When Tiger Bitanga
founded The Design
People Inc. in 1999, the
CEO assumed he would be
providing Web site and Internet
marketing services to clients.
What he didn’t anticipate was
how much of his perspective
he would share with clients in
the process.
“Especially when it comes to
new technology, clients come
in with really unrealistic expectations,” he says. “I used to get
clients that walked in and said,
‘I want to compete with eBay,
and I’ve got a $10,000 budget.’”
Bitanga says managing such
client expectations requires
patience and diligent listening.
By identifying the goals of
clients and then working backward to achieve them, he’s
grown his firm to 170 people.
Smart Business listened as
Bitanga talked about how to
become a better communicator
by keeping your clients’ successes in mind.
Q. What are the keys to effective communication?
Even though you’ve heard the
same thing a thousand times,
you still have to remember to
listen and to look for those little bits of information that are
going to make this client different from previous ones or the
next one. Once clients get a
sense that you’re being honest
and open, then suddenly, you
just begin this whole collaborative process.
It’s suddenly not about the
sale anymore. It’s about just
being an authority and an
expert, and them looking to
you to provide that great
advice. At that point, it’s just so
much easier to get that client.
Q. How do you show clients you’re listening to them?
We do surveys all the time. A
survey goes out to the client saying, ‘How was your experience?’
It’s a very quick thing that rates
a number of areas 1 to 5. From
there, after we launch the Web
site and also when they call for
support, we send out surveys.
It’s via e-mail. Then we also let
them know that this is part of
the process before they launch.
That way, we actually get a good
90 percent of our clients
who respond. Those one
out of 10 clients who
don’t respond, managers
call them up.
