find yourself exchanging way to many emails to get something accomplished leading to frustration, then this is for you too! We are sharing our top communications tips that you can implement into your business today!

Be Responsive

It all begins with being responsive. How many times have you sent an email off to a company you were needing service our products from and clicked ‘send’ anticipating no response? And how often does than unfortunately come true? Sometimes, we are lucky and hear something back, but on a much longer timeline than we were hoping for. We’ve had that experience ourselves so many times and know first hand how frustrating that can be.

When we send an email inquiring about a service or product from a company it is because we are needing answers. Most often, we are needing answers quickly. Again, in this age everything is connected and by default we expect answers with speed and convenience!

That negative feeling about receiving answers is something we never want our clients to feel. Ever. We are honored when clients reach out to us, and we want to honor their time by being quick to respond. This does not mean that emails have to control your life. Just like we talked about with managing time with social media, managing emails can consume all of your time if you let it. We didn’t set out to run our own business to let things like that control our lives, so we take control of it!

We have certain times of the day where we stop, check, and respond to emails. This way we are more productive with the other things we are working on and are able to give those things all of our attention. In turn, we are also able to give our clients all of our attention when we stop to respond. Operating this way also allows us to make sure we respond to all of our clients within 24 hours! We feel that this is incredibly important to making sure our clients know that we value their questions and helps to establish trust in our interactions with them.

Good Vibes

It can be super difficult to communicate emotion through any written medium. We want our clients to know that we are genuinely excited about their email and that we care about their questions! That is why we also place a huge importance on how we communicate our emotions through the tone of our email.
Have you ever sent a text message or an email that was interpreted in a way you totally did not mean for it to be!? It happens SO easily! You can never underestimate the power of the exclamation point and the smiley face. If you are excited to work with your client, show them by including them in your communication!

How would you feel if you received this response to your wedding inquiry?

“Hi client. Thanks for your inquiry. We are excited to report that we are available for your wedding day.”

You’d feel underwhelmed right? Like, are they really excited about this or what? Instead, how would this response make you feel?

“Hi Client!! Thank you so much for your inquiry! We are SO excited to report that we are available for your wedding day!! :)”

Which example would make you feel most valued? Which one would let you know without a doubt that we are seriously excited about working with you? Of course, it would be the second example!

Some industry folks believe that exclamation points and smiley faces are simply unprofessional. For us, it doesn’t matter. We think about how we would want to be communicated with, and reflect that in our communication with our own clients.

The result? We have had clients literally give us unsolicited feedback during client meetings that one of the things that attracted them to us as photographers was the way we communicated.

It is that important.

Your keyboard won’t run out of !’s and :)’s, so use them freely!!

Anticipate Questions

The other key factor we consider in our communication with our clients is any questions they may have that we can answer ahead of time! It is mutually beneficial as it cuts down on email time for us, and gives our clients the information they want and need that much faster! For example, if we are responding to a client who is ready to move forward with booking a session with us, we reply with information on our availability, some location suggestions, and other specifics that apply to generally every session that our clients will most likely want to know.
The more we can answer in advance, the better the overall experience for our client. It let’s them know that we care deeply about their session and builds instant trust in us as professionals who have been there and done this before because we know the details in advance.

We really believe that if you apply these three concepts to your client communications, you will have the same result we have – Informed, happy, and thrilled clients! Set times in place to focus on emails so that you can respond quickly, respond enthusiastically (!!!!), and be totally informative.