Save Time and Money Managing Customer Expectations

Your time is precious and, when you’re an entrepreneur, it also directly impacts your income.  Not setting clear customer expectations at the front end of a transaction can negatively impact your ability to make the best use of your time.  Chances are good that you’ve never made that correlation.  We tend to think of the energy we invest into our business as the time we spend advertising, building our product or service and engaging in sales transactions, but truly, the most time-consuming component of running a business is having to reiterate or clarify data and expectations with your customers.  This applies whether you are a product or a service-based company.  Let’s take a look at why this is true.

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Begin by first asking yourself what it is that makes you never want to engage with a business again?  Typically, it’s a lack of clear communication.  I know it is, at least, for me.  When I begin using a new product or invest my time, money and energy into a service, I want to know what I can expect from the product or the process.  How will this product or service benefit me, enhance my life and influence me in the long-term?  I may enter into the transaction excited and curious, only to have that fizzle out quite quickly when I realize that I can’t get any straight answers from the salesperson.  So, how do we avoid this problem? 

 Start From Day 1

The quick answer to that is to be clear and up front with them from the very first interaction.  We need to tell them what they can expect and what they need to know about our product or service.  Additionally, we need to know what questions to ask them so that we can offer them the support and guidance that won’t leave them feeling lost and unsure.  It’s important for our customers to walk away from that first interaction (as well as every subsequent one) feeling confident.  Liken it to entering a haunted house.  While some of us may love the thrill of a good haunted house, it can be scary being left in the dark not knowing what is going to jump out at us.  If this is the experience your customers are consistently having with you, the relationship will not last very long. 

No matter what industry you are in, taking this path is a surefire way to save you lots of time and money.  The extra added bonus is that it saves your customers from feeling that unnecessary frustration we talked about, too.  Communication will set you apart from your competitors.  Even if your product or service is extremely similar, being able to clearly convey what the customer journey may look like for your client will instill a higher level of trust and elevate the customer experience tenfold.  Clearly communicating from the start will save you from having to clarify your message by answering a million questions, making unnecessary phone calls, emails and texts or having to lay out the next steps over and over again. 

Let me offer you a real-world example.  I have a client who is a real estate agent.  Her phone was constantly ringing off the hook.  When we discussed why, we determined that most people were calling about buying or selling houses.  Together, we wrote up a simple document that outlines the frequently asked questions that she encounters through these many calls and texts.  She began to hand these out at every single opportunity that she had.  It outlined all of the details they should be aware of when buying or selling a home and clearly depicted how she and her team worked together, as well as listing all of the entire teams contact information with their photos so that a prospective client knew that they could reach out to any and all of the team members moving forward.  In this way, she not only fields many questions before they are asked, but she also redirects some of the communication to her team members, thus largely lessening her workload.  As for the client, they feel fully supported knowing that they have a whole team to fall back on and that they can step into a relationship with their real estate agent feeling more informed. 

 Apply It To Your Business

I want you to know that I also apply this tactic in my own business model.  I’m not encouraging you to do something that I wouldn’t do myself.  When a client reaches out to me, I immediately lay out the framework of what the process and journey of working with me will look like.  My clients enter into the journey with me knowing that I will ask them to bring a list of questions to every session, knowing that I will be emailing them a follow up list of action steps based on what we’ve discussed and that all of these action steps will be geared towards helping them increase their income.  That’s a bit different than just saying, “I’m Tracy, and I’ll help you earn more money.”, right? 

Hopefully, you are beginning to see the extreme benefits of open and honest communication from the absolute first interaction all the way through to the end of your relationship with a client.  Committing to this process will help to ensure that you continually offer your clients a positive experience that will have them coming back for more, as well as referring new clients your way.  If you’re still feeling like you need a bit more guidance on expanding your business, we’ve got you covered!  There are multiple ways that you can continue to learn through our channel.  I would love to have a chat with you and see if working together one-on-one might be a good fit.  You can schedule a discovery call by visiting my website at www.tracybeavers.com.   You may also choose to join our Facebook group, “Be a Confident Entrepreneur: Gain Confidence and Grow Your Income” to gain access to a vast community of like-minded individuals who are equally as committed as you are to growing their business in integrity.  Additionally, you can check out my 6-week, self-paced course, also available through the website.  However you choose to grow, I’m excited to potentially be a part of your journey.        

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Video Transcript 

People ask me often, Tracy, how can I save time and money in my business? I get these questions a lot in my comments, in my DM’s, in my Facebook group and in my paid programs. So I thought, why not tackle the topic here to? Because clearly this is on your mind. In today's video, I'm going to tell you one of the best ways that you can save time and money in your business.

My name is Tracy Beavers. And if you're new to my channel, I want to welcome you. I am so glad to see you here, my friend. As a business and sales coach, I hope you grow your business, and it doesn't matter if you're just starting out with an awesome idea and a dream, or if you are an established business that's having great success. Whatever your need is, we work together to map out clear action steps for you to get from where you are right now to where you want to be. And we get there together faster because you have a roadmap from me to keep you focused with every single step. I've been in sales and marketing over 15 years and I have guided many businesses just like yours using my unique roadmap approach. If you're new here, be sure to smash that subscribe button because I put out a brand new training every week and be sure to check the show notes below the video for more resources because I've got some great free guides and some great blog content that I've crafted just for you.

So let's dive into topic how in the world can you save time and money, two very precious commodities by setting your customers’ expectations on the front end of the transaction? Did you expect me to say that? Let me explain. We want our customers to have the very best experience with this, right? Doesn't it just light you up when your customers are happy, they're thrilled to have worked with you. They're starting to refer their friends, their family. That is an awesome feeling. So for us to be sure that we're delivering the very best experience, we've got to lay out a plan to walk them through the process of working with us from start to finish. It doesn't matter if your business is product based or if your business is service based like mine and you’re a coach.

Let me ask you what causes the most frustration and overwhelm for you, when you are a customer? What causes you to get so fed up that you cannot stand to get the transaction over with and you vow to never use that company again, probably to never utter their name again? Right? It's communication and a lack of communication. I know that's what it is for me. I'm sure that's what it is for you. Nothing drives me more bonkers than a person or a company that cannot communicate clearly the process of what it's like to work with them and what I can expect. And it's a simple fix. We want to set the customer expectation on the front end, communicate to them very clearly what to expect, what to know, what to ask, because chances are they have no idea and they feel lost and they feel unsure. We want our customers to feel confident and supported and know that we have their back and we are looking out for them and correct every corner, right? Think about it like a haunted house. And I know some of you are thinking, I love haunted houses. OK, well, you don't want your customers experience to feel like this feeling their way in the dark, not knowing where the pitfalls and the mistakes are. Not sure where to take the next step. Nobody leading them. And then there's people jumping out of them unexpectedly from time to time. Scaring your pants off. If your customers feel like this every time they worked with you, they're not going to be using you again, and they're not going to refer you in it to anybody.

You want your customers experience to be more like a beautiful, guided tour with a knowledgeable tour guide that welcomes them aboard, gives them a cold bottle of water. Tells them at every step. Points out every beautiful detail. A tour guide that thinks of everything and makes them feel amazing. Doesn't that feel so much better than a haunted house? Every industry and position that I've been in insurance, real estate, title insurance, banking, mortgage lending and now as a business coach, I have saved myself so much time and so much money and my customers a ton of unnecessary frustration by communicating on the front end and giving them a clear visual of what our customer journey together is going to look like. And again, even if your customer journey is a simple retail transaction, this still applies to you.

Let me give you a couple of examples. So, when I was a mortgage loan officer, I had two customers had the real estate agent and the mortgage client. I asked my realtors when I first started, I was like, What do you guys need and hands down nine answers out of ten, it was communication, so I knew that if I communicated clearly that I was going to set myself apart from every other mortgage lender on because there's one on every corner, right? And I knew that communicating at a high detail level is going to save them time and frustration and save me time and frustration because clear communication eliminates questions, unnecessary phone calls, text messages. So none of us were wasting precious minutes, texting or calling, or even to answer asking for next steps because they were already all laid out. And how did that save us money? Well, first, because time is money, right? But deeper than that, it saved me money by communicating clearly because when I was awesome at my job, communicating clearly those next steps in the mortgage approval process, my realtors loved me and they wanted to send me more clients. My clients loved me and wanted to send me more referrals.

So clear communication eliminates those negative feelings, those haunted house feelings of frustration and confusion and overwhelm. See how communicating clearly can directly affect that revenue? One of my clients, here's another example. One of my coaching clients is a real estate agent. She was getting a ton of phone calls and text messages all day long, and we talked through what are most of these about? What's the majority of the questions that people are asking you? Most of them had to do the steps of selling the house or buying the house. We crafted a simple document that she can give to every seller when she goes on every listing appointment, and it outlines very frequently asked questions. The details they need to know, but they don't know because have never been through the process before. We don't know, what we don't know, right? We need that realtor to see around those corners for us and give us the information that we don't even know to ask for. She has her team members on there with their photos and their contact information, and she very clearly communicates that she and her team work together and their client is welcome to call anyone at any time. So this way, she's not the only one fielding all of the communication all day long. This simple piece of information that she started giving her client has saved her so much time in the day. It saved the team so much frustration because it's not just one person that having all of the e-mails and text messages and phone calls, and it makes the clients feel amazing because they know they're fully supported. So guess who will be getting the referrals of their friends and family went by on us this this real estate agent, right? So I use this method myself.

You guys clear, open communication. I use it in my coaching practice, laying out the framework of my process and the journey. Can I do this? I've done this in every business that I own, and I know it is what has made me successful with my coaching clients that you know exactly how our sessions will flow. You know that I want you to bring a list of questions to ask me so that every time we're together, you, you're prepared and you can get the most out of your session. You know that I'm going to email you a list of action steps, so you've got a very clear path and a checkbox to follow until we get back in session again and you know exactly what you're going to work on. So if I said to you something like, yeah, just sign up for coaching and will increase your income. But you think you'd want to know how? Don't you want to know what to expect and how well as all this going to work? So save yourself and your clients both time and money by setting clear expectations of their journey with you from start to purchase and beyond. You save yourself and your clients time by giving them a clear roadmap of what to expect with you. And this eliminates all of those unnecessary phone calls, text messages and emails that can cost this precious time and eliminates that overwhelm and frustration. And you save yourself money because not only are you saving yourself time, but happy clients are going to want to send everybody they know to you that it's going to grow your client base that is going to grow your income.

So it's time for me to highlight one of my awesome coaching clients. I'm so excited about this part of the training. I absolutely love making a difference for you, and I love it more when you share with me, which you can be featured too. Just let me know in the comments. Connect with me through my website. Let me know how my trainings have helped you so I can feature you and your business too. The highlight of the week goes to my client, Amber, and she shared this. She said, Tracy helps you streamline your priorities for your business. She quickly develops an understanding of what you need and will help you find the tools you need to get your business to where you want it to go. I cannot say enough good things about her.

Well, gosh, Amber, that's awesome. I can't say enough good things about you. I love that you’re an action taker. She's an amazing travel agent. She jumped into coaching with me and her business growth has maximized and it's really going to maximize this fourth quarter. I cannot wait to see what we do together. And if you know anybody else that would benefit from these trainings, please hit that share button. Give it a thumbs up, give it a light and send it to them. And before you go, here's what I want you to do now. Go to Tracybeavers.com/referralmachine. I want you to grab your free guide to gaining new clients every day with ease. I have free and low cost ways that you can do this starting in your business today. Tracybeavers.com/referralmachine. Until next time, I am cheering you on my friends and wishing you the best of success.