PREMIUM Workshop: Managing the Client Relationship

  • Building Trust, Taking Ownership & Communicating with Confidence

    For many PREMIUM students, this project will be the first time you work in a client-consultant relationship. You are no longer simply completing an assignment for a teacher who sets the expectations. You are working with an external organisation that has its own goals, expectations and way of working, while you are expected to take ownership of the project as a team.

    That can be exciting, but it can also be quite challenging since each PREMIUM project is unique, there is no set structure, no set outcome and each client has their own way of communicating. 

    What do you do when expectations are unclear, unaligned, when a client starts micromanaging, stops responding, rejects your ideas or asks for more than you originally agreed to deliver? How do you take the lead of your project and push back without damaging the relationship?

    This workshop focuses on the human side of managing a client relationship. Together we will explore how your own communication and conflict-response style influences the dynamic, how trust is built and lost, and how you can deliberately use communication to create clarity, credibility and confidence.

    Rather than simply discussing difficult client situations, you'll work with realistic PREMIUM cases and practise different ways of responding. You'll explore how to set expectations, communicate proactively, establish boundaries, handle disagreement and repair trust when things don't go as planned.

    Because successful client management isn't about controlling the client. It's about learning how to take ownership of a professional relationship you are experiencing for the first time.

    What will you take away?

    • Understand what it means to take ownership of a client relationship while still operating within the learning context of PREMIUM
    • Recognise how your own communication and conflict-response style influences your interactions with clients
    • Learn how trust is built, maintained and repaired through credibility, reliability, connection and client-focused communication
    • Practise setting expectations, communicating boundaries and responding confidently when client expectations change
    • Develop strategies for handling common challenges such as micromanagement, non-responsiveness, rejected ideas and scope creep
    • Apply what you learn to your own PREMIUM client relationship

     

    Please note that this workshop is one of the electives PREMIUM offers. Attend a minimum of 3 of the elective workshops.

     

    Available Sessions:

    • Wednesday 24.02.2027, 13:30-16:30 hrs
    • Thursday 04.03.2027, 18:00-21:00 hrs

    All “Managing the Client Relationship” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.

     

    Register here for this workshop.

     

     
    <a href="https://www.magnific.com/nl/vrije-photo/close-up-van-mensen-die-met-laptop-werken_23404568.htm">Afbeelding van magnific</a>

  • PREMIUM is not only about delivering a good project. It is about learning how to work with the person who is relying on you to deliver it. This workshop gives you the skills to navigate that relationship: to take ownership without taking over, to speak up without damaging trust, and to handle difficult moments without losing confidence. These are situations you will encounter far beyond PREMIUM, and you will have the chance to practise them here, before you have to learn them the hard way.
  • Fabienne Crombach

    Your Workshop Host: Fabienne Crombach

    Fabienne Crombach is Senior Coordinator Excellence Education at EDLAB, Maastricht University, where she has been coordinating the PREMIUM honours programme for more than ten years. With a background in Management and a specialisation in Corporate Communication within the hospitality and tourism industry, she has always been fascinated by the human side of professional interactions and by what makes an experience work for the people involved. Over the years, Fabienne has worked with hundreds of students, academic colleagues and external organisations, seeing first-hand how much successful collaboration depends on communication, trust, expectations and the ability to navigate situations that do not go according to plan. Her work in education was recognised with the UM Wynand Wijnen Education Award in 2019.