The Whole Client Experience
Lesson 2 from: Design a Remarkable Client Experience for More Recurring RevenueTara McMullin
The Whole Client Experience
Lesson 2 from: Design a Remarkable Client Experience for More Recurring RevenueTara McMullin
Lesson Info
2. The Whole Client Experience
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Lesson Info
The Whole Client Experience
our first task when it comes to designing your client experience is to map out the client experience that your business currently has. That might be a little scary. But we're gonna take a step by step and just know that if you run into some things that you don't love, well we're going to make a plan to change those. So when we think about mapping out that whole client experience, we want to start from the very first step and the and I'll go all the way to the very last step in your client's experience with your business and that probably starts and ends at a different place than you think it does. So let's map out that whole client experience. If you haven't downloaded the workbook that comes with this class, do that now and you'll see this diagram in that workbook, you can print it out and follow along, start mapping your own client experience as I walk you through this. So the first place we're gonna start is discovery. This is when your client finds out about your business or when y...
our prospect finds out about your business, this is when they first come in contact with you. It might be on a social media platform, it might be via a search engine, it could be a referral, there's lots of different ways that your clients might find out about you and and the way that you work, your marketing strategy is going to point you in the direction of what some of those common experiences might be, but that's the first place where your customer journey, where your client experience actually starts and when we think about that touch point as the beginning of a whole client experience, we can really see how it can evolve over time. So that from start to finish, it all feels really cohesive. So that's the first sort of chunk of the client experience that I like to think about and kind of moving through the whole marketing process, then the next chunk of your client experience, the next stop on our map is pre purchase, this is happening right before someone is actually getting started with you. So that can be doing that initial sales consultation, it could be the proposal, it could be the contract that you send your first invoice, thinking about each of those pieces again, can help make everything feel more cohesive and make your client feel really supported. So that's the next chunk. So from Discovery to pre purchase, then we're gonna go from pre purchase to the project itself. Between those two pieces we have onboarding and all of the various tasks that go with onboarding, we'll get into more on that in just a second. Uh the project of course is gonna have all of your project management pieces, all of the communication that you have with your client throughout the project that you're working on with them. And if it's an ongoing project, this phase might last for a long time, it might last four years and that's fine. You just have a really long client experience and then once a client completes with you, we move into the last phase here, which is post project. Now I have this as a whole cycle from post project back to discovery and there's a reason for that. There's two different things that can happen once a project completes. Probably the most common thing that happens after a project completes is that that client might send a friend your way and so they actually fill in that gap between post project and discovery. They're not the ones discovering you. Of course they just finished working with you but their friend or their colleague now has discovered you and the cycle starts again. The other thing that can happen that makes us a car complete cycle is that after that post project experience, you can continue to nurture a client so that they buy from you. Again, maybe they need sort of a similar project in the future or maybe you have the kind of service where repeat buying makes a lot of sense or maybe they've completed, they've taken a break and now they're coming back and they want to work with you. Again, that's pretty common in coaching and insulting style businesses. So those are the four big buckets that we're looking at and these are not set in stone kind of categories. I'm offering these sort of way points in the process of mapping out your client experience so that, you know roughly where you're trying to fill in the gaps with the different touch points that you have. Speaking of touch points, that's the word, you're going to hear a lot in this class, touchpoints are any time where every time in a client experience where the prospect or client touches your business so comes in contact with your business in Discovery. That could be your referrals, referrals are a touch point, it could be an ad that you put out. That's a touch point, it could be a social media post or a search engine result that someone come across. That's a touch point and that's something that can be designed into this comprehensive and cohesive client experience. Once we started start to move out of discovery and into the rest of marketing, there's some other touch points that you might think about really designing into your client experience. The first could be an inquiry form or it could be blog posts, where it could be a sign up for your email list, it might be a consultation from there. We start to move into pre purchase and some of the touch points along that path might be a proposal contract, initial invoice kickoff consultation. Once we get into the meat of the project, most of the touch points there are going to be project management and project communication. So really all of the back and forth that happens around making sure that a project stays on track and is meeting the goals and expectations of the client that you're working with as we move through the project phase, your touch points turn often into deliverable. So what is it that you're actually delivering to the client? PDFs design mock ups, A website copy could be anything. What are those deliverables? Those are each touchpoints? Post project is as we start to wrap up, you send over the last documents or you turn over control of something to your client or you just say, hey, it's been great working with you. I'll follow up soon after the project wraps up. You're gonna be thinking about feedback and you're gonna be thinking about asking for referrals, you're gonna be maybe checking in and seeing if they need something new from you. So that's just a sort of a quick idea of what all might happen in a client experience, your job now is to map out your client experience as it is right now. Again, that might be scary. It might feel a little overwhelming. You might come across some things that you don't like. It's fine. We just need to get an idea of where you're at so that we can figure out where you want to go. So this first phase of the class is all about kind of determining what your client exp Reince is like right now. So you're gonna download this workbook, you're going to find that initial map that's in there and just as I did on the previous slides, just make a note of all of the different touch points that a client or prospect might come in contact with your business and maybe make a note and see if there's anything in there that you want to change as you start to map things out, there are three things I want you to consider. What part of the experience are you really happy with? I think most service providers, even if they haven't given a ton of thought to client experience, there is some part of the process of working with a client, they are just really proud of that. Their clients remark on what is that for you? Maybe it's a few different things go ahead, Pat yourself on the back, put big stars next to those components on your map. What are you really happy with? Second where your areas of improvement maybe on your map, you circle all of the areas of improvement. Maybe there's something a touch point that happens, but it's kind of strange. It's kind of improvised. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense or it's just really impersonal. That's totally normal. But those touch points are huge opportunities for improvement. So make a note of all of the places where you're not quite happy with the way your client experience goes and then third, I want you to notice if there are any areas, any touch points, any parts of a project where you notice friction or you notice problems. Maybe there's a place where the client starts to get confused about the timeline. Maybe there's a part of the process where uh you kind of lose track of a client in the midst of closing the deal that's common, but when we don't notice it we can't do anything about it. So wherever you notice those friction points, make a note of that too. Maybe. But could check mark on your map and just note where you were, Want to design the experience in a way to alleviate that friction or those problems. Alright, so that's your homework for right now, map out your experience exactly as it is right now make a note of what you're happy with, what you don't like and where there might be friction and then meet me on lesson two.
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