290: Creating an Exceptional New Client Experience
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Summary:
Do new client’s enjoy the onboarding experience with you and your business? The benefit of focusing on the details is that existing clients also benefit from any improvements you make. As a business, we should make the experience of interacting with our company as magical as possible. Collin shares a recent experience of having routine lab work run, and how not to handle new clients. Plus, Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I hold myself more accountable?”
Main topics:
Making magical experiences
Knowing your processes
High quality touch points
Ask a Biz Coach
Main takeaway: A positive client experience means it’s something the clients ENJOY going through. Meaning they’ll keep coming back!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
client, pet, booking, staff member, point, process, appointment, information, pet sitters, questions, hospital, software, labs, pet sitter, business, associates, greet, book, service, experience
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hey, hey, hey.
Collin 00:22
Hi, FB 290 s episode.
Meghan 00:27
I feel like I say the same thing every episode. So I tried to change it up a little bit
Collin 00:30
that you did.
Meghan 00:33
Anyway, thank you to pet sitters associates and our wonderful Patreon members for supporting the show today. And if you don't know what a Patreon member is, they simply help to support the show, keep it going, give us ideas, feedback. And most of all, support us with a few dollars every month. So if you have learned something over the past 289 episodes, we would really appreciate you financially supporting the show. And you if you want to do that you can do so at Pet Sitter confessional.com/support.
Collin 01:04
So I had the immense pleasure of going to the hospital for some basic lab work. And it got me thinking about new client experiences, the clinic that I was going to suggest it I get some baseline stuff since it's been a really long time since I've had any of this kind of thing done.
01:19
Yeah. And you're totally fine. Nothing's wrong. Yeah, I'm okay.
Collin 01:23
But they told me to call the lab to get an appointment set up, but only after the clinic ordered it. And so I called and set up the appointment. And right before they hung up, I had to quickly ask, What was I supposed to do for my appointment? Where was I supposed to go? Was I supposed to do anything special? Because nobody told me to do anything. So my appointment date shows up, and I go to the hospital, I registered, I sit down, I'm listening to my earbuds because that's what I do. And the people at registration start waving at me and kind of shouting. And they asked me what my number is and point to this little tiny screen high up on the wall. And it was behind you. Yeah, I wasn't even facing it. But no one had told me to be watching for my number on a screen. And the screen also read go to booth three. So I asked the people registration, where's booth three, because nobody told me. I didn't know what I was supposed to do next, I arrived at Booth three, they asked for all the same information that I already given out a couple times at this point. And they called down to the labs to make sure everything was set up. After speaking with them. They handed me the phone. And I was talking to the people at the lab. And they asked if I had an appointment. I said yes. So they said good, because I had to have an appointment. So I told them that I had one. And so they asked for my name. And they found my information. And they found my appointment. At which point I asked for the person on the phone. Was there a problem? And they said, No, you just have to have an appointment, which I had. I'm still not 100% sure what was going on at this point in time. All I know is I was really confused well,
Meghan 02:53
and they should have been able to check their system based on your name and saw that you had an appointment,
Collin 02:57
right? So after the phone call the registration, people said I was free to go to the labs and they started to walk away. And I had to call out to them and ask where the heck labs were. And they looked at me like I was asking for the airspeed velocity of a swallow. I eventually found the labs and everything was great. And I tell the story not to drag on hospitals, or those working in the medical field. They're doing a job. I could never in a million years do. But what this did get me thinking about and I talked with Nathan about afterwards was the entire experience for our business and our clients and how we need to make sure that the new client experiences and existing client experiences have the best experience possible.
Meghan 03:38
Yeah, because it sounded like you had a lot of questions, you should not have had to ask that many questions about the experience that you were going through. Yeah, that
Collin 03:47
was the first big takeaway for me, new clients should never have to ask what happens next, there should be no guesswork on their part or confusion about what role they need to play, or what they need to fill out or anything along those lines. As a business. Either you need to have that all lined out. Or you need to physically tell the client when you're face to face with them or on the phone with them or like I said, have a form that walks them through each step of that process. And you have to think through somebody in their shoes that maybe have friends and family go through that process and get feedback on it. Because it's hard for us as the business owners to go back through that process like no one's done it before. Because the whole problem with that hospital situation was really twofold. The first one was that each person along that chain that I had to go and talk with, they were so far removed from the entire process because they had a very small portion of it, they only had to focus on one particular thing. So scheduling only knows what scheduling does. Registration only knows what registration does at each step. There's only one little link in the chain and that's no fault of their own. That's how it's set up. So there's no transfer of information and they don't know what the next step is. And secondly, they've done that one small part 1000s upon 1000s of times, they live, they breathe that every single day, I was the first person they saw that day, and I wasn't the last. So they it becomes ingrained with who they are. They know everything about their part of the process, it's very obvious to them. And this word kept coming up to me as I was going through this experience, it was obvious, right? It was obvious to registration that you would sign in and then stare at the screen for your number, it was obvious that you would walk down and you would know where the booths are, it was obvious that you would know what to do next.
Meghan 05:36
But you never want to reach that point in a business because then you stop being able to meet your clients needs. And then ultimately, unfortunately, new clients have a terrible experience. If you have ever thought, when a client asks you a question, and you go, well, obviously the answer is X or Y, you have probably gotten to that point. Because new clients don't know, they don't know what they don't know, if they've especially if they've never used a pet sitter before, you're going to have to tell them your onboarding process, because every client does that only one time. So they never get trained in doing that multiple times, they may still have questions about did I set this up? Right? Or did I do the booking process correctly. So let's say you have a client who books you once a year for their annual family vacation, but they've been with you for seven years. So they've done the process the onboarding process seven times, but it's been 12 months apart, and they don't remember how to do it because they've slept since then. So you can't be frustrated with that person. Because that is basically a new experience to them, it isn't ingrained in their system.
Collin 06:43
And then there's the process itself. So not only do you have to make sure that you don't become numb to it. But you also have to make sure that it's streamlined. And it actually makes sense. So thinking through all the information that you need all the buttons, all the clicks, that somebody's going to have to do all of the questions that you need to have them ask and making sure that goes in a logical order. So just right now think about when do you need to tell the client when they have to give you a key? When do you make sure to ask somebody if someone else is going to be in in the house? When are you going to ask about separation anxiety or any other behavioral concerns that you may have? Each one of those questions needs to flow in a logical order in the onboarding process of a client, and also has to make sense for you, you don't want to be a point where you're continuing to go through these also ends, right? Oh, if you're as if you're onboarding a new client, you say, oh, there's also this. And there's also this and don't forget this, and there's Oh, and I forgot about this thing. That'd be super annoying. It's really overwhelming to the client. Because it also sounds like you don't know what you're doing or what's going on.
Meghan 07:48
So if you have never gone through your own booking process before, if you have never had to fill out your own paperwork before, maybe you have inputted into the software, but there's a spelling error, or there's something technical logical that doesn't work correctly, you wouldn't know that because you've never done it before. So go through your own process and see what you need to fine tune. Because the new client experience is so critical. Whether you have software or not, you still need to work through this process of how they contact you know, it's may sound silly, but send yourself an email, does it go through to you, from your website? If you have a contact form on your website, send it through, does it reach your inbox,
Collin 08:28
and I've been thinking about this a lot as well, because we've actually had a client who's reached out to us and complained about the booking process. It's hard for her and it doesn't make sense to her and the way her brain is wired. She's actually told us that she dreads the booking process, and that one hurt a lot. Yeah, which is something that you never want to hear. Because at that point, you're really hoping that your service and the benefits that you bring outweigh the dread of booking because if it doesn't, she's gonna go someplace else that's more flexible to them, or it's easier to them or meets those expectations that they have.
Meghan 09:01
And so think about every time a new person interacts with your company, every single touch point, it needs to be exceptional, it needs to be seamless, that's part of the the ongoing client experience is having an exceptional pet care business. So every single touchpoint needs to be on point basically. So the other thing about the hospital, when you go in and nobody talks to one another, they all ask you the same questions every single time and they don't know where you are in the process. And it's probably to verify that you are who you are sort of nobody's trying to get free medical, whatever. But when your client is interacting with you, they should never have to explain who they are, who their pets are or anything like that because it should be immediately accessible to you to review whether that's on your phone and your software. If you're still pen and paper, get out your file folders, anything like that if they call you or email you or anything.
Collin 09:53
Oh yeah reviewing before you get back with him. So you don't have to say hi, who called who you called. Who are you? And I'm actually the world's worst at this. I open the phone, I answer phone calls and emails, and I just say, Hi. And it's kind of a new experience to me every time and I don't really pay attention to the number coming through on the other line. So I need to get better at this and better make sure they have those phone numbers programmed, appropriately. And I can remember who is calling and I know when was the last time that we cared for their pet? Did they have any concerns, were there any issues, all this information needs to be at our fingertips,
Meghan 10:28
because if they're having to repeat themselves over and over or have the same questions for you over, it's going to be a pain point for them and not really an exceptional experience.
Collin 10:37
And all this sounds silly, because we're comparing our pet businesses to a big hospital, big Regional Hospital, right, and you have to talk to reception, you have to talk to booking, you have to talk to the care team, you have to talk to billing. And Megan mentioned as a solopreneur. Though, you may be thinking this is weird, because you don't have all those interconnected teams. Well, you are that team, this falls to you, you are all those hats. And if you don't have your ducks in a row, if you don't have a management system for information for each client that you can easily reference or access to look at their past history, all of that is actually necessary so that you can meet their needs. And you can meet them well. Because knowing the history of somebody where they are in the booking process, how much information you have or don't have on file, the more that you can sit down and have all that accessible to your fingertips, whether you have software, whether it's an Excel file, or you have a Google Doc, it's on your phone, it doesn't matter where it is, having that information there and accessible to you is going to help this process go a lot faster. Because you're ultimately going to have to spend less time asking redundant questions, and the client is going is not going to feel like they have to explain themselves and start over from ground zero.
Meghan 11:47
Well, and it can be hard when you've got hundreds or 1000 clients, knowing who books, when, what's their phone number on all the intricate information about their home or their pet. So it's all about having a logical process when somebody contacts you. And then you also have to think about having staff, they need to be doing the same thing that you are doing. And that's with onboarding them the training and how they conduct the visits, it needs to be the exact same that you do. So sharing information with them is even more critical. Do they have all the same information? Are you able to share notes between staff members about individual pets and their care?
Collin 12:23
Because you do not want to have to have your staff asking redundant questions of your clients. And this is actually a question that Megan I have mold around a lot is okay, we've brought out a new staff member, at what point do you stop having them go to new staff meet and greets with an existing client. On one hand, it's actually we understand it's comforting to client to know the person that's coming to their home well on the staff member to so they don't walk in blind. On the other hand, you have to weigh that against this is a big immense cost of having to go through this again. And again, as you bring on new staff members, the client, and then from the client side, they keep having to take time off work to come home to do this. Again, they have to delay dinner with their family again. And even though that you have gotten done this once and that you already have all that information, it gets back to that also a and also, as you continue to ask more and more from the client, it's less and less seamless.
Meghan 13:19
And so we have some clients that actually actually request, you know, I want to meet every staff member. But you have to balance that out. I think the default should be for the systems, the questionnaires, the shadowing and all that stuff should be to the point where anybody could walk in at the moment and take over if need be. And if that's the case, you don't need to do the intensive meet and greet every single time. Something that is really seamless is working with pet sitters associates. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters Associates is here to help for over 20 years they've provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Since you work in the pet care industry. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom and reading your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today. At pets@llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership Pet Sitter confessional and using the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off, check out the benefits, membership and insurance once again at petsfit llc.com. You have to think about how many touch points you have with a client. How many do they have with your company? Ideally, though, there really should be as few touch points as possible. So here's an example of something that has the most touch points. So we come in we do the meet and greet every single time before the client books every single time before they have a pet set. Well that may be necessary if it's been three years since they last used you and they only book a trip every three years. So that may be necessary but if you're coming over and doing the meet and greet when they booked a couple times a month, that is not necessary and that creates a ton of touch points. There's a lot of back and forth there. You need to view every back and forth at client has with you as a touch point,
Collin 15:02
and it makes you think about investing. You don't want to be buying and selling constantly because you have to be right twice, you have to be right when you sell and you have to be right. When you buy, will, you'll be right each time, maybe not. And actually, the more touch points that you have with a client, the more likely you are to mess something up at some point or it to fall through and not be a magical experience for them
Meghan 15:24
well, and more importantly, that they're probably going to be more annoyed and leave, which obviously you don't want. So if you have a client reach out to you and say, Hey, do you have availability on Wednesday? You respond with oh, let me check. And then you have to respond to them again and say I do? Yes. So they say, Okay, thanks. Can you book me? And then you say, Yes, I can, what times do you need, it's all this back and forth, that can be pretty annoying to a client. And it's also very error prone. You know, okay, you do that for one client. But when it when you have 300 clients, and they need you, it's not scalable. So the more you scale, the more you try and do that for 300 clients, the more likely you are going to mess up through whether it's, you're tired, or you're confused, or you're just running yourself ragged every day, you know, you can increase the quantity, but you decrease the quality here. And that's obviously not something that we want
Collin 16:15
also in that example there after that initial contact if you are booking via text message or Facebook message or like that, and they asked Do you have availability, don't respond until you know the answer. And then when you do respond, have all of the follow up questions and ask for all that additional information at that time. So you can move this forward a lot and reduce the amount of back and forth. And obviously, if you have software in a software link, they can go directly book themselves, that would be even
Meghan 16:43
easier. But even if you don't have software, there's still a lot of touch points that you may have. And so trying to reduce those touch points as much as possible is best.
Collin 16:52
Yeah, ask yourself Is every single message that I'm sending absolutely perfect and magical to this client. And I keep using that word magical more and more, because I think about the services that we provide as dog walkers and pet sitters as more of a Disney kind of service. Clients leave on their vacation, their pet stay at home, but the when the clients return, magically, everything is cared for it. Everything is amazing, the pets are happy, the clients didn't have to do anything. It's just a very magical experience. So we need to try and capture that at every stage of our onboarding and every interaction. I don't think Disney's booking process has 1000 back and forth messages. They have a very simple straightforward system, but it's handled by people who know that system very well. So whether you have software or not have a simple system, that straightforward and captures everything you need when you need it. That way you can stop pestering clients. And let's be real one pain point is that when clients fill out our contract, and our meet and greet form, there's a lot of information there. But we only ask them to do that one time. Unless obviously, there's some informational changes, they get a new dog or they move or something like that, fill that out. But it's a one and done. We ask Him to fill up pages and pages and have all this information on them. But we ask them to endure that one time. And then we do everything that we can to move away from that.
Meghan 18:18
Yeah, and if you have a booking link, like you mentioned, that's even more simple. And so when we do meet and greets now, we've started to say something like, you know, we've done the meet and greet, we've assessed your pet, we are good to go. So it's a very simple process, trying to make it as simple as possible for the client. There's no barriers to entry, there's just we have you know, the key, you have the booking link that's been texted to you. Now all you need to do in the future is booked through that link, and we'll take over the rest and you never have to worry about it. And then they're free to go. Obviously, if they have questions about booking or any concerns that, you know, we tell them, we're here anytime to answer those. So we really wanted to assess why this is so important. And it's because it helps clients feel welcomed. It helps them to feel that you're competent, that you are the boss business owner that you are and that they can trust you ultimately, that it's just a pleasant experience to do business with you and something they enjoy going through meaning they're going to keep coming back. They're going to be that repeat client over and over again. We would love to know how you have enhanced your client experience and your onboarding process how you've made it more simple and efficient. And as little touch points as possible. You can email us at feedback at petsitter confessional.com. On our ask our business coach question, Natasha opionion is going to answer How do I hold myself accountable?
Natasha 19:35
I always say it's easier to write down what you do stand for. So it's easier to reject what you don't stand for. So you can easily say no, that's not in alignment with me. Nope, that's not in alignment with me. So I would say to right make a list of things right when we say write a mission statement write an origin story, you know, write your brand story, make a list As to like what your company stands for. So if anything else doesn't align, it's easier for you to say no. also empowering your service agreement in that way. When you have it all written out in your service agreement, you can say, unfortunately, this goes against the terms in which we agreed to do service. I love that line. Unfortunately, this goes against the terms in which we agreed to do service. That's an easy way of saying now, did you have it written down?
Collin 20:30
Well, so what that is, is that offboarding that process, like you said, put it in the policies, make it known and make it plain, not just for you, but for people around you, so that you can refer back to something right. I know, I have a hard time telling people No, but if it's in my policies, I can copy and paste that and go look, it's it's not me saying No, it's my policies. Here you go. And it's you know, and you can move on.
Natasha 20:52
Absolutely. And that's what I like, I think contracts are accountability to me. I think contracts and service agreements are accountability in business. Because who's the tiebreaker? Nobody? It's just us. So the tiebreaker is the service agreement. The tiebreaker is the contract. It's the communication piece where we're like, Listen, this was weird that you asked me. I'll know how I feel about it. But it's not my service agreement. So no. Because we all get those requests where we're like, I could probably swing. That doesn't sound too bad. Well, then we do it again and again, and we realized that one off scenario wasn't even scalable. And now we have no accountability for ourselves.
Meghan 21:43
If you would like to join the Tatras, monthly membership group, you can do so at automated ceo.com and use the code pse 20 for 15% off.
Collin 21:51
Thank you to our sponsors, pet sitters associates and our wonderful patriots for making today's show possible. And we really want thank you all for listening and supporting us and following along giving advice and being part of this amazing community. We couldn't do it without you and we're so thankful for you.
Meghan 22:05
Thank you very much.
