When working with your clients, don’t waste your time wondering what they need – you already know. After all, working with your clients doesn’t have to be difficult if you are able to anticipate what they need from the outset. Anticipating your clients’ needs goes a long way in ensuring happy and repeat clients, since everyone appreciates knowing their wants and needs are being listened to, respected, and acted upon.
How can you anticipate needs you don’t yet know exist, and what does that mean in terms of serving your clients? You know you always receive certain types of projects, typically because you specialize in a certain area of translation or interpretation work. You can anticipate you will receive this type of work because these are the projects you are best suited for, most familiar with, and most comfortable completing.
What about serving clients? Your clients – both future and existing – will appreciate visiting your website and finding frequently asked questions with answers that speak to their most common questions and concerns, provide useful answers to real needs, and help them make informed decisions about translation or interpretation services without bias.
Most clients will have little to no experience with language services. They may not even know what questions to ask. By providing both general and specific information on the services you provide and by offering specific examples of the ways your services can meet your clients’ needs, you become a truly valuable resource instead of just a marketing statement.
To put these ideas into more concrete terms, let’s look at some examples:
| If You Specialize In: | Anticipate Your Clients’ Needs: |
| Legal Translation/Interpretation | Write on the latest legal news, how interpretation services impacted a recent case, or the ways in which language services in your language combination benefit firms and clients in your area |
| Medical Translation/Interpretation | Write about how health care providers can best work with interpreters, tips for patients needing interpretation services, or recommendations for drug manufacturers interested in marketing overseas |
| Advertising/Transcreation | Write about transcreation, the purpose and process, and provide recommendations for advertising agencies and marketing companies to keep in mind when considering adaptation into other languages |
Although these are only a few examples, they give an idea of the ways in which your business and those you serve benefit when you anticipate your clients’ needs. FAQ pages and genuinely helpful blog articles form the basis of a transparent business model and serve as a resource for clients in need of language services. Clients are able to learn why language services are important and how they personally benefit, based on their industry.
Do you have thoughts on marketing to clients by anticipating their needs? We’d love to read your thoughts in the comments.
