From the course: Creative Inspirations: New Deal Studios, Visual Effects

Client relationships

(Music playing) Ian Hunter: One of the things that we have here at New Deal Studios, which we work very hard on maintaining, is our reputation in the business. More often than not, the clients know that we are going to deliver what we say, and more often than not, we are actually delivering more than what we say. And that's a hard-earned reputation that we've tried to maintain. Matthew Gratzner: The loyalty within clients is very important, and it is the same with our employees. We are very, very loyal to our employees. If we have a crew that we work with that we really like and individuals that we really like, we always try to bring them back on every project, because we know that they are going to do a great job, we enjoy the relationship and more importantly, everybody kind of wins. And the clients are the same way. If a client trusts us to do the job, then they know that we will do the best job we can. If a client doesn't trust us to do the job, we still are going to do the best job we can. Shannon Blake Gans: The trust is so important at the beginning of the project and then maintaining it, because if you lose it, then you spend all your time and resources getting that back. And trust is like virginity. You only lose it once. And you can't gain it back. So, it's the best - you get the best results if you can just - that constant communication and managing the expectations of the client and the process, and helping them feel comfortable. And often, if people haven't gone through the process, you really have - it's important to hold their hand and explain to them every step of the way, "These are the challenges you are going to see, and experience. And these are best practices and here is what we are doing to help you," because miniature effects, from the miniature effects side, particularly, not many people have experience with that. So we try to communicate as much as possible, and push information up the line, like as much progress photos, and progress reports, and video and tests, and whatnot, so that they know, many of our clients I have worked with this, year after year, know when they come here, they don't have to worry. They can just assign us a shot, or a sequence. They can walk away and deal with the rest of the show, and they know when they come here they are going to get more than what they paid for.

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