The Power of Empathy and Dealing with Clients
Whether it is by choice or by circumstance, part of being a successful graphic designer is having to work for a number of clients. As graphic designers we can have our own projects, but for the mort par, a typical graphic designer job is work for a client. That being said, clients come from different backgrounds and vary greatly, so it can be rather challenging at times, which is why empathy is a very important characteristic to have.
Empathy was mentioned time and time again during the past few weeks (you can read my previous posts here), and this week’s lecture it accented it even more. Empathy is the ability to get ‘into someone’s else’s shoes’ and being able to understand better the situation from their perspective. Though empathy, we can gain insight and build relationships with our clients and in return it would be easier get into the right creative direction. In the second part of this week’s lecture, Hamish Makgill mentioned this time and time again. In the interview he explained how he started off his own studio back in the 90s, and that unfortunately, he got to learn the ins and outs of the business true trial and error, which in turn he mentioned empathy and how it helps a lot with clients.
Similarly, in his presentation aptly titled ‘The Client is Not Your Enemy’, designer and businessman Chris Do, brings up empathy during his presentation at the 2015 Wordcamp Los Angeles. He says that through empathy, we can understand better our clients as well as gives us space to set expectations to the clients. In many situations, clients think that the solution to their problem should be something similar to what their competitor has, or they want a copy of some logo they see off Pinterest, however most likely it is not the case. To achieve this, Do states that we need to define a specific goal, and in order to do that, we need to ask clients questions and listen to the client. If there is a problem that needs solving, first identify the problem, then see were you and your services fit in the equation.
We live in a time where the design business is quite competitive plus with technology, there are a lot of design tools free to the public where they can easily make use of without any design consultancy. Therefore, is it even more important that we build a good reputations and good client relationships. After all, it is them who provide the volume of work.
