When wanting to increase income for our business, most of our focus is on marketing – which is a valid focus. But what if I could show you a way to increase business, improve the ROI you get from each hour you spend in your business, and maybe even save your business some money, all at the same time… would you be interested?
I expect to be talking quite a bit in the coming year about understanding and improving what we are referring to as the Customer Journey. The customer journey, or the customer experience, is the path a client takes from the time they decide to contact you until either the time they either stop communicating with you (they don’t hire you) or you stop communicating with them (you have provided a product or service for them). And, throughout a customer’s journey, it is your business’ systems and processes that guide them along the path, and shape their overall perception of your business.
The three main benefits that come from evaluating and improving the customer journey are:
1) A client’s expectations in their dealings with your business (their journey) are met, or exceeded, and thus they give you better reviews and more referrals. In addition, a great overall customer journey can offset a single issue that might have arisen during that journey.
2) You get better ROI on the time you spend per client by matching your systems and processes to your ideal client’s expectations. This allows you to remove or modify pieces that aren’t necessary and focus resources where they will make the biggest impact.
3) Through more focused communication and better processes, you also improve the experience other vendors have with you which leads to more vendor referrals.
With so many millennials deciding which vendors to engage with largely based on reviews and referrals, improving the customer journey will lead to consistent and long-term increases in warm leads.
For more information and assistance, look for future blog posts on how to evaluate and how to change the customer journey.
