Strategies for staying connected with clients in different time zones.
It’s no secret that I travel a lot and move abroad to pursue some of my goals. Nevertheless, I have to keep my business running and continue a strong relationship with my clients even if I’m seven hours ahead or twelve hours behind. Depending on the type of client, I communicate with them in contrasting ways, but I always stick to these strategies.
1. Meet your client where they are and establish preferred communication channels
When I first started my business, I was mostly doing social media management and web content writing. My clients all had large sales teams with changes happening each day. Their goal was to display their company culture on their social media, so I had to constantly communicate with them to keep up. These offices already used WhatsApp for their company communications, so I didn’t want to make them do something completely different, like joining a Slack channel. It would just slow down or discourage everyone from sending me their triumphs and pictures if I had chosen to communicate on a totally different platform. So, we stuck with WhatsApp, and it worked really well. I was able to connect everything to my desktop, so I had all the information ready to go.
This doesn’t mean you need to use WhatsApp for your business, the point is to meet your client where they are. When they outsource parts of their operations, it means they’re busy already. As a fun social media marketing girly, I didn’t want to make their lives even harder. I decided to be flexible even though another platform would have been better for me, and because all of my clients were part of the same office chain, it was streamlined anyway.
At an accounting office I did some work for, I was catching a client up on books that needed to be balanced. For him, it was much easier to give him a call and have him answer questions than try to email or message. He could answer the questions within 15 minutes and there was no frustration or misinterpretation. You learn this as you get to know your clients and figure out how they operate as human beings.
2. Schedule check-ins with your client
Depending on your business, check-ins could be daily or as far apart as quarterly. For my social media clients, I met with my client once a month over Zoom or phone to see how their life was going and if they had established any new goals for recruitment. It was best to agree to meet on “the third Thursday of the month” at xx time so that it was always consistent.
For a completely independent project with art gallery curation, I typically don’t speak with the client face to face or over Zoom for a few months, but always give them an overview of my work each month along with the invoice. It’s worked really well because those clients have always been preoccupied with other renovation tasks and just want to see that their money is being used correctly.
3. Have a time zone convertor on your laptop or phone
This may seem really obvious and you can roll your eyes and say “I don’t need that.” You’ll miss a meeting eventually, giving you a huge pang of embarrassment. I live in a country with it’s own time zone and we don’t experience Daylight Savings. Do you think I can remember what time it is for all of my clients? No way. I have other things to think about. Let your technology do the work for you so you don’t make a mistake.
4. Communicate working hours and availability
This one may also seem obvious or silly, but you can’t expect your clients to know what your working hours are in their time. Make it easy for them to remember by including your time zone, working hours, or integrate a tool like Calendly into your email signature.
5. Answer emails and messages in your true working hours in a timely manner
Clients are money, you should answer their emails. To keep up the consistency of your working hours that are different than theirs, always answer within your working hours. That way if they see an email come through at 11:00 pm their time every time, they are reminded that you are in a different time zone, but you still care and will answer them within your working hours. This makes you more reliable.
Overview:
1. Meet your client where they are and establish preferred communication channels
2. Schedule check-ins with your client
3. Have a time zone convertor on your laptop or phone
4. Communicate working hours and availability
5. Answer emails and messages in your true working hours in a timely manner
