By Brooke Scott, MBA + Sam Whisnant

If you’ve been wanting to take your client experience to the next level, this 3-part featured series will be the go-to resource for making it happen. This series is focused on cutting out unnecessary steps and introducing tips you can implement ASAP to start seeing a positive shift in your client experience. After the series, you’ll be able to finally streamline and create an elevated client experience that’s custom to your business.

In part one of the series, we are diving into 3 automations that you can incorporate into your onboarding and client nurture periods to take them from a manual mess to automated no-touch processes using high-level (but easy to implement) steps. They include:

1. Introduce an onboarding handout full of all the details and expectations of your client relationship. 
2. Provide an area that can be shared with you and your client during the entirety of your partnership together (and that can be accessed after onboarding). 
3. Introduce more nurture periods into your client experience, from onboarding to offboarding.

Tip 1: Make The Onboarding Process A 5-Star Experience By Introducing An Onboarding Handout Full Of All The Details And Expectations Of Your Client Relationship 

Inside Your Onboarding Handout Include:

• A Warm Welcome From You & Your Team – Introducing all the key players on your team for transparency in who all is involved.
• About Your Business Mission, Vision & Values – Including how you plan to stay in that alignment during this partnership (i.e. How You Practice Upholding This With Clients).
• Your Business Hours & Communication Preferences – Outlining your business boundaries so that the expectation is set from the start. Include your hours, holiday expectations, place you will be communicating with your client, and links to book their calls for quick & easy reference.
• An Outline Of How You Serve (i.e. Your Specific Process or Framework)
• An Outline Of The Platforms You Use (If Applicable)
• How They Can Provide Information To You – This is where your client folders will come into play (See the next tip for more on this). Express how they can provide you passwords, where to store relevant information and how that can be managed moving forward. 
• You can also include things that are typically added to your contracts for an extra layer of communication. Especially surrounding things like turnaround time, payment policies, and more! 

The integration that will make the delivery of this onboarding handout will either be triggered by a 1:1 client signing a contract or by a group program purchase and delivered via your email marketing platform. 

(For exact steps of how this could look like for you, comment below or send us a DM on Instagram (DM Brooke Here or DM Sam Here) on how to integrate your specific platform.)

Tip 2: Provide An Area That Can Be Shared With You And Your Client During The Entirety Of Your Partnership Together (And That Can Be Accessed After Onboarding) 

This can look the same regardless of it being a 1:1 client or a group client. The intention of having this is so that the client (and yourself) can access and share material directly with you during your time together, keeping things organized in one area. 

While this can be something implemented in your project management tool of choice (like ClickUp) in various ways, or in a course platform, the most common way (and most simple) is via Google Drive.

Create a shared drive that is client specific and that contains a folder for all clients under each offer you have. Inside that parent folder, you would house your client template folder for that offer and all the corresponding client folders for that offer. The initial step is to make sure your client template folder is set up for this specific offer so that when this package is purchased, you can create an automation to create a new client folder for you containing all the materials you need, without lifting a finger from you.

Inside this folder you can have a sub-folder for your call recordings, and documents that are provided on onboarding (i.e. like a copy of the onboarding handout mentioned in tip 1) and that are necessary for that container. 

Sharing this area will allow you and your client to easy and quickly share and access all information needed with one place to reference during onboarding, during your contracted time, and afterwards. 

(For exact steps of how this could look like for you, comment below or send us a DM on Instagram (DM Brooke Here or DM Sam Here) on how to integrate this automation specifically based on your CRM and your client templates.)

Tip 3: Whether You Are Onboarding A 1:1 Client For 3-6 Months Or A New Group Client Program For A Year, Make Sure You Are Nurturing This Relationship And Asking For Feedback Outside Of Your Normal Day-To-Day Communication

For a 1:1 client (6 months): Create an automation that kicks off in your CRM based on the contract being signed. This automation (or workflow) will deliver your onboarding documentation and handout (mentioned in the last 2 tips) and then enter your client into a nurture phase. For a 6 month period it’s a good practice to have 4 check-ins via this automation. They include:

• One 30-day check-in. – To see how the first month has been going and get their feedback on the onboarding process and how they are feeling in the relationship.
• Once half-way check-in (around 3 months). – To touch base on how the last quarter has been going and how they are feeling in the relationship. This is a good time to ask for a short testimonial or provide some feedback based on their current experience.
• One check-in 30 days before they offboard. – To explain next steps and expectations for the upcoming month and how to continue to work with you or introduce a conversation about getting things wrapped up.
• One 30-60 days AFTER they offboard. To collect a final and formal testimonial based on their overall time with you. 

For a group program client (12 months): Follow the same process as above but expand on the time frame and more check-ins on how they are feeling inside the group container. (Note: During these check-ins for group clients, you should ask for feedback at each step to make sure you’re connecting 1:1 about how they are feeling & being supported by you in this container. Using a Video Ask is a great & easy way to collect these details.) The expanded outline for group program clients on a longer retainer period include:

• One 3 Month Check-In 
• One 6 Month Check-In
• One 9 Month Check-In 
• One 6 Week Before They Offboard Check-In. – To provide options about continuing support and/or what to experience with offboarding and how to access materials that they would need to keep.
• One 4 Week Before They Offboard Check-In (If they haven’t extended). – To mirror the 6 week before check-in but as a “month out” reminder to either have them extend or wrap up.
• One Final 2 Week Before They Offboard Check-In (If they haven’t extended). – To give them all the necessary information they need for the offboarding process and how they can access materials.
• One 30-60 days AFTER they offboard. – To collect a final and formal testimonial based on their overall time with you. 
• One 90-120 days AFTER they offboard. – To check in on them and see how they are doing outside of the group experience.

Introducing these touch points in either capacity will allow you to strengthen your communication, relationship, and expectations with your client because you’re not only connecting 1:1 via your daily/weekly communication as you typically would when supporting them, but you’re nurturing them based on the initial agreement they made with you, AND you’re checking in on them. This level of support will show that you’re being super intentional with your relationship and are making sure you’re meeting those expectations for them. Which in the end, produces a client experience that is like no other in respect of nurturing that client.

(For exact steps of how this could look like for you, comment below or send us a DM on Instagram (DM Brooke Here or DM Sam Here) on how to integrate this process inside your specific platforms.)

Your client experience doesn’t have to be complicated. Implementing these 3 areas will elevate your onboarding and nurture experience by simply just having it in place. Your clients will not only see your organization but will see your intention and care behind having them as a client and will appreciate the experience even more. (Not to mention – your testimonials will transform from basic to raving reviews about you and your touch!)

>>>>>> Click here to jump directly into Part 2: High Touch Programs, right now! Inside part 2, we are breaking down simple systems you can implement to uplevel your client experience for your high-touch offers. 

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