Key Things to Consider When Building Client Relationships

By Christopher Splet, Director

You’ve just won a new client! You’ve celebrated and popped the champagne, but now it’s time to get down to business. At the start of any client relationship it is extremely important that both sides begin by communicating their capabilities and expectations.

Whenever I land a new client at CARMA, here are the things I keep in mind: 

Photo Credit: Stuart Miles Never Make Assumptions: When starting a new media measurement project, I think it’s vital that both sides avoid making assumptions about what will be delivered. For example, while I may consider a certain reporting metric as standard, my client may use something entirely different and expect that in the final deliverable. By communicating in advance rather than making assumptions, we avoid headaches on both sides. 

Gauge Client Expectations: Rather than make assumptions, I always gauge my client’s expectations for the project. Questions like “What are your goals?” “What do you hope to achieve?” “How will you use this information?” can all provide insight into what the client will find valuable in a final deliverable. This is especially important here at CARMA because our reporting is so customizable. The numerous variables, data points, and pieces of information that can be gleaned from our research process create countless options of what can be included in a deliverable. Because of this, I strive to find out what will and will not be useful to the client. [Side note: It’s certainly appreciated when clients know exactly what they want and make it known from the start].

Manage Expectations:  Just as it’s important to encourage a client to communicate its expectations, I think it’s equally important for me to communicate effectively our capabilities of what can and can’t be done. This process really begins at the sales/proposal stage (fortunately CARMA’s sales team doesn’t regularly exclaim “oh sure, we can do that!” when the reality is somewhat different. Though, ensuring your sales staff is fully versed in your offerings will help avoid this uncomfortable situation). Even beyond the sales stage, I work to communicate any limitations to my clients to ensure they aren’t expecting something that can’t be done.

Avoiding assumptions, communicating, and managing expectations are just a few examples of what I think it takes to keep effective lines of communication open between you and your client. By doing so, you can avoid the disappointment and unmet needs that have sunk many client relationships in the past. 

Starting 2012 Out with a Bang!

By: Angie Jeffrey, APR

How exciting to write my first blog post for 2012 in my new capacity as Senior Counselor to CARMA International, a company I have admired for more than a decade.  I remember sitting on a plane from London back in 2001 as I tried to decide whether to start a US office for a UK analysis firm as an extension of my then PR software firm – TRAKWare, Inc., (creator of PRtrak™).  I had gathered some competitive information and remember the visceral reaction I had to CARMA’s brochure.  In a nutshell, CARMA’s work was heads and shoulders above the rest, and I decided NOT to pursue the other opportunity.

Flash forward 10 years, past two acquisitions of PRtrak™ and a lifetime in PR analysis, and I finally have the chance to add CARMA as a flagship client of my new PR and measurement consulting firm.  A lot of time has passed, however, with automation encroaching on the quality of media analysis … and, of course, with CARMA adopting automation processes that make sense.  However, CARMA remains committed to human analysis to guarantee the highest possible quality and accuracy, which is why I’m proud to be part of the extended team.

By Alexis Pollak

What excites me most about working with CARMA, though, is its ability to link the results of media coverage to hard business outcomes like survey results, sales, leads, website hits, and more through a correlations process they call CARMA Connect.  Over the past decade, I’ve been involved in a lot of research that uses correlations to outcomes, and there’s no question that the C-Suite “gets it” when you can show the relationship between your work and business results in hard numbers. 

Anyway, I’ll be blogging and Tweeting along with the rest of the CARMA team, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.  Happy 2012!