Keeping your business organized is essential for efficiency, client satisfaction, and success. By incorporating automations and employing the right tools, you can create a smooth and seamless experience for both yourself and your clients. In this blog post, we’ll explore three fundamental processes that deserve thoughtful consideration, along with our favorite automation tools to make sure your clients leave feeling like they just had the best experience EVER!
Onboarding, Project Management, and Offboarding:
The three core processes you will want to pay the most attention to are onboarding, project management, and offboarding. These three processes encompass the entire customer journey and make sure your clients are surprised and delighted from start to finish with their experience. Streamlining these processes will also save YOU a lot of time, so you have more space to deliver your clients even better results.
Onboarding is the crucial first step where you welcome new clients and set the tone for the entire relationship. Using automation tools like Loom for personalized screen recordings and CRM systems like Dubsado or Honeybook for efficient invoicing processes will greatly improve your client’s experience working with you.
The project management phase will be unique to your business depending on the service you are providing, so it may look a bit different from mine. However, Trello will work for most businesses. It is an amazing tool for task organization, deadlines, and team collaboration. With Trello boards and cards, you can ensure projects stay on track, deadlines are met, and that clients will always feel like they are “in the loop” on what is going on with their project.
Last, but certainly not least, take the time to evaluate your current off-boarding process. This final phase leaves a lasting impression on clients, fostering loyalty and increases the chance for repeat business with them. We really enjoy using Google Drive to organize and deliver client files along with recording a personalized video explaining those deliverables with Loom. A well-structured offboarding process shows that you value your clients’ experience and it strengthens your reputation.
A really fun tip to throw in here is to find a way to stay in touch with your clients even after you have finished working together. One of the ways we like to do this is by sending out birthday cards to clients on their birthday with a QR code that they can scan for access to a private digital goodie bag.
Now, onto the tools that can help you stay organized. We’ll start with Loom, because it is one of our favorites. From there, we’ll explore some other efficiency tools to help streamline your business processes and ensure a seamless experience for yourself and your clients. Let’s dive in!
Loom: Personalized Videos
Loom allows you to create super personal screen recordings that make it feel like you are right there in the room with your clients even if you are thousands of miles apart. Loom is perfect for client training, project checkpoints, onboarding, and support. Loom also serves as a valuable resource for employee training whenever you are onboarding new employees. It ensures a personalized touch without sacrificing efficiency.
CRM System – Dubsado
A robust CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is the backbone of seamless client interactions and workflows. Dubsado and Honeybook are both great options for service providers wanting a CRM system. Our personal favorite is Dubsado because of its ability to make public proposals. Public proposals will allow you to link a proposal directly onto your website for visitors to sign up and work with you. You won’t have to send an individual proposal out for every single lead that comes your way. These public proposals also make it much simpler for visitors to checkout on your website- a win for both of you!
You can sign up for Dubsado here at a discounted rate!
(This is an affiliate link. I love Dubsado, and I really think you will too!)
Zapier: Bridging the gap
Zapier is so great. It’s the bridge that connects automations you wouldn’t think would be able to connect. For example, I use it to connect my Dubsado workflows with my Flodesk workflows. The two work fine on their own, but they need a bridge to communicate with each other so that I don’t have to manually add-in a trigger every time a workflow finishes in Flodesk. Zapier allows you to create this connection. With Zapier, you can trigger a workflow in Flodesk as soon as a client pays an invoice in Dubsado, welcoming them with open arms and providing all the essential onboarding information. Talk about a great client experience!
Flodesk: Emailing Made a Breeze
Flodesk is an amazing tool if you are wanting to use email marketing in your business. It has endless layout possibilities and templates for emails so you can create a beautiful piece of marketing material without having to spend hours in front of the computer. Flodesk makes managing your weekly newsletters and client onboarding much simpler once you get a few workflows and templates built out inside!
You can sign up for Flodesk here to get 50% off your first year!
(This is an affiliate link. I love it, and I really think you will too!)
Trello: Streamlined Content and Project Management
Trello is a versatile project management tool that allows you to keep everything in order for your clients. It also allows you to send them a link to access their board, where they can add in information for their project. This cuts out all of the back and forth from emails, texts, DMs, and Voxer and allows you to keep all of the important information in one place so it doesn’t get lost.
Calendly: Effortless Appointment Scheduling
Calendly is a great tool for appointment scheduling. You can add the link to your website or send to clients whenever you want to allow them to book an appointment, and they will be able to see what times you are available and then pick out the time that will work best for them.
It cuts out the back and forth of trying to find a time you are both free, AND it avoids the mess of time zone conversions. Take it from me and my past mistakes…When you try to convert all of the times for calls on your own, meetings get missed.It’s inevitable. Calendly reduces those mishaps for you and also allows you to send out reminder emails to both you and your clients to reduce no-shows.
Voxer: Seamless Communication
Voxer is our absolute favorite way to communicate with clients. It’s a walkie-talkie type of app that allows you to send immediate voice messages to clients and receive them in return. It allows for a much quicker communication channel than emails and feels more personal for your clients. It also lets you avoid giving your phone number out to clients so you are able to maintain a strong boundary around your personal life.
By implementing organized systems and leveraging automation tools, you can drastically elevate your business operations and create a seamless experience for yourself and your clients. Start by choosing one tool or process to implement first, and gradually integrate others as you become comfortable with them. Putting yourself in your client’s shoes and envisioning their journey can guide you to create valuable touchpoints and enhance their overall experience. Embrace technology to stay organized, efficient, and, most importantly, successful!
If you’d like help integrating these tools into your website, we’d love to work with you! Check out our one-day website offers here for more information.
