4 Client Experience Mistakes to Avoid

Are you making these client experience mistakes?! Your client experience strategy is everything in business. When people don’t have a good experience with you, why would they stay as a client? 

Your goal should be to make their lives easier. If your processes, habits, or activities make things confusing or difficult for the client to understand, you’ll have a hard time attracting and retaining clients. 

Over my years in business, I’ve come across poor client experience. I want to share a few mistakes I’ve seen and why and how to avoid them. Hopefully, this helps you retain the clients you worked hard to book!

Why is Client Experience Important?

A positive client experience is crucial to the sustainability of your business and can influence your business’s reputation. Positive experiences contribute to a positive brand image, while negative experiences can harm a business’s reputation. For small businesses, maintaining a positive reputation is essential for consistent growth.

There are several benefits to fostering a positive experience for clients. 

• Customer loyalty and retention
• Referrals from happy clients
• Reduced marketing costs (you don’t have to constantly replace clients who leave)
• Emotional connection to clients

Creating a positive client experience is something people often don’t think about, but can heavily influence how successful your business is.

Client Experience Mistakes to Avoid

Now, let’s go over a few client experience mistakes I’ve seen that you definitely need to avoid.

1. Ghosting your newly signed client after a deposit/retainer is paid.

I feel like this one is obvious, but it needs to be said. Never take someone’s money and run. You will destroy your reputation so quickly if you ghost clients after they pay you for a service. I’m sure you’ve seen disgruntled people post negative reviews on Facebook or Google. I’m pretty confident you’ll get one of those if you ghost and don’t deliver the services you promised!

How to Avoid: There are a few ways to avoid this client experience mistake. 1) Do the work they paid you to do (duh). 2) Refund the amount if you can’t deliver the service. The client might still be upset, but at least you were honest about your capacity and were ethical in your business practices.

2. Not setting expectations and boundaries early and often.

I set expectations and boundaries with new clients before they even sign a contract with me. I want them to know exactly what they’re getting into by working together. If that causes them to walk away, I know they weren’t my dream client.

Here are some examples of expectations and boundaries I set:

• Office hours
• Response time and availability
• How to communicate with me
• Payment terms
• Confidentiality
• Feedback and revisions
• Scope creep

It also doesn’t hurt to remind clients of these agreements! If they start to overstep, you can gently remind them of your contractual agreement. If you set a new expectation or boundary since starting to work with them, you can send a polite email informing them of the new policy.

How to Avoid: Outline expectations and boundaries in your contract and ask new clients to acknowledge them.

3. Not using the power of the follow-up.

Are you following up with leads who haven’t booked? I’ve audited business owners’ contact forms, and it’s amazing how many leads are left on read. 

Listen, people get busy. We all forget to respond to an email every once in a while. Prospective clients are the same way. A simple follow-up to a meeting request, quote, or contract can greatly increase your chances of booking them as a client. It’s your job to follow up with them, not theirs to constantly pursue you.

How to Avoid: Follow up with leads who haven’t responded in seven or more days. This will push your message to the top of their inbox and be a gentle reminder.

4. Not sending a request for a testimonial.

Social proof is a strong marketing tool. It shows that other people trust you to work in their business. Testimonials can influence whether or not people choose to work with you. 

Testimonials can highlight the benefits and results clients have achieved by working with your business. This demonstrates your expertise and showcases the tangible value you provide. It’s great if you can get a mix of testimonials regarding your services and the industries you work in.

Even better, get your client’s permission to be featured in a case study. Case studies are an excellent way to showcase the results you achieve and highlight your client. You can include a testimonial from the client, specific results, the project scope, and the overall client experience. 

How to Avoid: Ask clients for a testimonial when a project is completed, or after they’ve been working with you for six or more months.

Your client experience strategy is everything. I strongly recommend analyzing your current client experience and finding room for improvement. Almost every business owner can find areas to improve! Once you clean it up, your business will flourish!

About Solution Integrators

To keep it simple, I’m Ashley, a Chief Systems Officer. I take your complex problems and find ways to simplify them. My goal isn’t just to save you time (saving you time is the easy part!) – I want to fully level up the way you interact, manage, and fulfill offers for your clients. I want to help you provide a cohesive experience. An experience that not only feels like quality but looks that way too. From onboarding to offboarding – I want to transform each phase of interaction from lead to signed client. Let’s work together!