What makes a good client?

Episode Transcript

Moderator/Michael:  Welcome to an episode of the UX Roundtable, where we glean insights and stories from the UpTop Health UX design team. Today’s topic is what makes a good client. And Abbey, how about you start?

Abbey: Sure. I think there’s about five different things that make a really great client or an ideal client. Responsiveness and communication, I think, is definitely up there, being active participants in any meetings or workshops that we do together is really helpful. Openness, I think that’s probably number one for me is if the client is open to new things, trying different experiences within meetings, it can open up a whole different world of possibilities. Like most times, sometimes even beyond what you are kind of wanting out of your time together, which is an awesome opportunity. And then trust and honesty, trusting us that we know what we’re doing, even though it might seem a little weird at the time. And honesty is telling us when something’s not meeting our expectations or when some things need to be changed around.

Moderator/Michael:  Thank you. Deborah, what about you?

Deborah: Well, absolutely, everything that Abbey just said. I think something I’ve noticed is transparency and communication are just so important to the process. Especially working with large companies, oftentimes there can be communication gaps or silos kind of between the different departments or teams, and there could even be competing agendas. And something I think that our team is really great at doing is kind of bringing everyone together and helping them to align around a common goal. And so just having some insight into that going into the start of a workshop or starting working together can be really helpful, so that way we make sure we have everyone who’s involved in or important to this particular project at the table, and it also just an openness to the process like Abbey was saying. I think being open to UX practices and the research, having that data then to take back to your other partners at the company or other stakeholders can be so impactful.

Moderator/Michael:  Yeah. Thank you. And just to hit on some of the same themes that both of you guys have discussed, I think that clients that trust us in the design process, but to be clear, I’m not saying having blind trust. I firmly believe that collaboration, including the push and pull between client and agency is very healthy and produces better results. Oftentimes, I see a lot of the best ideas actually coming from the clients themselves. And secondly, clients that ask good questions along the way, not only to get clarity on the process itself, but also to keep us honest in how we help navigate them through the design process. It’s important that we bring them along with just the right amount of attention, care, and education needed, because all clients are different.

Last but not least, client support. It’s not always easy for clients to adapt to our speedier processes as part of a agency, or even hunt down documentation or requirements every time we ask for them. It’s also not easy being accessible whenever we have questions. Last but not least, being able to write up summaries with clear action items after meetings. These aren’t easy things, and we understand that, but clients that can pull all these things together to help support us are absolutely rock stars. But when they can’t do all of these things, we do our best to empathize with them because we know that every organization is different, and they all face many challenges. So thank you all for sharing today, and see you next time.