Call your clients

The best piece of advice I ever received about repairing a troubled relationship came from my brother, a man of few words who calls things like they are. As I analyzed and plotted my strategy to conquer the situation like a game of Risk, he stopped me cold in my tracks and said, "Katie, it's not that complicated. Just call them once a week." I had never considered that the solution to such a complicated problem could be that simple.

Client relationships aren't much different than personal ones in that they require routine, but substantial contact. And in most cases, email doesn't cut it. Never underestimate the power of picking up the phone to deliver news--even if it's something relatively insignificant that could be communicated easily by email. If you don't create space and time for a relationship to occur, then it won't. This rule isn't a complicated one, but there is no exception to it.

As a project manager balancing dozens of tasks at once, the less time I spend on the phone, the more efficient I can be. The temptation to go into inbox inertia is strong, especially as the pace of my schedule increases. But being productive is just part of my role. My most important responsibility is tending to the client relationship--an unending task that will never be crossed off my to do list.

Recently, I read an article by Scott McDowell that compared the difference between face-to-face vs. digital emotions. They referenced a study by Daniel Golemen, the "godfather of emotional intelligence," which explained that we interpret email with a negative bias at a neural level. In a conversation, it's generally the opposite since we have emotional cues to draw from in tone of speech, facial expressions, etc. To sum it up, in the absence of emotion, we assume negative emotion.

"Technology creates a vaccum that we humans fill with negative emotions by default, and digital emotions can escalate quickly (see: flame wars). The barrage of email can certainly fan the flames. In an effort to be productive and succinct, our communication may be perceived as clipped, sarcastic, or rude. Imagine the reprecussions for creative collaboration"

-Excerpt from Email Etiqutte II: Why Emoticons (And Emotional Cues) Work, by Scott McDowell via the99percent.com

The point of McDowell's article is that you are operating at an automatic emotional debt when it comes to email, and you have to do a lot to overcompensate for this. Yes, that means you can officially stop worrying about using those smiley emoticon and animated gifs leaving a bad impression. Turns out you're far more likely to rub someone the wrong way with an email that shows no emotion at all.

I'm not saying I've mastered the art of client communications by any means. It's a discipline that requires continual effort, and there plenty of days when I choose the path of least resistance. But when the pace picks up and I begin to fixate on conquering a task list rather than fostering a client relationship, I try to remind myself that the further removed my communications are from a real conversation, the less control I have over how that message is perceived. I cede control in building that relationship, and it's the relationship that motivates me to come into work each day, not achieving inbox zero.