Tweeting away today, I came across a post that caught my eye. The tweet was from a lawyer who wrote: “Called opposing lawyer yesterday and the firm was closed from 12/24 – 1/4 and you couldn’t leave a message…I’d hate to be a client.” Eek . . .
It came to my attention that there are tons of businesses out there that believe cutting off communication with clients for several days is acceptable. It’s not.
Sure, there are some businesses that can close for a few days and leave their voicemail on without causing client chaos. But, there are also businesses that can’t shut down for longer than a few days—especially if they don’t even have their answering machine on.
If you provide a highly-personalized and valuable service to clients, such as personal advising, you can’t cut all forms of communication for a whole 10 days. You’ll send your clients into a tail-spin if they desperately need you. And you’ll tick them off.
You get clients for a reason. They trust you and feel confident that you will provide them a valuable service—one that’s worth their money. Once they feel you’ve done them a disservice, it will be extremely difficult to keep their business. You can bet the lawyer referred to in the above tweet now has a handful of clients who feel neglected, scared, and betrayed, and who probably will be finding themselves a new lawyer.
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