How Systems effect Customer Experience
As small business owners or even freelancers, we all want to take care of our clients. We want to offer an amazing customer experience, for selfish reasons (we want those referrals!) AND from a genuine desire to have our clients enjoy working with us. This applies to both service providers and product-based businesses.
One of the things NO one mentions, that is absolutely necessary for great customer service: SYSTEMS!
But how? because systems (tech, processes, procedures, etc) allow for a repeatable process when working with clients. Why is this important? because a process that can be repeatable means that ALL your clients get the same experience and deliverable execution.
Without systems, things fall through the cracks. You easily forget to send follow-up emails, and reminders, deliverables are not met, and client experience is rocky at best.
Examples of a lack of systems:
As a photographer, you need to send your clients some guides to working with you, and how to prepare for your shoot. What happens if those forms get sent out the day before the shoot, or not at all? Your client is not ready, you’re frustrated AND the images (deliverables) DO NOT come out as planned.
As a service provider, you have an onboarding sequence of events that needs to happen to begin a contract with a client. What happens if you forget to send the contract or onboarding form? What happens if you're booked out (good for you!!) and forget to send one of the final deliverables, or stop providing regular updates to your clients?
As a coach or course provider, you’re so busy you don’t have time to respond to questions about the groups or program in a timely fashion, so you people quickly lose interest (the internet can be fickle!) and decide NOT to purchase from you because you could not get to their questions.
The list could go on and on, and ALL of these issues can be solved by creating an automated onboarding system, a templatized project plan for your clients, and having automated responses setting expectations that it may take a day or so to hear back. These are ALL simple fixes that can and WILL improve your client experience.
It allows your client to feel supported and taken care of. It ensures they have a seamless experience with your brand.
