Brand And Customer Experience: How To Get Clients To Respect Your Time
Feb 21
How’s your brand & customer experience, boss babe? Do you ever feel like your clients (or maybe just one client in particular) are walking all over you? They don’t respect your time or your talent.
So frustrating, right?
Well, sorry to tell you this, friend, but the fault might be your own. When you don’t set clear expectations for your clients they might start to rule your business.
Don’t worry, you can reign in back in — and I’m going to tell you how!
In the inaugural episode of my new video series, I’m sharing my tips for earning and maintaining your client’s respect!
(By the way, this post contains affiliate links… but I was gonna recommend them anyway — so, hey… might as well get paid for it!)
Brand And Customer Experience: How To Get Clients To Respect Your Time
Shop The Look
Be the Expert: Take Control of Your Brand & Customer Experience
As small business owners it’s easy to give up control to the client without even realizing it! In the video I share one example of a wedding photographer who was losing control by allowing her brides and grooms to create their own wedding day timelines. Then this poor photographer was left at the mercy of what the client decided, instead of using her own judgment and expertise to create the timeline.
Collaborate with the client
In my own business (when I was still shooting weddings) I would invite wedding clients to a planning meeting 4-6 weeks before the big day. There we would create the timeline and family portrait shot list together. I was able to guide them through the process — knowing from my own experience what would work best. But they also got to feel “heard.”
Be the Expert
Clients are looking for YOU to take charge. They’ve hired you for your talent, knowledge and expertise. As consumers ALL of us are willing to pay more for someone we trust to be an expert — so BE the expert!
Set Clear Expectations at the Beginning of the Customer Experience
Like I mentioned above, clients are waiting for you to take charge and be the expert. One way to do this is to set clear expectations from the very beginning of any client experience.
Office Policies & Procedures
One way I do this in my own business is to share my Office Policies and Procedures with new clients as soon as they book. I have a welcome email that I’ve created with all of this critical information. It includes things like my office hours, how to best reach me, when payments are due, etc.
Because I’m sending this at the very beginning of their experience there’s no confusion about how I run my business. I’m also establishing myself as the expert in their experience by (very politely) saying “this is how I do business.”
If you haven’t already, create your own list of Office Policies and Procedures—or even better, use mine! You can buy my Client Onboarding Email Template, and customize it to work for your business.
Send Reminders for Client Meetings
Whether it’s for a date or a client meeting, nobody wants to get stood-up!
The best way to keep clients from no-showing on you is to always send client reminder emails.
Dubsado
I use Dubsado — a client management software — to help run my business. It’s got a lot of great features including scheduling, online contracts, online payments, and more.
It also has email scheduling — which is perfect for sending those client reminder emails!
As soon as I confirm a client meeting with a client or a new lead I schedule a reminder email (and Dubsado allows me to create email templates so I don’t have to write the same thing over and over again!) to go out the day before our meeting.
Click here to start your free trial of Dubsado.
Boomerang for Gmail
If you don’t have a CRM like Dubsado yet, you can use the Boomerang plug-in for Gmail. It allows you to schedule emails to go out at a later time (and the free version gives you a few emails each month).
Brand and Customer Experience: Gain Your Clients’ Respect
If you want to be taken seriously and gain your clients respect, be sure to:
- Establish yourself as the expert
- Set clear expectations at the beginning of the client experience
- Send client reminder emails
Are you struggling to get your own clients to respect you and your time? What’s your favorite tip — let me know in a comment below!
And be sure to grab my free workbook — The Brand Blueprint — a 20-page guide to help you take your brand to the next level:
