How to talk to your clients about technical terms & decisions

Clients. Just like the latest beta version of your favourite software, they’re unpredictable, buggy, and often in need of a stable release. But you love them anyway. (Mostly).

We get so many designers, developers and SEOs talking to us about how working with clients is the hardest part of their job that we’ve covered it a couple of times before (see 19 must-read articles for dealing with difficult clients and How to avoid killing your clients), but we always get more requests.

This article focuses on preparing for explanatory conversations, how to help your clients understand, and how to keep a grasp on your own sanity (or what’s left of it!). So grab your caffeinated beverage of choice, and get ready to feel like you’re not alone…

Why explain things to clients?

Many web professionals are of the opinion that ‘less is more’ when it comes to explaining your decisions and technical aspects of your services. Indeed, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

This is particularly true if your client assumes you’ll work just like the last person he or she hired (and yes, there will always be a ‘last person’!), using exactly the same tools, workflow, hosting, software, hardware, etc. Adjusting to working with someone new always results in a bit of a learning curve on both sides.

However, there are advantages to explaining things to your clients (most of them, anyway – we’ll leave you to be the judge of who and when…!), so here’s our quick list of words to live by:

The golden rules

1. Keep it simple

This sounds obvious, but it’s always hard to pull off when you’re working with a lot of new and complex technologies, systems, platforms and hardware that all interact. But for a lot of clients you should be able to remove a lot of it from the equation…depending on what your business is and how you work of course. This rule should be used in conjunction with #2…

2. Only tell them what they need to know

It’s easy to get sidetracked and distracted within your explanations. If you ever use the phrases, “But you don’t need to know about that”, or “But that’s not relevant right now”, then you’re over-explaining. To avoid this, follow rule #3…

3. Prepare in advance

If you’ve been in the industry a while, you can probably explain everything in your sleep. But it still helps to have both visual and written explanations and analogies for common concepts, especially if your client is coming to it with zero prior knowledge.

Starting with the right balance

Knowledge varies an incredible amount, even within the same role. Add that to the fact that people will often exaggerate how little/much they know, and it’s quite difficult to assess what you’re dealing with. Instead of launching with explanations or options, simply start by asking your client how much they know about something before you start talking about it. It sounds really obvious, but it’s often overlooked by pros eager to get started, and it helps you pitch at the perfect level. A couple of subtle follow-up questions will tell you just how much they know and what their approach is (e.g. whether they find technology terrifying, complicated, or are outsourcing because they don’t have the time).

Making an effort to find the right level at the beginning will save you time, but more importantly it’ll earn you instant respect with those clients who genuinely are more technically aware. There’s nothing worse than sitting on the phone or in a meeting with someone who’s explaining things to you you’ve known for years at such a rate that you can’t get a word in edgeways to tell them that you’re already familiar with that. It also has the added benefit of showing you go that extra mile to offer an individual service to each of your clients and that you’re interested in them personally.

Questions to ask:

“Are you familiar with…?”
“Have you ever used…?”
“Do you have a particular preference of…?”

The explanation part

When you were a kid, chances are your parents answered your endless questions of “Why?” with “Because.” at least once.

Why? Because you’re more likely to react by trying to make the other person feel how you do – frustrated. This is an all too common outcome with clients, particularly if you find dealing with non-technical people a challenge. The good news is, that with a bit of patience (and maybe a drink or two), you can nip this cycle in the bud.

The trick is to provide a helpful explanation that doesn’t involve arguing or going round in circles. If it feels unproductive, take a step back and reschedule to give yourself some breathing space and time to come up with a different approach or additional helpful materials.

Developing analogies

For larger concepts, explaining using real-world analogies can really help. For example, a lot of people confuse web hosting and websites. You could explain the difference between the two by saying that web hosting is like a plot of land, and the website is like the building on it (bonus points if you can relate your analogies to their particular line of business).

Only explain what you need to or it ends up being an ‘alien dictionary’ situation where you end up explaining term after term as one definition results in more terms needing to be defined…until you feel like you’ve explained the whole internet and the client is still looking puzzled. Start with a minimal explanation and only explain further if you really need to.

Outlining potential scenarios

The following is an example I was sent recently by one of our sysadmin team when I asked them how severe a potential software vulnerability was:

This approach works really well as it avoids technical jargon altogether and only tells me what I’m interested in: the potential outcomes. Creating scenarios focusing on likely results makes it a lot easier to explain your decisions to your clients without baffling them or having them think you’re being deliberately evasive.

Furthermore, they proved that they knew their audience…

Advance planning

If explaining technical terms and decisions isn’t your forte, or you’re more of a visual person, advance planning is the best thing you can do. It works both ways as well – some clients prefer a visual or written approach, whilst others will process information better verbally. It’s always good to have information to reference though, which is where your prepared materials come in.

For key/common terms and questions:

Make sure you have a good explanation and analogy ready and practised, rather than tripping over yourself or realising it doesn’t quite work halfway through.
Create your own visuals for situations where it makes more sense to have diagrams as explanations, for example ‘the cloud’, different types of web hosting, the relationships between websites, etc.
Have written explanations of common terms (try to keep them to a sentence or two each, and half a page at most).
Create your own notes on analogies, scenarios, and similar that you can refer back to and use in calls and emails.
Prepare well in advance for likely scenarios. Clients will always bring something you haven’t expected to the table, but equally there are things you can plan for.
Develop a Q&A list over time of the most common questions and pitfalls (e.g. a lot of people don’t understand the difference between a domain name and web hosting).

Having your own materials is a great opportunity for branding and self-promotion, especially when combined other forms of content. You could supply your diagrams and explanations in PDF form, or use them to create a series of beginner’s guide blog entries, for example.

Set boundaries

One of the most common mistakes that freelancers and small business owners make is to bend over backwards for their clients without setting any boundaries or guidelines on what’s okay. This often results in calls at midnight and weekends, as well as anger from the client that you aren’t answering straight away or that they will have to pay extra for what they want.

Always write your availability into your contractual agreement and clearly list what’s included as part of the service you provide. Be firm and don’t allow ‘job creep’; before you know it you’ll be trying to diagnose their broadband issue rather than developing their website. This works both ways, as it’s often the case that the client is genuinely unaware that your job isn’t simply “IT”; you know that helping them reset their Facebook password isn’t your job, but they probably see you as responsible for anything internet-related unless informed otherwise.

How do you approach explaining technical terms and decisions to your clients? Let us know in the comments.