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Are there any clients willing to offer you jobs and freelance projects without you having to do marketing and convince them to use your freelance service first? The answer is yes. These  amazing clients are actually your previous clients. There are the customers who have already used your service and known about your work quality and expertise. You definitely want to make them your long term customers.
Keeping long term clients is important to your freelance business because not only they will continue to use your service, they will also refer you to other people. Constant referrals will grow your freelance business from time to time and of course increase your online income. The marketing cost of getting freelance works again from the existing clients is very much lower than getting from new clients.
To keep your existing clients doing business with you again and gain, there are a few things you must do:
1) Make yourself easily contacted by your clients. Let them know your home and cell phone so that they can easily and quickly contact you. You may take a day off every week, so tell them also when you aren’t available. This can make your clients feel safer and convenient because they know they can reach you easily should any problem arise.
2) Provide quality service. The quality of your work or service plays a very important role in getting your customers coming back to you, I'm sure you have known about this. Good service and work quality make your clients feel satisfied. They are happy with you and probably will put you in their first consideration whenever they need help again. And this is where you can give your clients a strong reason to recommend you to their friends, colleagues and etc.
3) Deliver what you have promised and meet deadline. Whatever you have agreed and promised must be delivered. Especially meeting deadline, some customers may request you to complete their project quickly. Only accept the project if you are confident that you can meet their tight deadline. Failure to deliver what you promise could result lost of confidence and trust of your customers on you causing you lose these clients permanently.
If possible, give them more they bargained for. This is a great way to make your customers happy and thrilled with your service; and encourage them do business with you again and also refer you to others. But, when you do more for a client, make sure it will not affect your work and time schedule for other project.
4) Never promise what you can't do. When your clients contact you informing you that they have got another job for you. It is nice to hear that. But, sometimes they might ask you do something that is too hard for you or something that you don't know how to do. In this situation, it is better to tell them honestly instead of taking the job and later hire someone to do it for you because this might negatively affect your service quality and your ability to meet deadline.
5) Keep your clients informed on the latest progress of your project. Some clients may worry about how the project is doing or whether it can be done by deadline. So, it is necessary to keep them updated about the project.
6) Try to establish an open communication. Building good relationship between you and your clients heavily relies on communication. When you clients first meet you or contact your through email or phone, there is where you begin to communicate with your clients. Be opened and professional in the conversation; listen to them well and answer their questions accurately and accordingly. If the client prefers to communicate through email, be sure that you are able to write good and professional email message with sufficient details included.
This strong open and professional communication not just needed in the first conversation or communication with your clients, but it must be maintained constantly in order to build up good relationship with your clients.
7) Back up your works. After you completed the project and deliver it to your clients. They will review it and sometimes they may request a revision to the project. As you have done back up, you will have a copy of the previous finished project available immediately to you to do revision. At the end, you can send the revised project to your client efficiently.
8) Anticipate the need of your customers. This will help you taking care of any difficulty and problem arise during the completion of the project.
9) Make sure both you and your clients are clear about all the aspects of the project. You as a service provider need to read carefully the project details and instructions so that you understand thoroughly what need to be done. For your clients, make sure they know clearly how long the project will take you and what your charge will be.
10) Occasionally run a promotional or discount campaign can be a great idea. This may help you get more sales from your existing clients. And for those previous clients who have not used your service for long time, probably they have forgotten you. With a promotional email sends to them, you can remind them that they have used your freelance service before and encourage them to do business with you again. |
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