Elevating your client experience journey (continued)
This post is part of the client experience series. Before you can start to elevate your client experience journey, make sure you read the below articles first.
Read about the Power of Exceptional Client Experience if you’re wondering… how can I create an exceptional client experience for my service-based business? It covers why it is important to shape an exceptional client experience and how to approach this task in order to seamlessly guide your audience from not knowing who you are to confirming a booking.
Read about Understanding your client experience journey. In order to shape an exceptional client experience, you first need to have a CRYSTAL clear understanding of the whole journey that your (potential) clients go through. Discover the 7-step blueprint for understanding a client experience journey that you can use as your guide to map out your own client journey and work on improving all its touch points.
Read about Shaping your client experience journey. Exceptional client experience starts at the foundations. Discover the 4 fundamental building blocks for shaping an exceptional client experience as a whole. Do you have all of these in order?
No matter how good your client experience is, there’s always room for improvement. In this blog post let’s look at some of the key strategies to elevate your client experience and make it exceptional.
BEFORE WE DIVE IN - There’s 5 fundamental elements to consider and if you haven’t already seen them, find the first 2 strategies explained in detail HERE.
3 Create personalization
Personalize for multiple audiences
Start with creating strategic content and a website journey that speaks to your audience.
Alright so this is a big one, you need to know and understand who your audience is. And you might have multiple target audiences that you are targeting with your services and that's completely fine as long as the services you are providing to them are reasonably similar. If this is you, then listen up. Because it’s a common misconception that you can only have one type of client that you want to work with. And I’m here to tell you that it’s not exactly true.
There’s lots of advice online about how you should only be working with one type of client so that you get more experience or specialized working with that one specific client and eventually become known as the expert in that field. And that’s absolutely true BUT you can have multiple different target audiences that you want to be working with at the same time. Perhaps you want to serve multiple (similar) audiences and you’re doing that amazingly and addressing their specific needs - why not?
What it means in practice is that you'll just need to do a bit more work to speak to each individual target client that you want to work with. So instead of targeting one client, you will be targeting two or three types of clients. And the key here is this - your audience doesn't care that you want to work with multiple types of clients. They only care about their own individual situation and experience. So you need to make sure that you cater to their specific needs and show content that's relevant to them. This is a majorly important point to keep in mind when creating your content no matter if it's your website copy, your social media content, or any marketing content really. Make sure to provide personalized and relevant content, experiences and recommendations that are valuable for the specific client, not every single client that you want to be targeting all at once.
Side note - if your target audiences and services you offer to them are a complete contrast then this will not work. In that case, sticking to one target audience and their services is a better idea. Alternatively, if you still want to continue with contrasting audiences and offerings then you need to separate these businesses or rebrand a portion of your existing business. The most important rule to follow in your business is that you always need to lead with clarity and trying to merge together two very different businesses will result in anything but that. .
Tailor your services
You also want to make sure you thoroughly understand your client and their needs and preferences so that you can offer them the best value. Before starting to work together, make sure that you go through the consultation phase where you understand your client’s current situation, what their goals are, and how you can help them. Different clients will have different needs and requirements, even if they are all from the same type of target audience. Everyone’s story is different and everyone’s at a different stage in their journey. So make sure that you specifically address each individual client's needs as best as you can by tailoring your services accordingly.
Build relationships
A little personal touch goes a long way and that doesn't just go for your services that you offer. It's also about your approach to each client. You have to remember that it's people you're working with, not just numbers. So don't look at your clients as another paycheck, instead look at the person that they are, their needs, their wishes, their struggles, their personalities and so much more. Build a relationship with your clients, be genuine and take real interest in how they are doing. All of us have so much more going on than meets the eye, and maybe some days we're on top of the world and some days we are very low for reasons that could be completely outside of your control or scope of services. So be authentic and treat your clients with integrity. Building a relationship with your clients is so important for many reasons that go beyond elevating your user experience which, in this case, is a nice side bonus.
I’m Agnes, your strategic partner and I specialize in helping business owners confidently and successfully book their DREAM high-value clients.
For 5+ years I’ve worked in professional consulting services, crafting and executing custom-made solutions for clients, problem-solving on the daily and managing projects worth millions. I’ve spent years mastering the method that large companies use to charge premium prices that clients are happy to pay. And now I can help you do the same as a small business owner.
With my expert guidance, I’ll help you strengthen and position your business the right way in order to attract and book high-value clients who happily pay premium pricing. I provide guidance and 1:1 support with strategy creation for building your strong foundation and clear and targeted messaging and hands-on support with bringing it all to life.
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4 Deliver excellent service
Deliver on your promises
When you start working together with your clients, you need to make sure that you deliver exceptional services to them. This means setting clear expectations from the beginning and delivering on all your promises. I could talk about this topic for hours but generally it's good practice to set clear expectations regarding your services, the processes for working together, the deliverables and the expected timelines. This ensures that your clients are informed and know what to expect when. You also want to ensure that you take into account their preferences and any special requests about the process, their availability or timelines to the extent possible. And when you’re off doing your amazing work that is sometimes invisible to your clients, it's also a good idea to regularly update them on the progress and provide confirmations of milestones along the way. That way, they know that you are on top of things and they can happily get back to their day without having to wonder or worry about how your project is going.
Soft skills
Exceptional service goes beyond the quality of your service. It's also all the soft skills that you deliver along with them. It's not enough to deliver an amazing service on paper and then from the personal side be a complete nightmare to work with. So at all times make sure you are professional, easily reachable, accountable, organized and attentive to their needs and changing demands. And remember that we all make mistakes and while you can't control all circumstances surrounding your services, you can control how you react to them, and how you approach every situation that arises.
Exceed expectations
And since we’re talking about elevating your client’s experience with your business… we’re not just making it OK, we’re thinking about how to make it amazing. And this is an important one - exceed their expectations. You should always aim to set clear expectations for an amazing offering you will deliver but then go above and beyond and exceed their expectations. Add personalized touches to the services or products that you offer, go the extra mile and surprise them in ways that they didn't anticipate. Ask yourself now - what can I do that will make their experience more delightful, more amazing, more surprising in a positive way? What extra value could I provide to them? What bonuses can I offer? What personal touches would they appreciate? Put yourself in their shoes and think about what would add to their experience with your business and then go and do that.
5 Continuous improvement
So, the last item on the list and this is an important one. I can give you an endless list of tips and things to think about but this is the one that will make the biggest impact. The only way to ensure a truly exceptional client experience is to continuously improve it. So invest the time and energy to continuously optimize and improve all elements and touchpoints for your client experience.
So what's the quickest and most reliable way to improve your client experience, you ask? It’s simple - ask for their feedback. Yep, you don’t have to guess how their experience was, simply ask them. After every project, make sure that you do a post project follow-up and ask for feedback and reviews. Even though this might seem like a scary thing to do at times, trust me - it is ALWAYS better to ask for feedback than to simply shy away from the question.
Whether the feedback is amazing or not so great, asking for your clients to provide you valuable first-hand feedback on their experience of working with you will allow you to identify areas of improvement as well as areas that you already excel at.
In case of less than amazing feedback, appreciate that your clients take the time to share their honest feedback and look at it as a learning experience. Only by being committed to continuous improvement and learning can you build a client experience that will eventually be truly exceptional. Nobody starts out perfect, everyone goes through a learning phase where they need to adapt and improve. Needless to say, if your client shares serious concerns or problems then commit to addressing these concerns. Take responsibility and make sure you address any issues promptly and professionally to ensure that even the clients that didn't have the best experience with you end their project on a happy note.
On the other hand, continuously receiving amazing feedback on your services, your offering, your approach or any other elements or touchpoints of your client experience highlights the areas that you are clearly great at, and that are clearly being appreciated by your clients. This is very valuable feedback to have as you can build on it further to delight your clients even more in the areas that they appreciate. Plus, receiving positive feedback and reviews also builds your confidence, pride and gives you a sense of accomplishment.
I hope that this helps you on your journey towards building an exceptional client experience and I can’t wait to see it all come to life!
Bringing your vision to life through a strategy-led approach
Our Signature Experience is an all-in-one service to help you successfully raise your rates and confidently book your dream clients!
Tailored solutions - All businesses are not alike so we also offer completely tailored solutions that fit your business needs specifically in order to help YOU reach your goals.
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Business owners who want to start demanding their worth, confidently book their dream (high-value) clients and scale their business to the next level.
What you get
Strategic partnership - Bringing 5+ years of experience in the consulting domain working with industry-leading companies.
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Clarity & structure - Clarity and structure of the process through consultations, guided questionnaires and checklists + project management done-for-you.
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Long term value - Clarity, structure and resources for guiding decision- making, appealing to your ideal audience and supporting your business for years to come.
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