We are continuing our series on a topic that is especially important this year: making yourself irreplaceable. How are you going to do that?

So we are discussing four main topics to think about:

1 Relationship King
2 Service Superstar
3 Industry Ally
4 Valuable Partner

NUMBER TWO: Service Superstar

If your clients don’t get their information in a timely manner or you treat them like anyone else, how will you #beirreplaceable to them? We all like to feel special and heard. So what are you doing to make sure you can respond in a seemingly unique and thorough way? There are many ways to up your service to clients, but we want to talk about one of the most important ways here: timely and special communication.

Let’s talk about making your clients feel special. Email communication is easy and fast, but does it make your clients feel like one of a kind? One of the great ways to stay on top of things like estimates, schedules, proposals, green reporting, user names and passwords, etc., is to make templates of these items that you can customize on the fly. We have about 30 different forms that we use to respond back to the client in a much more memorable way than just shooting them an email. Make PDFs with some of your branding, and areas for theirs that they can save, print out and generally feel good about. The great thing about these artifacts is after you create them, you have records of the information as well.

A another crucial piece to the service puzzle is making your communication with clients faster. Don’t make them wait a week for something that in their minds should only take a day or two. To do this, you need to figure out a system of tasks, schedules and job tracking that will help. Now there are a million options out there, but DS recommends the products from 37signals. They are not free, but they do have great functionality, some good pricing options, and continual upgrading. We have seen many large and small companies utilize Basecamp, a project management and collaboration tool, and Highrise, a great CRM. Both are great options. For more details on 37signals’ full suite of options, click here. (We will write soon as well about all the great options from Google, but that is a whole post in itself).

Whatever your method is of tracking and staying on top of work, our point is do it in a way that will help you save time, keep up to speed, and respond quickly to your clients. Don’t give anyone an edge on a relationship that you have worked hard at developing. We hear from people all the time about clients who accuse creatives of not being able to manage jobs efficiently. Don’t fit into that category, and take some time to tweak your service so you can be a superstar.

How are you irreplaceable with your service?

Keeping up with design can be hard because its continuing evolution can quickly pass right by us. Ten years ago, Rule29 was not designing web sites regularly, nor did we know what social media was. In fact, we were just getting the hang of Adobe Photoshop 4.0 and Mac OS 9. Today, we are well versed in web design and constantly experimenting with social media even though we never saw that coming. Our industry evolves rapidly, and if you blink too long it’s easy to miss interesting innovations, trends and changes. As a sober designer in our or any other industry, it is important to keep up on the latest and greatest so your business can innovate and grow along with it. Here are a couple of ideas that may help you stay on top of things:

1 - Put Employees In Charge

Most designers, and I am sure this is true in other professions, really love certain aspects of their job. For example, if someone on your team really enjoys learning the latest software features in Adobe CS4 and cannot wait to upgrade… then charge him or her with sharing their new tips and tricks with the team. By giving ownership in playing around and uncovering the new bells & whistles - and presenting them to the team - you empower your employees and help educate everyone. Do this for every software upgrade! By giving each employee time to research, learn, and share the things they are passionate about, your team and business will grow.

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