When it comes to reading between the lines, clients are pros. Don’t try to fool clients by only sharing part of your overall marketing strategy or business plan – they will likely see through it, and lose respect for you as a result. If you’re wondering why transparency is important to clients, just think about your own interactions with customer service representatives: you always appreciate honesty.

In order to achieve the best results and maintain the best relationship with customers, it’s important to maintain transparency with your clients. Here’s why:

Clients can tell when you’re not telling the whole truth.

Customers may not always be right, but they are definitely aware when they are not being told the whole truth. If you don’t want to be completely transparent with your customers, you don’t have to be – but know that your relationship with them might suffer as a result.  One of the reasons that transparency is important to clients is as simple as human nature itself – no one likes being lied to. Clients, whether they are small business owners or CEOs of large corporations, are still people at the end of the day. They want you to be honest with them about the work you do, and your opinions on their work.

Transparency can generate better ideas and solutions.

By keeping your marketing plan or business solutions safely guarded from clients, you may be behaving counterproductively. True, you may not want to tell the client how you came up with solutions, but you may want to tell them why. Being transparent could open you up to ideas and solutions that you can’t come up with on your own, allowing clients to have an eye into your thought processes and provide their own insight and feedback.

Customers are always right – about their businesses.

Being transparent with your clients is valuable for several reasons – it will show them that you respect their views, it will allow them to offer feedback, and it will potentially open up the discussion to better solutions. Ultimately, it is valuable to be transparent with clients because they are the experts in their field – you are working to help them achieve one aspect of their business goals, but they have an idea of all the different components they are working toward.

Customers are always right about their businesses at the end of the day, so being transparent with them about your goals for their business can be a good way to show them that you respect what they have to say.