I bet you’ve got a client handbook of some sort that you give to all new clients. It might be fancy or it might just be a page or two of basic firm information. You likely provide instructions for calling and emailing you. You probably indicate how bills will be sent and how you expect to be paid. Maybe you provide information on how quickly you’ll call or email back to the client.

Make Some Promises

Step 1 – Spend a few minutes looking at the booklet and determine what expectations you’re setting. What sort of promises are you making? Go ahead and make a list.

Then start thinking about other promises you could make in the handbook that you haven’t yet made.

Here are some ideas for promises –

We’ll call you back in 2 hours.
I’ll call you personally if I can, otherwise you’ll be called by my paralegal.
When you need a meeting, I’ll make sure it happens within 72 hours.
When you send an email, I’ll respond within 4 hours.
When you ask for a copy of a document, we’ll email it to you within 24 hours.

Make Them Real

Step 2 – Now that you have a list, it’s time to get serious about managing expectations. Go ahead and make the promises realistic. If you can’t call back in 2 hours then change it to something you can do. Once you’ve got something you can really manage, go ahead and give yourself even more room for error. For instance, if you’re going to promise to return calls in 2 hours, change it to 4 hours or 8 hours or even more. Set it way beyond what you know you will actually do.

You’ve just set expectations that are easily reached. In fact, you’ve left yourself plenty of room for error. That’s terrific and if you deliver on those expectations your going to have satisfied clients. That’s good, but not great.

Blow Those Promises Away

Step 3 – This is where you take it up a notch. This is where to you go from good to great. We just set very low expectations, right? You can more than meet them. So don’t meet them – beat them. Return the calls much faster than the client expects. Do everything you promised even faster and better than you promised. The key here is not to suddenly do more for every client. The key is to lower the expectations so you can be sure to beat them. That will cause a client to rave about your wonderful service.

Take these three steps and you’re clients will be telling their friends and family members how great you are. Setting expectations and then beating them makes clients happy every time.