Making an effort to meet your clients in person is undeniably the most valuable and effective way to communicate with them. In-person meetings offer more benefits than you would get with emails, phones, Skype, and other forms of virtual meetings. The experts at Quest Workspaces explain why you should schedule in-person client meetings more often amid the changing priorities and emerging disruptive technology.
Benefits of In-Person Client Meetings
Crucial Body Language
Studies reveal 70 to 93% of all communication is nonverbal. This means that most communication is not conveyed via words but rather by reading minor signs of a person's body language, facial expression, and gestures. The opportunity to read your clients is invaluable as it helps you gain more information than you would with a phone call or email communication. For example, if you can spot reservations in a client's body language about a proposal, you can promptly reassure them or suggest an alternative option.
Deepens Customer Loyalty
As a busy professional, in-person meetings mean juggling your schedule to find time to meet your clients. Most clients appreciate these endeavors as it shows you value them. By making an effort to arrange a meeting in a meeting room, you make a solid favorable impression that can enhance your business relationship and deepen customer loyalty.
Fewer interruptions
Any lag in connection during virtual meetings makes it challenging to take turns without interrupting the other person. Although some video-conferencing platforms now include a "raise hand" feature to help participants signal they want to interject, the other party can easily miss these notifications. At in-person meetings, conversations flow more naturally. Participants can subconsciously use body language as a social cue to indicate they are about to start or finish talking.
Besides, in audio-only virtual meetings, participants are usually tempted to engage in other activities like browsing their social media platforms or text messages to pass the time during a virtual session. Face-to-face meetings eliminate this temptation.
Help Gain Excellent Rapport
When people hold real meetings, communication usually becomes a lot more informal. Apart from easing tension, in-person meetings make your clients open up to off-the-record conversations that make you privy to some crucial information that you would have missed with the other forms of communication. Like reading body language, observing your client's surroundings helps you gain deeper insights regarding client mindset.
Face-to-face meetings also help your clients have a better impression of your personality. In any business setting, the first impression sets the tone for a robust business relationship, and an in-person meeting provides the strongest first impression. It is quite hard to make an impactful first impression with virtual and other electronic communications.
Develop Transparency and Trust
Gaining trust from your prospective and existing clients is crucial for building solid business relationships. Studies reveal that transparency and trust can be achieved more quickly and effectively through face-to-face communication than through electronic communication. It is also easier to influence people during a one-on-one interaction than when you are communicating virtually. If you need to influence a client over a crucial matter, meeting them in person is undeniably the most effective way to go about it.
More Focused and Productive Communication
Organized and structured face-to-face meetings are a lot more productive than phone calls, video conferencing, or email communications. Research shows an in-person meeting generates roughly 13.36 ideas as compared to virtual meetings that generate 10.43 ideas. Face-to-face meetings also enable us to be more precise with our objectives and develop ideas that lead to more opportunities for business. Besides, the takeaway notes from face-to-face meetings are clearer than when hosting a meeting online. Although virtual meetings are more convenient, they make it more challenging to have in-depth communications.
Optimize Your Face to Face Meetings with Space Solutions from Quest Workspaces
Over the past year, technology has evolved rapidly to accommodate virtual meetings of all kinds. However, even in the current digital world, it is impossible to do all your business communications over an electronic medium. At Quest Workspaces, we understand the need for in-person meetings still ranks high as the most preferred way to communicate more effectively with clients. We provide ideal locations near you, so you can conduct your in-person client meetings with ease.
Our co-working/flexible shared spaces are designed with in-person meetings in mind, so you can attend to your clients in-person and in real-time whether you are attempting to close a big deal, obtain a grant, or sign a new client.
Contact us today to learn more.
