Having a meeting with a client can help you to better understand them, learn what their expectations are and how to meet customer needs and expectations. However, not every client meeting ends in the same positive outcome. In some cases, you learn what the customer wanted only after they express displeasure and dissatisfaction.
Meetings are not something that you should blindly go into. You need to take the time to prepare for the meeting, map out what will happen in the meeting, and take steps after the meeting to ensure that you are completing what was discussed in the meeting. This helps to ensure there is an open line of communication and you are meeting or exceeding your customer’s expectations.
Read on for exceeding customer expectations examples and more information on how you can meet your client’s needs through meetings.
How to Meet Client’s Needs Before a Meeting
So, how do you meet customers’ needs and expectations? First, let’s look to understand what are the five basic needs of a customer? There are various interpretations of this but most client needs include action, appreciation, price, service, and quality. Most of these are easily applied through proactive communication through meetings.
Before you even begin to plan out a meeting, it is first important that you understand the importance of understanding customers’ needs and wants. Your customers are important to your business. If your customers do not feel like you are meeting their needs, they are not going to want to do business with you. In addition to that, they may also use word of mouth and/or social media to let others know that they may not want to do business with you. Meeting your customer’s needs not only helps their business to thrive and grow, but it helps your business to thrive and grow.
Prior to a meeting, you will want to take some time to prepare for the meeting. Do some research on the business. Learn who they are and what differentiates them from similar businesses. Try to take the time to apply your understanding of the 5 basic needs of customers and the various types of customer needs that your customer may have. Also take the time to educate yourself on client needs definition and what it means to your business, what does exceeding customer expectations mean to your business and learn how to identify customer needs and expectations.
Once you know more about the business, create a shared agenda and shared pre-reads with your client. Ask them to send you pre-reads as well and ask for input on the agenda. The more you can learn about each other ahead of time, the more informed and in-depth your communications and discussions can be during the meeting.
How to Meet Client’s Needs During a Meeting
The first way to get off on the right foot with any client during a meeting is to set a start time for the meeting and be on time. Ensure the time works for both you and the client. If you are late, you are already setting the tone for the rest of the meeting. In addition to setting a time, be sure to have the right people in your business and in their business present for the meeting. Let the client meet people who will be helping them, or have team members who need to know the information hear it directly from the client.
The next important step to meeting your client’s needs during a meet is to set expectations. Identify what the customer needs are by asking for 10 customer expectations. You can get even more in-depth by asking for components of customer expectations, obtaining customer expectations definition, getting a customer needs and wants analysis, asking for customer needs examples, or asking the client to provide you with a customer expectations PDF. You can also ask the customer to provide you with exceeding customer expectation examples, so you know what they consider to be meeting versus exceeding. By the end of the meeting, you should have clear answers for what are the 4 main customer needs, how to meet customer expectations and meeting customer needs examples.
Finally, as you go through the meeting, be sure to follow the planned agenda that you and the client prepared ahead of time. It is easy to get off-topic in a meeting, and discuss items that are not especially important at the present time. You want to ensure the meeting time is used in a constructive and helpful way, and that no one’s time is wasted. You can use a tool like Docket to create and maintain the agenda and any meeting history with your customer meetings.
How to Meet Client’s Needs After a Meeting
Once a meeting has come to a close, there are still steps you need to take to ensure the meeting is a success. If you do not do so, you may be setting yourself up for failing to meet customer expectations.
After a meeting has ended, take the time to follow-up with the client. Share a professional recap for alignment and reiterate the various ways of how do you meet customer needs and expectations. Taking the time to share a recap ensures that everyone was on the same page in the meeting and puts the plan moving forward into writing. Some tools like Docket even offer custom templates that show your brand through color, logo, and social links so your company brand is reflected in the recap they may share with their team.
Within the next few days or weeks following the meeting, you will want to work on proactive task completion. Complete the tasks that you agreed upon with the client in the timeframe that you committed to completing them. Also, ensure the customer is kept in the loop, by providing them with proactive updates. In the updates, be sure to let them know that you are working toward meeting their expectations. Also, be sure to discuss the possibility of another meeting to continue to move forward with the client and continue to meet their expectations of your company.
