Everyone Just Wants to Feel Special

Whoever would have thought coke cans would be the big thing on social? Why the heck would all my friends start snapping photos of their non-alcoholic, unexciting beverage? Because Coca Cola made its packaging special. They took something mundane and made it a custom product for millions of their consumers.

My friend Maggie loves her dogs like they’re her kids. Like, they really are her kids. Maggie also loves Instagram. So, what’s a massive social app, with virtually no customer service got to do with a post about making people feel special? Thanks to the magic of Instagram’s algorithms, Maggie’s dog got to have a play date with her litter mate. After 2 years apart, the doggie siblings romped and played at the beach all because of a personalized suggestion through Instagram.

Mass produced soda bottles and crazy intelligent facial recognition and redistribution algorithms really have nothing to do with small businesses on a shoestring budget, right? How can we ever offer a high level of personalized service that generates positive buzz and overwhelming enthusiasm from our tiny little offices with our already over stretched budgets?

It is possible to use automation to give your clients the personalized experience they’ll rave over. Even if you only have 20 minutes and no money to spend.

Example 1 – Pre-Qualification & Call Prep

Forms are an easy way to automate processes in your business and there’s several free ways to build them. (Check out JotForm – or if we built your site use Gravity Forms. It’s already installed!)

If you’ve done your homework narrowing your focus and defining who your clients really are it should be easy to filter out the good leads from the bad (for you) ones. Create a short, 5 – 10 question form that you can send to prospects for your first call.

This pre-qualification process saves you and your prospect time and helps you setup a more successful first call. Plus you may find that prospects are more honest about their budget through a form than they are on a call. We’ve increased revenue by about 20% in 6 months thanks in part to our Let’s Get Started form.

Prospective clients feel special because you’ve already customized your call to their needs, you haven’t wasted their time only to find out you aren’t a good fit to work together, and you’re probably able to generate a quote or move to the next phase of the sales process quickly (and that’ll make you feel pretty good too).

Example 2 – Project Development

Use alerts through your calendar to stay on top of client follow-ups throughout your projects. Sounds simple, right? But what if you take it a step further and really customize the touches to your clients’ liking.

Here at Blue Steele we use Teamwork Project Management to keep up with projects. We spent a little extra time creating boilerplate projects for our standard project types. Included in our projects are tasks to reach out to clients along the way. These touch points are based on client need/preference. Some clients like a weekly check-in, some just want to chat at important milestones. Rather than ask each client to conform to our process, we bend our standard process to their preferences. To keep time management on track we also adjust the length of calls according to the total number of calls throughout the project. Weekly check-ins get a 20 minute call scheduled for the same time and day each week, while more hands-off clients will have longer calls with us at each check-point. The final bit of customization is that we create an agenda for each call at the beginning of the project. These are then scheduled and added to our calendar and the clients.

This level of structure and planning on every project seems time consuming; but because every standard project is already pre-planned and created in our project management tool we only have to duplicate the project, update some client details and shift dates. Clients receive an experience that is adapted to their schedule and workflow and they have increased confidence in the project because of the level of organization they see from the very first steps.

 Example 3 – After the Project

Syed Blakhi published a fantastic article today about winning customer loyalty through a better refund process. While Syed’s article is about improving his refund process, and note the process is highly automated, we can take away important lessons about doing a better job pleasing our customers and clients through the entire sales and delivery process. Besides delivering a fantastic product or service, you can delight your customers in the way you wrap up the transaction.

An automated feedback request form is fairly standard, but what’s not is actually closing the loop on any negative feedback or suggestions from clients. How many times have you left a negative review, or provided a low score on a feedback form, knowing you’d never hear anything else from that organization?

First, structure your feedback request so that positive reviews are directed to Google+ or Yelp, while negative feedback or suggestions are sent to a private form on your website. Then, make a commitment to implement changes when clients make good suggestions or have legitimate complaints about your business, process, or product. And finally, close the loop by letting your client know what you’re going to do differently moving forward and express your genuine appreciation for their honest feedback.

Now It’s Your Turn

How can you automate a process or experience to make your customers feel special? Spend 20 minutes this week focusing on making your clients happier and making your life a little simpler.