often prefaced with ‘client’, this term is used to indicate the interpersonal skills of an individual in relation to a particular group of people, as in “That manager sure has great client hands”; connotes dexterity in navigating relationships and anticipating and assuaging concerns while ensuring nothing of significance is neglected; in a commercial context this skill has the unspoken aim of generating sales as a result, although someone with good hands deftly sublimates any pecuniary motives in his or her interactions; the word is used more literally in the context of certain sports to describe athletes with superb catching or ball-handling abilities1
- Perhaps the most longstanding business usage of the term is in the motto and logo of the Allstate insurance company, which rarely misses the opportunity to ask, in the soothing bass rumble of Dennis Haysbert, if you are in good hands. ↩