The Client Experience Is Everything - Part 1

In my last post, I shared with you some very simple strategies on how to go about becoming the preferred the choice in your industry. In this newsletter I want to delve even deeper and discuss why the overall client experience of doing business with you, is critical both to your success – and more importantly – in positioning your company as the preferred choice.

Whenever I initially ask a business owner, “What makes your special?”, or “Why should I buy from you?”, one very common response is “Well we provide excellent customer service”. Most companies promise ‘excellent customer service’ and will position their uniqueness around this notion, however, how many actually deliver on this promise, or in fact over-deliver?

Excellent customer service these days is a given; we expect it. This quality simply gets you into the game. Customer service needs to be something much more effective, demonstrable and above all tangible.

I believe there are three key areas that you, as a business owner must focus on, to deliver a consistent client experience. These are as follows:

• Before the sale;
• During the sale, and;
• After the sale

So in this post I want to discuss the first of these three areas:

Before the sale

We now have more choices that ever before – or to put it another way – as a potential client, I can virtually take my business anywhere; especially when I’m deciding on that first, initial, purchase.

So keeping this in mind, you need to create the ultimate ‘client experience’ from the very moment someone makes an initial enquiry with your business. Why? Because this affords you a tremendous opportunity to make a real impact on the prospect, from the very beginning.

Let’s imagine the conversation that’s going on inside your potential client’s head. They will be feeling all manner of emotions when considering doing business with you: they might feel wary, sceptical and/or threatened. Who knows, maybe your prospect has dealt with someone from your industry in the past, and was promised all manner of help that didn’t materialise.

The fact is, you have a tremendous opportunity to re-set your prospect’s perception of you, your business and the results you can provide from the moment they make that first initial contact.

You see, whilst the competition might follow-up an enquiry with, say, a standard letter and/or put a brochure in the post; you won’t offer much more. So here are two very powerful strategies I want you to adopt:

• Offer an education up front
• Treat the prospect as if they are already a client

I believe that as a society as a whole, we have all become very good at ‘filtering’ or simply ignoring the many marketing messages that come our way, every day. In particular, those messages that do not speak to us on a personal level. So one way to ensure your message cuts through all of this clutter, is to offer a tremendous education up front. That is, rather than using a very ‘sales orientated’ message, you begin to educate your audience from the very start, as to how you can appreciate their concerns and frustrations. You begin to offer some valuable insight that will enable them to have much greater confidence in buying from you.

Always keep this in mind: Education builds rapport, cold direct selling breaks rapport.

So before any transaction has taken place use every opportunity to demonstrate your expertise.

The second part of this strategy involves treating the prospect as if they are already a client. Simply put, because you anticipate gaining their business at some stage, you don’t hold back on the initial advice and guidance you’re able to provide. Now I don’t believe one moment you ‘give it all away’, after all you have a business to run!

However, because there is an expectation – that in time – the prospect will turn into a client, you treat them as one and the same. It’s really a shift in your mindset: because you anticipate the prospect’s business at some point, you ensure you offer the best guidance and insight from the very beginning.

Again, notice how both these concepts go far beyond simply following up an enquiry with a standard letter, email or telephone call. Ultimately people buy from people they like, and so this approach will do wonders for your PR!

In the next post, I’ll provide you with some key strategies on how you can offer a better client experience during the sale.