Subscribe to RSS feedDon’t delay the communication to customers
Posted By Pankaj on December 7, 2007
Filed Under Project Management
Or to anyone for that matter as it can, and actually it will hurt you, in many ways that you can’t possibly imagine. Delay in communication could lead the customer to start loosing his trust in you (if it becomes the habit), it can lead the customer to press the panic button and a panic customer gets really difficult handle… isn’t? Anyway some of the top reasons, which I can think of why and when we delay the required communications…
- One doesn’t understand sometimes what the customer is communicating and you are trying hard to decipher by asking people what it could mean (and rely on that interpretation) instead of directly asking the customer himself.
- Not sure what your response should be (especially when you believe that the accurate answer is not politically/technically correct or could damage relations)
- You’ve not finished the work or don’t have the best response to the questions asked by the customer.
- Interactions with customer can be very stressful because earlier transactions have not been very pleasant due to the nature of work or nature of customer.
- A situation on the personal front where one has been spending more mind space, so you don’t get enough time to sit back and plan for appropriate communications with the customer.
- There is a lot of pre-work that is required (could include preparing presentations, white paper etc)
- You have been just procrastinating, for no reason at all. (Read earlier blog on procrastination).
Personally I used to have this tendency of delaying the response if I am not sure about the accuracy of my response or I feel there is a better solution then I just drop of the radar of the customer.
Over the time, I have learnt that there is absolutely no reason to disappear of the customer’s radar. If I am not ready to communicate my best response yet, I will still communicate which could be just acknowledging the customer’s communication and ask for more time to prepare for my best response or do the required work.
Remember to be honest with your customer…
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