Welcome to the Armstrong|Shank blog. We know you’re here to read something useful to your business, but right now I’m busy getting a cup of coffee, so just hang loose for a couple minutes.

Still there? Whew — lucky us. Because even though that was purely fictional, we didn’t treat you like you were important to us. And all it takes is one instance of inattentiveness or half-hearted client service to introduce doubt into an otherwise good client relationship.

Here are some ways you can be more responsive to your clients:

1. Ask your client for their preferred method of communication.

Some client contacts have instant access to their e-mail, and can respond to your communications quickly. If they tell you they are frequently in meetings or away from their desk, e-mail-based communication may not be the best choice.

For clients who live and die by their cell phone or voicemail, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants communication can work well. But if they prefer to sit down and meet face to face to talk about things, you’ll need to have meeting times planned into their schedule days or weeks ahead of time to avoid putting them in a tight spot.

2. Be aware of your client’s approval process.

When an organization has to get the okay on a project from multiple people — common in large organizations — each step has potential to cause a delay. Do your best to keep that in mind when planning your project timelines. And be sure to keep things moving between steps. Deadlines can be hairy enough by themselves — don’t make it worse by being the bottleneck.

3. Choose outside vendors carefully.

If you’re the go-between between your client and a vendor — printers, mailing houses, media reps, and more — be sure you trust their ability to be responsive. If they aren’t timely replying back with a quote, then it delays your ability to deliver it to the client, which delays the approval process, which shortens the amount of time you have to get the job done. Even if it wasn’t technically your fault, it reflects poorly on you for choosing this vendor. Get to know your vendors, that way you can be confident that your job will get done when deadlines are tight.

4. Be proactive, not just reactive.

If you really want to impress your client, do more for them than just what they ask of you. Be responsive to their future needs by keeping on the lookout for opportunities that will benefit them: new marketing technologies, potential PR possibilities and the like. You never know when even a small suggestion can be a catalyst for new business.

Whether you’re a waitress or a worldwide entity, the simplest business advice still applies: be there when your customers need you, or they’ll go elsewhere for their cup of coffee.

Concerns about Facebook privacy are in the news again. It seems that they have once again expanded the options for what parts of your Facebook account you want to expose and to whom you want them to be exposed. For most, having options is a good think but at issue is Facebook reverting to a default mode after each redesign that is optimized not for privacy rather for Facebook’s bottom line. The easy fix is for individuals to review these settings and set them to that which they are most comfortable OR take the approach that I spoke about recently on the “Lawyer On The Line” TV show and treat everything you post to Facebook like any other public venue where any conversation could easily be overheard by another party near by.

By the very nature of what Facebook does, privacy will continue to be a challenge. While many despise Facebook’s recent moves regarding privacy concerns, we all need to step back for a moment. We need to realize that Facebook is a business and part of their business model is taking the private information that we provide of our own free will and return behaviorally and contextually ads that are much more relevant than the banner ads served by other websites. In the end this is a win for BOTH advertiser and consumer.