Mahalo Digital constantly works to move digital mountains for our clients. Our modus operandi is to blow our clients away not only with our creative designs, our expediency, and our differentiation from the pack, but ultimately to make our client’s jobs easier. To meet these expectations when a client’s request comes in at the eleventh hour is no easy feat.

However, after many Fridays of repeated urgent emails pleading for Monday morning deliverables, we began to notice a distinct need.

A light bulb went off. The clients were telling us everything we needed to be in business – the business of catering to their need for speed. We just needed to listen.

Mahalo developed a line of business aimed at providing a customer experience worth writing home about just by listening closely. In order to make a (sometimes unreasonably) tight timeline work, simplicity was of the utmost importance. This meant simplifying the request, the review process, payment process, and the delivery.

To meet even the quickest of turnarounds, we implemented new procedures including a 24-hour response time, assuring clients that their need would be heard within a day. We gathered a trusted group of freelancers with flexible schedules, and gave the clients direct access to them, cutting out any unnecessary communications. We also streamlined the payment process, charging a flat rate and adopting a retainer structure, allowing for ultimate expediency.

These responses to the client’s need for speed formed what we call the Design Bureau. The below tips worked for us, and could be easily applicable to other lines of business.

• Listen: Clients will tell you everything you need to know to be in business

• Respond: Let the client know you hear them (in a timely manner)

• Keep it simple: Get rid of rigid process in order to maximize nimbleness

• Work: Acknowledge that clients aren’t on a 9-5 schedule and that work has to get done when they need it, including nights and weekends

• Go beyond: Blow clients away by providing options, delivering what they asked for and more

By understanding our client’s requests and following the above steps, we built a line of business to provide exactly what the customer needed – an experience fraught with less frustration, more efficiency, and more awe.

Rick Barsotti has been doing the digital thing since 1996. Mahalo Digital is the trifecta of his passion for delighting clients with unexpected creative, his love affair with the culture and natural beauty of Hawaii and living each day in the spirit of appreciation and gratitude. He is happiest spending time with his wife Jenn and children Bennett and Viv…preferably on a small island in the South Pacific. Follow Rick on Twitter @mahalorick.