Client Segment and Service Clarity
We hear a lot about the client experience. This isn’t just the latest buzzword or trend, it’s a time-tested business investment that, when perfected, turns a lead into a prospect, a prospect into a client, and a client into a raving fan who will refer their friends and family to your business.
There are multiple ways to enhance your client experience that we will review in this course. In this lesson, you will create a clear and outlined experience for each client as they move from prospect to client. This also allows the staff to know what role they play and standards to adhere too. It uncovers time-saving ideas you can implement to lower the workload. And it builds trust, expectations, and transparency to create a great client experience.
Client segmentation is critical to create these referable experiences. This lesson teaches you to arrange your client base into smaller groups according to the level and method of service you provide them. This exercise provides clarity on the types and depth of services you provide to each client, which in turn, allows you to calculate how much capacity you do or do not have in your business for new clients. Being bogged down with over serviced, low-level clients is like swimming upstream when it comes to scaling the business. It‘s futile. It drains energy and detracts from the client experience. By narrowing down your client segments and off boarding those that no longer fit with your model, you are able to offer more to the clients you do serve. Those clients will be happy clients. And happy clients are the ones that most often send quality referrals.
Benefits
To grow successfully, businesses must decide to service less, offboard clients, or hire additional staff. It seems unthinkable to lower services or off-board clients, but so does adding more staff just to manage unprofitable or not-fit clients. It is always better to manage a lean, profitable business and provide quality servicing to:
- Improve the client experience
- Prevent workplace burnout
- Avoid bottlenecks in staff operations
- Keep important items from slipping through the cracks
- Receive rewarding referrals from satisfied clients
Exercise: Client Segment and Service
Client Segment and Service clarity provides the client and staff the best experience possible. By clarifying and documenting, you will reduce the workload, convert clients into Raving Fans™, and experience a boost in profitability.
- Download the Client Segment Service Template
- Fill is as many cells as you can
- Take breaks and come back to this weekly until you have a solid rough draft of the client experience for each segment
- Match this information with your CRM’s client servicing workflows
Revisit this chart annually as your client experience will evolve and need adjusting
Exercise: Online Experience
The online experience builds trust and garners referrals. You will benefit from quickly defining the online experience for the lead, prospect, new client and ongoing client.
- Download the Online Experience Template below.
- Replace italicized words with the experience you want to provide, both in meetings and at their home.
- Add rows for other software you will introduce to the client.
Reflect and Prioritize
Bottom line: some clients will demand more of your time and attention than others and that’s ok. But, it only makes sense if that time and attention are (a) commensurate with what they are compensating you and (b) don’t crush you, your business, your wallet, your team, or your company culture. The goal is to identify and grow the client segments that provide the highest revenue and professional satisfaction while draining the least amount of resources.
We go through the process of client segmentation to preserve our resources and grant ourselves space and capacity to move in a positive direction both fiscally and mentally. Through segmentation, we can make the most use of our own limited amounts of time, offer an exceptional client experience to our remaining clients, and open up doors for more like them, ultimately leading to a more cohesive brand and quality referrals.
Please remember to add any new epiphanies and ideas to your Master Plan of Ideas and Initiatives.