Asking Clients to wait? Bad Idea

In today’s world, we expect the things we want pretty much immediately, your clients are no different. When a client comes to you and requests your services, they are not expecting to have to wait a few months before you have the time. You’re busy, they’re busy, we are all busy. However, you need to think carefully before telling a client to wait a few weeks or months for your IT project delivery team to be available. Here’s why: 

Negative Consequences

While your customers may be okay waiting for your services initially, there is a lot of room for error in the meantime. The main issue you are likely to run into is them being forced into a search for alternative service providers. This may happen as soon as you provide them with a time-frame or a few weeks/months down the line when they realise they need the services ASAP. Or, if they are patient and wait until your company can allocate the time, this delay may deter them from returning to use your services for other projects. 

Another issue you may run into is a lack of new clients via referral. If a large part of your client acquisition comes through referrals and reviews, the client wait time may become an issue. For example, in a review or referral, it’s doubtful they will fail to mention the wait time no matter how excellent your service is. All of the above negative consequences will result in your company being unable to expand efficiently. 

Possible Positives 

While the above negatives should be taken into consideration, there are also some positives that may arise from keeping clients waiting. Long wait times for services suggests that the company is seeing success and is heavily sought after. Additionally, the fluidity that comes from an even work schedule will also help smooth out cash flow and profitability. 

Your Options

Each company is different and you need to decide whether or not the positives of keeping clients waiting will outweigh the negatives and vice versa. However, going forward there are a few things you can do to ease or avoid these situations in the first place. 

Tell the truth:

Firstly, you have to be transparent with your clients. If the IT project delivery has to wait because you do not have the bandwidth to allocate the necessary time to their project, give them a realistic idea of when you will down the line. That way, they can make an informed decision as to whether or not they proceed with your services. 

If your resource commitments change, you can always bring their project forward. Far better than telling your client a project commencement date that is really soon and then continue to push it back. That will really upset them.

Plan for Growth:

Alternatively, you can be preemptive when you see the demand for your service increasing and begin recruiting more staff. With a larger number of employees, you will be able to increase your ability to take on new clients without losing out on profitability. If staff acquisition isn’t something you want to do, there is always the option of outsourcing the work. This can be done through freelancers or companies such as ourselves. As specialist white-label providers to MSPs we provide IT project delivery services that means you don’t have to tell them to wait. Which in turn, allows for you to continue expanding your customer base while still providing your clients with the time allocation they need for their projects. 

It is also important that you are making sure that the clients and projects you are working on are still profitable. If you have any questions about client profitability and how to better account for this, read this.