What draws people to your services? Maybe they’ve seen your website, they follow you on social media, or they were referred to you. From the time they contact you as a new lead, to the time they become an actual client, to the time they off-board from working with you, they are always observing. They are watching to see if you do what you say you will do when you say you will do it, to see if you respond to their inquiries in a timely manner, if you deliver the services you agreed upon, etc. If we keep this in mind, we’ll be more aware of how we interact with them throughout each phase of the client journey while they are working with us. Keep reading to determine if your client management process meets the mark or needs improvement.
Client Experience #1 - Initial Client Contact
Go back in time with me to that discovery call with a potential client that went so well. They are a great fit for your services. You know it and they know it! At the end of the call, you promise to send them a proposal to look over so you can begin the process to make things official. The potential client states that they are eagerly awaiting your proposal, and then:
- One day passes…
- Three days pass…
- Five days pass…
- Seven days pass…
- Ten days pass…
Client Experience #2 - Onboarding
Yes, you’ve just made it official and signed a new client. They have accepted your proposal and contract, paid their invoice and are waiting for the services to begin.
One day passes since their invoice payment…
Three days pass since their invoice payment…
Seven days pass since their invoice payment…
They’re waiting to know what they need to do to get started working with you. You need to send them a welcome packet and an intake form to collect more information to allow you to customize your service to best meet their needs. You just can’t seem to get around to getting that information sent out to them. The client eventually reaches out to you regarding next steps for the service. Yikes!
Client Experience #3 - Service Delivery
Things are going really well! You’ve got quite a few clients you are working with. You think you are keeping up with everyone, but then you realize one of them has fallen through the cracks. They haven’t been able to move through your service like the others because they haven’t completed some of the necessary steps that will allow them to get started. It’s been three weeks since they’ve become a client and there’s been no communication with them. Uh-oh!
Client Experience #4 - Off-boarding
Yay! A client just finished your service, and it went great! It’s time for you to thank them for working with you, send them an off-boarding packet, collect a testimonial, and let them know other ways they can work with you in the future.
Time has passed, and if you reach out to them now, it’s just plain awkward. Oh boy!
Have you fallen into any of these scenarios before? No judgment if you have. Everyone has that moment in their business that wasn’t the best experience that we chuck up as “a learning experience.”
The key is to learn from the experiences and make the necessary improvements to avoid it from happening again.
Why It Matters
Here’s why your onboarding experience needs to be on point when bringing on a new client:
- It gives them a taste of what it’s like to work with you. You never want a client to feel forgotten, regretful, or even lost and alone and as if they can’t reach out to you for help. Your onboarding experience sets the tone for how the rest of their time working with you will go. Put them at ease by making the onboarding experience a seamless one.
- They’ll keep coming back. Chances are, if the client needs your services again, they’ll be on the lookout for assistance again. If you give them the “white-glove experience” and the service you provide exceeds their expectations, they won’t hesitate to come back to you time and time again.
- People will talk. Whether their experience working with you is a good or a bad one, trust and believe, they are going to tell others about it, so make sure they have a good story and not a horror story to tell.
- The experience needs to match the investment. If you are charging your worth for the services that you offer, and I really hope you are, the overall experience needs to feel as high-ticket as the price they just paid for your service.
- Allows you to scale with ease. True, you are in the business to provide a service, but that should not feel overwhelming or stressful! The more complicated and unorganized your onboarding process is, the more overwhelmed you are, the less clients you can take on. Make things easy on yourself and open the door to scaling your business by creating an automated onboarding process that keeps you sane and allows you to onboard new clients in your sleep (BTW – I use Dubsado for this)!
Wishing you well as you evaluate and level-up your client experiences! Need a little help getting started? I’d love to help. Let’s chat!
