Juggling clients across different time zones can be a dance of diplomacy and timing. To ensure everyone feels heard, consider these strategies:
- Set clear response time expectations. Inform clients when they can expect a reply to foster understanding.
- Use scheduling tools to send messages during their business hours, maintaining the illusion of presence.
- Implement a rotating on-call system within your team for urgent queries outside normal work hours.
How do you handle the challenge of instant communication with international clients? Share your strategies.
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It highly depends on the type of the business and provided services. For example, technical support has this level of urgency where clients need an immediate answer (in this case a more extensive availability coverage should be guaranteed + high quality self service through knowledge resources). However, most of other businesses should not strive to provide an instant response while setting an expectation to receive an answer during 24 to 48 hours is more than sufficient. If these are long term clients with whom you have regular communication - the secret is to have more productive communication. Write well structured detailed emails, record videos, use async tools, share documentation and FAQs.
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