Crafting a Powerful Client Experience for Your Brand

How Client Experience Impacts Your Branding

Part of your brand is your logo and color palette. I’m sure both of those are fabulous, but that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to branding. Branding is how your business makes someone feel. The best way to make someone feel some type of way is by giving them an experience. The client experience that you give them, can shape the perception that they have of your business. It can increase the client’s trust factor and likewise, on the other end of that spectrum, it can break that trust if it’s not consistent in its messaging. Ultimately, the client experience really is a core part of your branding that a lot of people overlook.

Sometimes client experience can also overlap with the systems of your business. Overall, it all contributes to your overall brand because it makes people feel a specific type of way.

What is Client Experience and How it Impacts Your Brand

A client experience is every single interaction that your client has with your business from the very first time they encounter your business, probably before you even know they exist, and all the way to the final deliverable. This even goes beyond during the off-boarding process which is something that I think a lot of people are unfamiliar with or don’t utilize in the client experience process. Let’s first break it down into phases.

The first phase is before you are even aware of that client, they are aware of your business, but you don’t necessarily know them. They are interacting with your brand before you even know that they might be interested. That could be them landing on your website, social media, through paid ads, or literally any way that they could experience you. That is your first impression and that is your first part of your client experience.

The next phase is still pre-sale and that is the inquiry process. Once they have gotten to know you enough to trust you to inquire for your services, then you enter into the inquiry process. I think this is where it can be make or break for a lot of people. When you inquire for a service, you can either get a really thorough personalized message that anticipates the questions that you have, or you can get this a cookie cutter response or in a lot of instances, no response at all. If you get no response at all, that breaks the trust immediately. Even if you have a wonderfully polished online presence in social media, if someone inquires with you and you ghost them, immediately they wonder what is going to happen later down the road in the transaction.

Let’s say that the inquiry process goes really well, then the next part of the client experience is onboarding. That’s when you’re sending them all of those back-end business documents, contracts, invoices, whatever it might be. That onboarding process is all part of the client experience. If they’re having to look everywhere for all of those documents, that’s not going to bode well for you. The client experience, which really heavily impacts your brand, overlaps with systems. If you have systems in place that support your professional brand, then it’s going to go really well for you. That client experience is going to reflect well on your business and your brand. However, if those systems aren’t in place, then it does start to build up a bit of a wedge in the trust between you and your client.

Now that we have them onboarded and everybody’s ready to go, we then enter into the project phase of the client experience. What is really important here is the communication, transparency, setting of expectations of what the timeline is going to look like when you’re working together, and problem solving if anything comes up. All of those need to have a clearly defined pattern to be able to deliver that final deliverable, whatever that might be. That final deliverable could be selling their house or closing on a house. It could be a marketing strategy, a brand design, or a wedding photography gallery.

Once they have that final deliverable, this is the off-boarding process of the client experience. I think a lot of people, once the final deliverable is delivered, it is checked off the list and you move on to the next client. However, there is a lot of value that you can get from those clients that have already run through the process with you.

How Important the Off-Boarding Process is in Client Experience

First, of course, is a testimonial of a client’s experience with your business, right? As service providers, we really want that testimonial so that we can show other people the validity and the legitimacy of our work. Next, if you have potential to upsell them to a higher level of service, this is a good time to do so when they are still on the high from working with you. If you have a referral program that they could participate in, they might have a friend or a colleague that also needs your service. This would be another good time to follow up with them.

During that off-boarding process, you want to capitalize on the work that you’ve already done and the professionalism you’ve already shown. All of that results in an amazing client experience that’s going to make them want to refer you later on, even if you don’t have a referral program. The thing that we want to make sure throughout this entire process is that it is consistent. That it is consistent to your brand’s values and in the expectation that you set that you deliver on those expectations. That’s going to solidify you, your business, and your brand overall.

On the flip side of that, let’s take the scenario of you having an incredible visual brand. You might have the most stunning logo and website. You may have the most on-point color palette for your ideal client that they can’t say no to. Even if you get them in the door, to inquire with you, book with you and you end up giving a bad client experience, it breaks trust. If you break their trust, you are not going to have that person as a repeat client and you are certainly not going to have that person refer you other clients.

It does not matter how perfect or stunning your visuals are if you cannot give them the solid client experience that they’re looking for. Many of us service providers are in oversaturated industries. There are many brand designers, wedding photographers, realtors, and short-term rental owners. One way that we can differentiate ourselves is our client experience. Think about all the service providers that you’ve used in the past. Is there one that sticks out that you’re like, wow, that person was on point? I know that I have people that I always refer based on my experience as their client.

For example, I worked with a realtor where we lived in coastal North Carolina. We were selling our house from Kentucky and was currently being run as an Airbnb. We were selling it as such, hoping to sell it fully furnished so that we didn’t have to go back and move everything. She took care of everything for us. I honestly don’t even remember much from that transaction because she took so much off my plate from three states away. Any time that I see a Facebook post, which is often, because I’m still in the Marine Corps spouses groups for Eastern North Carolina, I always refer her. If ever we do move back there or buy another short-term rental that’s in that area, absolutely we will be using Emily Albertson. She made the process so easy.

Another example is when we were recently visiting my sister-in-law in Florida for Thanksgiving and we rented an Airbnb that was big enough for all of us. We went and visited her where she’s stationed right now. We had extended family coming and it was a big family gathering. We had just driven close to 13 hours with the kids. Thankfully we broke the drive up over two days, but when we got there, I realized I had left their baby body wash at home. I thought to myself “I’m either going to have to late at night go out to CVS or Walgreens and get some, or I’m going to have to use my body wash that’s harsher and isn’t tear free”. I then opened the bathroom cabinet and they had baby body wash sitting right there for me because they were anticipating our needs, questions, and desires before we even got there. That differentiated our short term rental experience from others. It was incredible.

Key Factors of Building a Brand

Building a brand boils down to being liked, known, and ultimately trusted by your clients and customers. But let’s first focus on being known. Have you heard the statistic about how a potential customer needs to encounter a brand seven or more times before purchasing from them?

Now let me ask you this. What if a potential customer has encountered your brand seven times, but doesn’t realize it’s the same brand? That means you’ve been putting in a whole lot of work into marketing your business, but the brand isn’t consistent enough to land the sale because they don’t know it’s you. Consistency while building a brand is so important to top line sales. In fact, it could increase them by 33%. You could be missing out on a third of your sales because people don’t know your business is your business. Fix all of this confusion by creating a consistent and cohesive brand across all client touch points using the brand strategy framework mini course.

The brand strategy framework mini course is where we will walk through all the foundations of a solid brand. Then audit your existing brand to finally implement the changes that need to be made in order to get you the brand you want and deserve. This DIY style course is perfect for the entrepreneur who’s working on a budget, but knows that something within their business doesn’t quite hit right.

How You Can Elevate Your Client Experience

First, let’s touch on the onboarding process.

We already talked about how in the onboarding process, a lot of times systems and client experience can overlap. If you don’t already have some sort of client relationship manager or software that you can automate to make that onboarding process easy, then I highly suggest getting one. I personally use 17Hats.

I have been using 17Hats since the inception of my business back in 2017. I can have clients submit the inquiry form through my business website that is connected to my 17Hats account. Immediately after that, they receive a investment guide. I can then follow up and have reminders sent to me so that I can tailor the follow up to whether or not we’ve already had a phone consultation. After that, let’s say they book with my business. I can click one button then the contract and invoice send.

As soon as that invoice or retainer is paid, they receive a questionnaire that kicks off our project together based off of the services that they’ve selected. At this time, the client also receives a timeline we are going to be working off of so that they know exactly when to expect specific deliverables. It really is a seamless process for onboarding. It makes it easy for me and it gives them a great client experience. Bonus points, if all of that can be put into your technical brand color scheme. This makes it be very consistent across every platform.

The second way that you can elevate the client experience is to set the expectations up front.

A good thing to put in the welcome email is whether or not you have office hours. Also other key elements are setting the timeline of when you are going to be working together and when they should expect specific deliverables or other specifics. When people know that in advance, it makes it much easier to be able to plan for it. Make sure that they know what the next step is going to be.

The third way to elevate your client experience is personalization.

You can add small touches that make clients feel really valued. Even if it is something as simple as a personalized thank you note. Back when I did wedding photography, after their engagement session, I would send them this little memory book. I then wrote a handwritten note and sent it to them. Once they got married and I delivered their final wedding gallery, they had a couple of days to look through the images. I then sent them this keep keepsake box and I printed out 10 of my favorite images of them from their wedding day. Those small little touches took me little time but it was really personal to them. This particular example may not be necessarily applicable to you and your business.

However, I can tell you that even gifts that are not specifically personalized with the client’s personal details are still just as important to consider to add to your client experience. I received a gift from the brand designer that I used for my rebrand back in the fall. When I received that gift, it was so sweet. It was a small notebook, a candle, chocolate, and a really beautiful gold pen. It wasn’t necessarily personalized, but it was still an elevated touch in the client experience.

A fourth way is for you and it’s for your client by gathering feedback during that off-boarding process.

By gathering feedback, it is both constructive criticism and a happy testimonial. When I was doing wedding photography, I sent a link to the Google review so that they could put their testimonial out in the public. I also sent them a feedback form asking questions like what did you love? What could I do better? It continues to build trust even after the final deliverable has been delivered because they have the freedom to be able to say, I really love this particular thing about this experience. However, these are the places where I feel you could improve. It wasn’t often that I got ways to improve. However, when I did, those were so valuable. I still use that feedback to this day.

The final way that you can elevate your client experience is by under promising and over delivering.

A way that you can do this is by setting that expectation, but then giving them a little bit more and already having that factored into your cost of doing business. You could also factor this into the time that you allot towards the project as, for example, a realtor.

After a first time homebuyer closes on their home and don’t really know what seasonal home maintenance is like. So every quarter or every season, you can deliver an email that exceeds their expectations to tell them you need to do X, Y and Z to your house. By doing this, you are exceeding the expectations. You are going above and beyond. That is going to elevate your client experience so much.It’s going to differentiate you and get those referral partners in order to continue to funnel into your business.

Auditing Your Own Personal Client Experience in Your Business

I want you to put yourself into the shoes of a potential client and encounter your brand as if you are someone that’s never encountered it before. Now, once you do that and you have run through the introductory process and are at the point of inquiry, I would love for you to be able to set that inquiry off. Do this with somebody that you trust that can run through the steps to see if all of the systems are working properly. This will help you see if the inquiry and follow up system is working well because they can give you honest feedback as to whether or not they feel it is smooth and consistent. From there you will know what tweaks you need to make. If you are a short term rental owner, for example, that would be very easy for you to block a couple of days and stay as if you are a guest to make sure you have everything you need for your clients. This would be down to wifi login instructions and baby soap under the kitchen sink if you have a specific kids room.

Do your own client experience audit. Make that a goal for the Q1 and run through that. See where the improvements can be made and then make those improvements to hit the ground running in the second half of the year.

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