If you have a service based business, you have likely experienced scope creep. Maybe without even realizing it.
Scope creep is when you end up providing more services than originally agreed upon. Sometimes this happens slowly over time, or by a lot of little extra things. It can be hard to identify, too.
Allowing scope creep in your business can have you running ragged doing extra things you’re not getting paid for. And you can’t blame it on your clients; it’s on you to manage your own services. Read on for some thoughts on combating scope creep.
Create a Clear Scope Up Front
This step happens when you begin your relationship with a client. Before they even sign on the dotted line, your proposal and conversations should be clear on what you are doing for them and what you are not doing. This can also be reiterated in the onboarding phase.
The first couple of months are when you’re establishing how you work together, your rhythms and styles, and getting to each other. This is an important time to pay special attention to the services you provide and reminding clients if they ask for something outside of your scope.
If you haven’t been setting clear expectations up front, you can start now! Take a look at your sales and onboarding processes and build in this step. You can also review your current clients and have a conversation with them about it. The key is to make sure you both understand your roles.
Do the Extra
Does this sound counterintuitive? I thought we were talking about scope creep! By “do the extra,” I mean that you should build in little ways to delight your clients in the course of working together. Make it a great customer experience, and they will feel like you are exceeding the expectations initially set.
Have a great response time, make sure that every interaction is friendly and helpful, send them cards, etc. There are a ton of ways that you can do small things that have a big impact. One of my favorite phrases is to do the ordinary things extraordinarily well.
You can also choose to fulfill small one-time requests without charging them more. For example, if a client asks us to pull a report needed for a once per year issue, and it only takes us a couple minutes to do, we will gladly do that. That’s going above and beyond and doesn’t cost you much.
How does this help with scope creep? If your clients feel well taken care of, they usually understand when you do have to point out something they’re asking for is outside of your agreed upon work. They’ll know it really is too much since you’re generous with your normal work. You’re not the type of vendor that dings them for every little thing.
Set Boundaries
This is where you need to be on top of saying no to requests before they become scope creep. The expectations you set in the beginning are very helpful here.
The hard part of eliminating scope creep is identifying it.
Make sure you’ve outlined the services you offer that are add-ons to your normal work. Train your team on them, so that they can spot it when a client asks for something outside of their regular package. Have the scope for each client clearly defined and accessible to your team. And let your team know they can always ask you if they need clarification on what’s in scope.
Big asks are usually easy to identify. How do you know if small asks are just doing the extra, per above, or scope creep? Aside from the clear boundaries, its frequency. For example, we communicate with clients mostly via email and strategy calls with me are add-ons. If a client calls me once to talk through something for a few minutes, I’m okay with that. However, if the client starts calling me a couple times a month to ask questions, I’m going to suggest that they upgrade to add strategy calls.
Telling your client that something is outside of scope doesn’t have to be difficult or nerve-wracking. Most of the time the client didn’t even realize they were asking for something extra. Simply say that you’d be happy to help with that, and since it is outside the scope of your original agreement would they like a quote for adding it onto their package?
Undo Current Scope Creep
Preventing scope creep is awesome. What should you do if you have already let it in?
The approach is very similar to setting the boundaries. Let your client know that you reviewed their account and X services are outside of the original scope. You can even include the proposal they accepted. Say that you’ve been happy to provide them with the services, and if they want to continue with X services going forward it is an add-on of $XX. Would they like to add that to their package?
Dealing with scope creep isn’t fun. Ultimately, the strength of your customer experience makes a huge difference in combating it while creating delighted clients!