It’s not just the freelancer’s responsibility to be good at communicating but it is the part you’re going to have control over. Investing in good communication practices and creating systems is going to make a big difference to projects.
Repeat work and client referrals are rarely driven by technical skills because most clients aren’t able to assess the technical quality of your work at a professional level. Instead clients judge the process. They’re driven by freelancers meeting their objectives while feeling respected and seen.
Someone who communicates well is likelier to have clients return or recommend them to others because they’re easy to work with. Considering how rare good communicators actually are, this could be your superpower to unlock a flow of repeat work!
Having been in the trenches with freelancers for almost a decade, we have a ton of claims data to tap into and can see where issues commonly arise. They’re usually to do with:
- misunderstandings around scope
- underestimating the time required to complete the work
- client dissatisfaction with the service or deliverables
- late delivery of work
The above issues are often rooted in poor communication. This also aligns with the Leapers 2025 mental health in freelancing study which highlights that almost 70% of freelancers cite poor client communication as a cause of stress. Other stress factors mentioned included:
- lack of feedback from clients (55.7%)
- ghosting before a project has commenced (48.5%)
- disputed contracts or payments (30.3%)
- ghosting after a project has commenced (26.6%)
Communication is at the core of all of these things. If we can improve how we communicate with clients, it could lead to fewer issues and anxiety for all parties.
This is even more important for those in technical roles because not all clients have a technical background. Those who are writing code, managing servers or doing anything in more of an IT role usually have to work a bit harder to ensure their client is on the same page at all times.
Best practices when communicating with clients
Decide where client communication should live and when your client gets access to you
Slack, Basecamp (is Basecamp still a thing?), What’sApp… how do you want to communicate with clients? Where do you want client sign-off, project updates and scope requests to live? Will project updates live separately to daily communication?
The best freelancers I’ve worked with have set clear boundaries at the start of the project about how we’re going to communicate and when. They leave no guesswork for the client on how they should get in touch and when they can expect to hear back. “Here are the tools I use for communicating. Everything that’s related to the project is going to live in here. For general questions you can reach me here and these are the hours I work.” Simple!
Even if a client is sending panicked emails at 11PM on a Friday it’s important not to feel pressured to deviate from your set hours. Just because that’s when they get a moment to check in doesn’t mean it needs to be your schedule, too.
One of the more complex projects I worked on had 1 day a week set aside for a 60 minute Teams meeting. This was a non-negotiable. Anything that couldn’t wait for the weekly meeting was dropped into Slack and I could expect a response within 5 hours, assuming it was within business hours.
Streamlining where conversations are going to live makes life easier for everyone. It means your client won’t be frantically jumping between What’sApp, Slack or phone calls. And it makes life easier for you when it comes to having an audit trail for sign-off and scope changes.
It can also make a big difference to a client’s mindset when they’re clear on what hours and days you’re available. It gives structure around when they can expect to hear back. This should prevent them them from spiralling if they’re trying to reach you for something they consider urgent or important and panicking why they haven’t yet heard back.
And remember, you don’t have to give clients your phone number if you’re not comfortable with it. Yes, the work you do is important, but you don’t need to be on call because you’re not saving lives. Boundaries are key.
Action points are your best friend
I know you’re already carrying a lot of responsibility, but a little bit of hand holding with clients goes a long way. One of the most helpful takeaways I recently had from working with an experienced freelancer was how important action points are in keeping clients on track.
Complex projects or long meetings can be information overload and a lot for the client to take in. Remember, they’re usually juggling lots of different plates and they may forget to action discussion points from the meeting.
To combat this, you can create a master doc that both you and your client have access to. After each meeting or project milestone, update the bullet list of action points with deadlines at the top of the master doc. This gives your client an at-a-glance overview of what’s outstanding and when it needs to be completed by.
This helped me massively when working on a tricky project. It made it easy to know what my job was and what I needed to do by the next meeting. It kept me accountable and the project ran smoothly as a result. This was especially helpful during a complicated period where I was pulled in many directions due to lots of moving parts.
Most freelancers will struggle with a bumpy project at one time or another. Usually this is down to the client not doing their bit and is no fault of the freelancer. Whether the client has failed to provide required assets or hasn’t yet signed-off on on work, this can slow things down so a bit of accountability will go a long way.
The master doc with dated action points was a game changer for me. It kept the project flowing and both the freelancer and I knew where we were at all times and what needed to be done by our next check-in.
Clear communicators experience fewer disputes
A lot of complications arise from the freelancer and client not being on the same page, yet sometimes it’s as simple as telling your client what they can expect instead of assuming they know.
This reminds me of an older blog post we wrote about expectations vs agreements. “The more surprises we eliminate from our client relationships and projects, the likelier it is everything will run smoothly.”
For example, let’s say you’ve built software and the client reports a pretty serious bug. You drop everything to fix it and get into a deep flow. Instead of letting the client know you’re on top of things, they misinterpret the silence as you forgetting about them and start to spiral. Their tone of voice changes towards you, they send angry emails and the relationship becomes strained.
Taking a few moments to say, “I’ve received this. I’m looking into things and I’ll give you an update as soon as I have one” can make all the difference. The client can relax knowing you’re working towards a solution. By updating the client on what to expect instead of assuming they already know, you can avoid these situations developing into something more serious.
Best practices for communicating with clients can be distilled down to:
- locking in what tools you’ll use for client comms to live in
- making sure clients know what days and hours you work and are therefore available
- helping your clients stay accountable by creating a master doc with action points
- giving your clients clear updates so silence isn’t interpreted negatively
A practical guide to honing those skills
Earlier I mentioned freelancers should be investing in their communication much like they do with their professional skills or personal development, but how does this look on a practical level?
Become a pro at project management
One of the best things you can do is nail your project management processes. Yes, even if you’re a solo worker. I mentioned earlier that issues like misunderstandings around the scope cause of a lot of project breakdowns. This usually stems from poor project management practices (in fact, take a peek at our claims data to see exactly what goes wrong) and could be prevented by tweaking your workflow.
I’ve worked with a lot of freelancers, but the most positive experience I’ve had was when I collaborated with a communications consultant. She was the queen of project management. With how organised she was it felt like she carried the weight of the project and this let me get on with my own work. Working with the communications consultant taught me that good communication looks a lot like good organisation.
Project management can make or break a client relationship so get this locked down. Speak to seasoned freelancers to learn how they do things or even invest a course. This one from SuperHi looks good.
Schedule replies for working hours
If you’re one of the many freelancers attacking emails outside of work hours, you’d benefit from scheduling emails to go out the following business day. (Pro tip: add an email signature that states what your working hours are and if clients contact you outside of these hours they can expect a response the next business day.)
If you’re replying to emails on a Wednesday evening, schedule the email to go out first thing on Thursday morning. Why? If you’ve told your client you work certain hours but proceed to communicate outside of those hours, you set a precedent that you’re reachable outside of work hours. Once those lines are blurred, it can be really hard to get those boundaries back.
Scheduling emails to go out the next working day means you’re not training your client to expect instant replies.
Create a system (even for small projects)
Every project is different but having a basic system in place that you follow can be the difference between a project starting well or stuttering along.
Your system might include an onboarding doc that outlines how you work and available hours, where updates will live and how you’d like to receive feedback. Your system could also include a concentrated place for client comms to live. Instead of having sign-off and scope requests scattered across different places, have somewhere tasks are tracked and an audit trail lives.
Your system can incorporate scheduled updates. For example, having one day locked in each week for a check-in with the client where you can provide milestone-based updates.
How do you find the right system? It’s an iterative process so don’t panic if it takes a bit of time to refine. Start by stepping back and reviewing projects that ran well. What worked with those projects and can that be systemised?
What about the projects that were a little bumpy? Before you bury bad experiences never to think of them again, take a moment to reflect on what went wrong and what you could do differently or better next time.
This is a helpful exercise after any bump in the road. When we help freelancers with client disputes, they often tell us about the positive changes they’ve made to their contracts or workflow to avoid similar issues with other clients.
If you’re taking your communication as seriously as you do the deliverables you create, this will build trust and help your project progress with momentum.
Improving outcomes with good communication
When we talk about communicating clearly with clients, this doesn’t mean you need to over-communicate (although strong communication at the start of a project helps set expectations). The best freelancers to work with are the ones who’ve built systems that make communication predictable and clear.
It’s not about being available all hours of the day. It’s about leaving your clients feeling informed and confident. That’s what’s going to make them keep coming back, and avoid the kind of disputes we see regularly from scope creep, late delivery of work or client dissatisfaction.
Good client communication is mostly about removing ambiguity and managing expectations. These are skills you will naturally get better at the longer you freelance, but making a conscious effort to adopt the best practices we’ve outlined here will be one of the highest-ROI skills you can build. You’ll find it will:
- lead to repeat work and referrals
- reduce scope creep
- prevent disputes
