Managing Client Expectations During Rapid Changes

Over the past 20 years in market research, many project issues I've seen stem from mismanaging client expectations. Whether you work for a research firm, an agency, a consultancy, or any other business that involves regular client discussions, here are 4 pointers. 1️⃣ Communication—Regularly communicate, candidly ask the client how often they want updates, and never let a week go by without touching base, regardless of the project stage. Anticipate questions and answer them before they ask. A client sending an email asking, "What's the status of...?" is a failure on your end - within reason. Lack of responsiveness leads to mistrust, even more micromanagement, skepticism, and other issues that can be snuffed out by communicating openly. 2️⃣ Be Realistic—We all want to say "yes" to clients, but there are often ways to showcase your experience and expertise by being honest about what can be achieved with a given timeline and budget. The expectation could be a lack of understanding about the process or industry norms. Underpromise and overdeliver versus overpromise and underdeliver. Those honest conversations may appear inflexible, but they're often more about setting expectations and setting up both parties for long-term sustainable success. Saying "no" to this project could be a better long-term decision for the account than saying "yes" and failing with no second chance. 3️⃣ Understand Perspective—Take the time to actively listen to your client's needs, goals, and priorities. It goes beyond listening and includes asking smart (and sometimes bolder) questions to get a complete understanding. What drove the need for research? Why is receiving results within 2 weeks crucial? What happens if you don't receive results in 2 weeks? Understanding what's pushing the decisions behind the scenes can be a game changer. 4️⃣ Solutions Over Problems—Never present a problem or an issue to a client without a path forward. "This happened, but here are 3 things we can do to fix it." You need to be more than someone who relays information, you need to be a true consultant. Be able to justify each recommendation and explain the pros and cons of each path. -------------------------------------- Need MR advice? Message me. 📩 Visit @Drive Research 💻  1400+ articles to help you. ✏️ --------------------------------------

Address it quickly I've been in client services for 17 years. One thing is abundantly clear. There will be a moment of breakdown. Every relationship goes through a honeymoon phase. This could be a day, a week, or a few months, but at a certain point, communication breaks down. Expectations are not met, and there needs to be a hard conversation. Even the absolutely best clients and absolutely best vendor partners will experience this. Here's you're options for how to handle this. 1. Ignore it. .....and assume it'll get better over time. This usually leads to less communication because you're avoiding it, which usually leads to even more unmet expectations, which ultimately leads to it getting personal, and then narratives being created that it was on purpose and that there is yet again another reason to never trust anyone ever again. 2. Force the hand. ....and make sure that communication can't be missed, because your anger is clear. A spiteful message, a sharp passive-aggressive comment makes it clear that you're unhappy and that it's the fault of the quietest person in the room. Congratulations, you've now reclaimed your dominance and control. You have value. You're respected and everything will run smoothly now....... 😒😒😒😒 3. Address the reality .... This looks like an honest, uncomfortable, volunerable, conversation. It requires 2-way ownership. The conversations should be with a total assumption that everyone initially had the best of intent. Followed by a very frank and objective conversation about the realities of the moment as well as what might have led to the moment. This conversation requires a calm, patient, and grace-filled space. It doesn't mean that there might not be some heat in the room. Ultimately the goal is to end with extremely clear, ideally documented, commitments of change, and follow-ups to check back in. MOST OFTEN... These include: - A better frequency of communication. - A better form of communication. - Better visibility to progress. - A clear commitment to availability and focus. - A more clear shared understanding of the result. Whether this is your in-house team or a vendor partner. This is 100% the root cause of every ineffective team we've ever experienced. Here's the challenge. I bet many of you, if you read through this long post, your imagining the person, team, or partner yo that you need to have this moment with. Why don't you send the message right now? "Hey, can we find some time to bring the team together this next week and talk about how we can work better together?" People hire Crema to explore, design, development solutions that change their organizations, but what they experience is a partner willing to send that message. No ego, just results.

One of the trickiest parts of growing an agency? Managing client expectations without burning bridges. Early on, I thought being a "good partner" meant always saying yes. But here’s what I’ve learned: saying yes to unrealistic timelines or promises doesn't build trust. It builds resentment on both sides. Now I approach it differently: → Set clear expectations upfront → Explain the "why" behind timelines (strategy > speed) → Show how doing it right once beats doing it rushed three times → Always over-communicate progress, even if it’s just a small update Most founders respect honesty. What they hate is feeling left in the dark. You don’t lose respect by pushing back; you lose it by overpromising and underdelivering. The earlier you set the tone, the easier everything else gets.

Transparency and vulnerability are critical in business. But they’re also deeply challenging. We recently faced a tough situation when a major client exited during onboarding. A $35K/month client gone because expectations weren’t fully aligned. Here’s what I learned: 1. Compressed timelines and misaligned resources create turbulence. 2. Clear, consistent communication is critical between the client and your entire team. 3. Mistakes are inevitable but ignoring them compounds the loss. Instead of hiding behind the failure, we owned it. We examined the gaps—compressed onboarding schedules, insufficient communication, and unclear expectations. Then, we acted. → We revamped our onboarding processes. → We added resources to better manage fast-turn implementations. → We enhanced checkpoints to ensure expectations stay aligned from start to finish. Failure isn’t the end if you’re willing to learn and adapt. This experience didn’t just test us, it propelled us forward. We’ve turned lessons into processes that make us a better partner. Growth doesn’t come without turbulence.