The Blog

What To Do When Your Clients Are Very Satisfied

Posted on 09/30/09 in blog, business about business

There are plenty of articles about angry clients. But what do you do when you’ve finished a project and your clients are very very happy? Part your merry little ways? Absolutely not! After a project has been completed and you’ve heard the client tell you “You’re awesome! This is great!” Take advantage of that and help yourself secure some future work.

Ask for a testimonial

Don’t be shy. A lot of potential clients will base their decision on whether to hire you or not based on your testimonials, so take every chance you get to ask politely for one. If they refuse, thank them anyways and move on. But if you did such a great job, there should be no refusal right?

Ask for referrals

Same thing as above, but give them an incentive. “If you enjoyed working with me, please keep me in mind if you hear of anyone else needing work, and I’ll give you a 10% referral fee for every paying client you send.” Happy clients will love talking about their great new website, and therefor will be happy to tell everyone about their great web developer. Amp it up with a referral fee and they’ll be sending people your way.

Give a “coupon”

Happy clients are easy clients (normally), so why lose their business just because a site has been launched? Give them a “coupon”, 10% off their next project, $10 off the hourly rate or whatever suits you better. They’ll feel good knowing you appreciate their business and they won’t think twice about coming back for updates.

Don’t forget them on holidays

Send them a small client present or even a nicely designed card on the holidays. Not only will they think you’re stellar for remembering them, this will also remind them you’re still alive – which can lead to some nice updates or more referrals.

Update your portfolio

If that newly launched project is awesome, put it in your portfolio. It’s good to keep it updated, and knowing that your client is super happy, if a potential client asks how it was to work with you, you know they’ll give you a great review.

Give them some publicity freebies

I do this with all my happy clients and great launches – I’ll tweet the launch; I’ll update my portfolio; I’ll post it on my blog; change my facebook & Linkedin status – and if I’m really happy with the turnout, I’ll spend an hour or two submitting the site to CSS galleries. Why? Not only does it give your happy clients a big starter boost of traffic (making them even more happy and you look more awesome) it also makes you look good. While I wouldn’t tweet/brag 100 times in one day, it gives you a few minutes of limelight; and can actually boost your own traffic and your profile. If potential clients look you up, what do you think it looks like when they see your work all over the internet, when they see you talk about happy clients and great launches? Good idea, isn’t it?

Let me know some of the things you do for your happy clients.

About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?

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