Client liaison is a crucial aspect of any web project. For small sites it’s a case of getting an accurate brief, getting concepts approved and signed off, and then the never ending task of chasing the client for content. For bigger projects, especially when there’s a lot of functionality involved, the level of interaction with the client increases exponentially. So important is this task that most teams have a dedicated Account or sometimes Project Manager to handle the task. Fail to listen to the client properly, and, well, fail.

As important as it is to be in regular communication with the client, doing so is also incredibly expensive. Although the project may be number one priority for you and your team, it may be way down on the client’s list – they could be dealing with any number of other projects as well as trying to run their business. Each time you go back for clarification or approval, it might take time to get a response and delay development.

A lot of this can be alleviated by good project management. If every interaction costs the project, then it’s logical to reduce the number of interactions, perhaps attempting to tackle a whole bunch of issues at once rather than flipping back and forth piecemeal. Carefully crafting specification documents at the start of the project is one way to achieve this – possibly the primary method of doing so.

However, I believe there is one skill that should be prized above pretty much all others in the person performing your client liaison. It may sound simple, but it’s this:- having enough knowledge of the practical side of the project to know what information they must extract from the client. (Is that all?!) Take a fictitious example.

We’re halfway through a project and we realise there’s a chunk of content missing – the client need to be contacted to get the content. Here’s how the process goes for Account Manager A:

1. Developers request AM gets content from client
2. AM phones client and asks for the same; client responds that they have something like that already, and they’ll send it through.
3. Client faxes through a page from an old brochure that has some fairly wordy, out-of-context content along the right sort of lines
4. AM hands the fax to development
5. Development read through it, decide that it’s too wordy and out of context, and errr, it’s fax!
6. AM goes back to client and the whole process starts again.

Now, here’s how Account Manager B (with added clue) goes about it.

1. Developers request AM gets content from client
2. AM phones client and asks for the same; client responds that they have something like that already, and they’ll send it through.
3. AM asks where the content was used, and what form it’s in, suggesting that it may need to be reworked a little bit to fit in with the overall tone of the web site. AM suggests client takes some time to look it over and suggests client emails the content through the next morning.
4. Client emails content through the next morning. AM proof-reads and then forwards it on to development.
5. Development copy & paste the content into the site.

OK, so this sounds pretty obvious, right? Surely no one would hire someone to perform a client liaison job if they didn’t have the amount of clue demonstrated by Account Manager B, right? Well, you’d be surprised. I’ve worked with plenty of them, and it’s amazing what an impact bad client liaison can have on the budget, time scales, team morale and most importantly client satisfaction for any project.