Dealing with Customers
Regardless of the type of trade business you operate, building and maintaining positive relationships with customers is key to your business being successful and securing future work.
Getting stuck in to a new job as quickly as possible and maximising the productivity of your team is important, but getting the customer relationship off to a good start and having the right paperwork in place is just as critical. After all, if the project isn't scoped and agreed up front, you are likely to make a mistake, do the job twice, or worst case, end up with a dispute you don’t have time to address.
We often get asked about the key aspects of the customer relationship that need nailing down before work gets underway. What should trade businesses do along the way to make sure their customer relationships begin and end well, and ideally continue?
Key customer relationship tips:
- Complete customer due diligence – who is the customer, what do they want, when do they want it, can you provide it, can they pay for it?
- Get your terms of trade documented – let the customer know what terms apply to your relationship with them. This will make it clear what they can expect from you, and what you need from them. See our helpful fact sheet on getting Terms of Trade right.
- Know your responsibilities with the law - see our helpful fact sheet on the Fair Trading Act and Consumer Guarantees Act as an example.
- Invoice promptly.
- Have a clear, documented process for following up payment, and execute it every time.
- When things don’t go to plan for whatever reason, don’t hold off getting legal advice. Easy resolution will avoid further time, expense and dealing with an issue that is stopping you from moving forward with other projects .
We have the legal detail for your customer relationships covered, from terms of trade to chasing up unpaid invoices.
Our Dealing with Customers Fact Sheets provide a great starting point for any business looking to ensure they have the right legal documents and processes in place when dealing with customers.
For further advice contact us at Tradie Law to discuss your issue and how we can best help you.