Delivering an Unforgettable Client Experience

The coaching and consulting community has a borderline obsession with acquisition.

Don’t believe it? Try out this drinking game:

• Crack open your social media
• Start scrolling
• Take a shot every time you see an ad that promises to book an insane amount of calls on your calendar… “or you don’t pay”

Good luck passing a field sobriety test.

Is there something wrong with acquisition? Of course not. It is the primary way that the vast majority of businesses get new revenue in the door.

But, if you’re devoting so much of your focus to getting new clients into your program… what are you doing with the clients you already have?

You know, the people who have already paid you for the expertise you provide.

• Are they having a “grand slam” experience?
• Are they becoming raving fans of you, your team, and your methods?
• Are they referring new business to you because you’re overdelivering at such a high level?
• Are they active in your communities, encouraging one another, adding value and enriching the experience for future clients?

If the answers to these questions isn’t a resounding “yes,” you are leaving a massive amount of revenue on the table.

Let’s talk about how to use 3 pillars of fulfillment to create a client experience inside of your program that will have new prospects TRIPPING OVER THEMSELVES to get in (and stay in)!

First things first. We approach client services and fulfillment through the lens of two questions:

1. Is it good for the client?
2. Is it good for the team?

If you ignore either one when defining your systems for delivery, you either burn your client base or burn your team. Both are bad options.

Look for the sweet spot between systems that make the client feel like royalty… and don’t make your team want to pull their hair out! If you analyze every piece of your onboarding, client touch points, support, events and other aspects of fulfillment through the lens of “good for the client, good for the team,” you can’t go wrong!

Let’s dive into the 3 pillars (or “rails”) of the client experience.

Just like with any institution of higher learning, your program should be crafted around a core “curriculum” – the training materials available to the client upon enrollment, which ensure that he/she gets the highest amount of value out of your time together.

Think of curriculum as your stabilizer – the central elements of the knowledge you’re looking to impart to people. Start by asking yourself, “What questions do I find myself having to answer for clients the most?”

Anything that must be repeated should be recorded. This keeps your program from becoming stagnant, and (instead) allows it to remain a living organism that you feed consistently.

Over time your curriculum will expand to meet more and more of the needs of your target market. It’s essentially machine learning – the more clients come through, the more adept your curriculum becomes at meeting their needs!

In Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s excellent book, “Willpower Doesn’t Work,” he posits that your environment (not your grit, determination and sheer will) is the ultimate differentiating factor between success and failure.

Taylor (our CEO) often says, “A weak person in a strong environment will always outperform a strong person in a weak environment.”

That’s why your client experience should always include an element of community. A support system where your clients can ask for help, get/give insights, celebrate wins, walk through difficulties together, and have FUN (please don’t forget that your program can – and should – be fun).

Our community is built around a private Circle group (where only our clients and team have access), and through events, which we do monthly (smaller level) and quarterly (larger scale). But it goes far, far beyond that. It’s not uncommon for our clients to meet up on their own when they’re out and about traveling, or to have little get-togethers (which we play no part in setting up or arranging BTW) when they’re all in town for one of our events.

Basically, we provide the “space” for the community to exist, but it has gone way beyond our involvement, and has taken on a life of its own.

Here’s something to keep in mind. Excellent communities start with excellent culture, and excellent culture comes from having the right people – both on your client roster and on your team. A good community instills belief and energy into your program without you having to do it explicitly.

The third aspect is the actual hands-on coaching that you do with your clients.

This will – to some extent at least – always have elements that are custom. There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” solution for client work. No two clients’ issues are exactly the same, and the needs of your market will shift over time. In order to remain agile, and to continue serving the people you enjoy helping the most – you will need to be involved in crafting solutions for the clients you enroll.

A perfect example of this – a couple of weeks ago, we announced that we were adding an option for DFY (done-for-you) Lead Generation for clients in our LaunchKit program as a paid upgrade service.

Why? Because we’ve had hundreds of people go through our programs, and we realized that it was a common issue people were dealing with. So we figured, “Why not offer a solution to the people who are already in our community?”

Want to keep your existing clientele happy and continuing to pay you money just to be in your orbit? Keep delighting them with new solutions to the problems they are experiencing.

Even if you sold them into your community because of your ability to fix one problem, don’t forget that they DO have other problems… problems you just might be able to solve.

When all three pillars come together, your clients never want to leave.

More than that, they will gladly continue paying you just so that they can continue being a part of what you’re building. You don’t need to be the most charismatic leader or big, bold personality in every room you enter. You simply need to give a sh*t about the people you serve, and craft an experience that makes them happy they said “yes” to working with you.

Oh, and about the whole obsession with acquisition that we were talking about at the start of the article… there are very few acquisition strategies quite as potent as a revolving referral system, where your happiest clients enjoy their experience with you so much that they keep telling more and more of their friends and colleagues about it.

See what we mean?

Keeping clients really is better than simply getting more clients.

If you want some insights from our team about how you can craft a next-level client experience inside of your coaching or consulting business, click here and set up a time to talk to one of our expert advisors!