31: Why Your Client Experience Is Holding You Back (The Systems & Workflow Magic Podcast)

Are you curious about using your CRM to improve your client experience? This will make such a difference for you and your business. As a Dubsado expert and family/branding photographer, I can say with absolute certainty that a positive client experience is the key to achieving success in your business. Let’s talk about all the ways you can use Dubsado to ELEVATE that experience and stop holding yourself back. 

The Systems and Workflow Magic Podcast is brought to you by Dolly DeLong Education. This is a podcast for creative business owners who want to learn tangible steps to automate their business through workflows, systems, tools, and strategy in order to go from scattered to streamlined with purpose. Because even muggles can become automated wizards.

Dubsado Toolkit for Creatives

Are you a family photographer looking to utilize Dubsado for your business? I’ve created the essential toolkit you need for your family photography business in order to better streamline & automate the backend of your client’s journey & services!

Review the Show Notes

Why client experience matters (3:56)

Your current client experience and how it relates to Dubsado (6:11)

Examples of how to improve your client experience (12:35)

How to get started with improving your client experience (16:47)

Dubsado is an all-in-one business management tool that allows you to send contracts and invoices, handle project management, create questionnaires and other forms, manage bookkeeping, track your time, send and receive emails and SO much more… all from ONE place.

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Links Mentioned

Dubsado VIP Day Checklist

Dubsado Toolkit for Creatives

Try Dubsado & Get 30% Off Your First Month or Year

How to Create a Contact Form that Wows

The Dubsado VIP Experience For Family Photographers 

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Review the Transcript:

Welcome to the systems and workflow magic podcast where I help entrepreneurs go from scattered to streamlined in their creative businesses. I’m your host, Dolly DeLong, a wife, a mom, and a photographer turned systems educator. Join me every week as we have conversations centered around creating tactical workflows, and automation in your business. Now, let’s make some strategic workflow magic.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the systems and workflow magic podcast. I am your systems-loving BFF and host dolly DeLong. And this week, we are entering week five of the Dubsado series. So today’s topic is a bit unique in that I am going to be talking about how and why your client experience is holding you back from truly experiencing automation with your CRM system like Dubsado. I know that sounds a little weird, but stick with me, let me remind you, that the entire reason why you are running your business is to hopefully serve your clients. Alright? Yes, I know, we all want to make a living. And we all need to make money in order to run our business. Yes, that’s obvious. But we are also using our gifts and talents to serve others. And part of the transformative journey the client can take with your business is by having an excellent client experience. Right. And so that’s where you are coming in to serve your clients. And this is also where you can integrate your CRM platform like Dubsado into that client experience.

So as a family and branding photographer, one of the most important things I do is to make sure my clients have an incredible client experience. And that’s something that I encourage listeners like I know a lot of family photographers, for example, to listen in to this podcast. So I am encouraging you when you are creating an experience so good, that people can’t help but talk about you. That’s how your business is gonna grow. There are so many different factors in business growth not just automation, I will openly admit as much as I love systems and workflows and automating my business. I know it’s not just because of automation. One of the reasons why my family photography business has grown tremendously in the past 10 years is because of the experience that my clients have received from working with me. And again, repeat clients and referrals are truly the basis of a great photography business.

So today, let’s talk about how your current client experience is holding you back and how you can improve that experience for the future, and how you can start integrating that into your CRM platform like Dubsado. Again, I’m using family photography as an example. But if you are not a family photographer, listen in and just insert what you do in this conversation, and see how you can start integrating, let’s say, your copywriting business into this conversation or your graphic design business into this conversation because I know I have a lot of different types of creative business owners that listen into the systems and workflow magic podcast. And so I want to make sure that this conversation is still relevant to you. So now that I did that little caveat, let’s chat first about why Client Experience matters. So I know, I know, I know, I know. Okay, there are a lot of things we do every day as creative business owners, like family photographers, for example, and digging through her individual client experiences to enhance the client journey.

It really doesn’t necessarily seem like a top priority, especially as we get a lot of things thrown at us. But I want you to stop that train of thought and jump on this one. Client Experience matters. It matters probably almost as much as the actual portraits you take or it matters as much as that final insert of whatever you are delivering to your clients. When you have a stellar client experience, people will talk about you and your business. Your referrals will increase and you’ll be able to book more sessions and fill up your calendar because people talk and people want to work with great people. People want to work with people who treat them like humans, right?

If people are going to talk about your business, you want it to be good things, right? That’s why Client Experience matters. So if you’re taking notes and or you’re driving, pretty much however you’re listening, I want you to start thinking about your client experience right now. Okay. And if you could wave a magic wand over your services, what would you be doing for your clients and each phase of their journey with you from inquiry to booking to service performed to offboarding?

Okay, so I just shared four phases with you. So I want you to think, how can you elevate your client experience in all of those four phases? Have you ever thought this through? These are important questions to ask yourself? It’s not just I bet for you. It’s like rote memory, you can do it in the back of your hand, the service from start to finish. But have you ever inserted the client journey in those different four phases of working with you? So let’s talk about your own client experience. And what exactly does this have to do with Dubsado. So before we dive into how to actually improve your client experience, take a moment now to map out your client process. I know this is the very boring unsexy part. But this is really important. Think about what you send to them. Everything from documents to emails, spend a moment thinking about how you prepare your clients for this session, are you sending a PDF, a link, an email, an email with tips?

And like what are you sending to them at each point of their journey with you or of each phase? Okay, these touch points are all part of your experience, and think about it as like, how are you going to reassure your clients through their journey with you because they’re paying you, they’ve hopefully signed that contractor and trusting you with their time. So how can you elevate this client experience through their different phases with you, I would say like, for family photography, for example, make sure to include in these touch points like to include when the actual session dates are image delivery and other gifts or products, too.

So as you’re writing out this client experience, insert, when you’re going to actually do the session insert what you want to do at that session, and insert, estimated date of how long it’s going to take to send over the images, maybe do a little note to yourself, hey, this would be a great time to I don’t know, send over purchase that like $5 board book for that newborn session. I do this for all of my newborn sessions, I have a reminder for myself and phase two of my client journey like it’s leading up to the session, and I order a $5, Amazon but for all of my newborn clients. And it’s like a little board book. It’s like one of my son’s favorite books from when he was a newborn. And it’s on Amazon for under $5. So that’s a great little client experience gift. So and these are touch points. And these are little just like surprise and delight touch points. So I know that was a very long-winded example. But I want you to just think about how you are going to elevate the client experience and journey with you from start to finish and write out all of these touch points. Read all of these, even if they’re to do tasks for you write them out.

Okay, now take a look at that list. So to me, the hallmark of a great client experience is taking care of your clients from start to finish in answering questions before they can ever be asked. So for example, that requires thinking ahead and planning for those moments. So for example, my clients are given a family session guide to help them prepare for their photos with me. This guide covers what to wear, how to plan for big family sessions, and so much more about life and where to shoot especially in Nashville what time of year to shoot expectations, should they include the family pet have had like family, cats come to sessions, not just dogs. So if they want to include the family pet, if they want a hair and makeup artist, so think ahead and that and that way, you can not just have content to send to them, but you can have canned emails to send to them with your most popular blog posts.

Post your family planning guide to help prepare them. So I’m able to automatically send this via Dubsado. I told you I was going to bring this back to Dubsado. In the CRM process, I’m able to automatically send this via Dubsado in our process leading up to that session. So I have several touchpoints, like helping them get excited about their session and helping them prepare for their session. And I’ve set this all up on automation. And so before they can even ask for advice, I’m providing a massive guide that answers your questions about outfits, locations, and how to prep, like all of my frequently asked questions through the years into an email or a guide, a PDF. Again, that is just one example. But as you can see, thinking ahead about what questions I’m asked frequently. And then creating an automatic setup in my workflow to ensure that their questions are answered, is one of the easiest ways to improve your client workflow.

Raise your hand if you are a photographer who feels like you’re on the struggle bus with Dubsado. You don’t know where to begin with automating and streamlining your business. Yep, you feel like you bought the CRM platform only to feel more confused and frustrated. And you just want to throw your hands up and try something else. That seems easier. Well, before you give up too early, I want to let you in on a little secret, I have been working behind the scenes to create a resource for family photographers that would break down the foundational concepts of Dubsado in bite-size and attainable pieces to make you feel more confident and creating workflows. If this sounds too good to be true. It’s not. I have taken my knowledge as a certified Dubsado specialist and have created a framework I use for my own VIP clients. And I have put it in the form of a resource called the Dubsado toolkit for family photographers. It’s a go-at-your-own-pace course, which I have purposefully divided up into seven parts to be consumed in one week so that you can go from scattered to streamlined in your workflows in under one week. This resource comes with templates, swipe files, and loads of essentials to better automate your family photography business. To learn more about this resource, head on over to the show notes to join the waitlist. Because the doors open soon, to the Dubsado toolkit for family photographers. And I have so many bonuses, I cannot wait to share with other photographers, from one family photographer to another. I want you to be more organized and streamlined in your business so that you can make big and bold moves as you scale your business. So what are you waiting for?

So you might be wondering, okay, I can insert certain steps in Dubsado to be automated. But how do I actually improve my client experience? Like what does this have to do with improving my client experience? So what I’m like trying to peel back for you and share with you is this, you can automate certain aspects of your client experience with you. And this feels great for a lot of clients. This acts as a touch point, even if it’s automated. The fact of the matter is this, you need to have your services mapped out. And once it’s mapped out, you can determine which pieces can be automated in Dubsado, or whatever platform you’re using. And then which pieces you would rather manually do like if you want to send a text message or if you want to send a video message, whatever you want to do in your client journey, I would say map this out. And then you can do a hybrid of both automated and then you’re doing manual steps as well. And if you haven’t guessed by now, the answer is twofold. You can create more touch points in your process, and then automate them with Dubsado.

So in order to improve your client experience, you need to improve your workflow. So that’s, it’s like a two-fold answer. I realize going back to that PDF guide example I shared earlier. So when you are creating that PDF guide, and then you’re sending it automatically in your CRM platform to your clients at a set point in your process. This ensures that everyone will receive it like no matter who enters that workflow. Everyone’s going to receive it. You don’t have to depend on your memory. You don’t need to again, you don’t need to depend on your memory. You don’t have to constantly question yourself you’ve set it, you can literally set it and forget it. And all of your clients are getting that same touch point in that workflow, they’re getting that same type of client experience. And this is just one example. It’s just one example of you making sure that your style PDF guide or style link is being sent out as an automated step in your workflow. This is one example. Imagine if you had all four phases of your workflow set up and you knew exactly what are mapped out, knew exactly which pieces could be automated in them, and which pieces you know, you would want to manually do. There are so many other easy ways to improve your clan experience using Dubsado. To let me again remind you, you need to map out your client experience and accompanying workflows in Dubsado.

If you automate steps of this process, like sending out your invoice and contract, he’ll be able to make the process of booking a session even easier for your clients, okay. And people really, really like easy like, especially moms who are booking you for, let’s say a family session, a newborn session of attorney session, they appreciate easy, they don’t like to be waiting on and looking out for something like an email from you, the service provider. So make it super simple. It just shows up when they’re ready to book because you set that up as a trigger. Okay, so at the end of your time with your clients can also maybe like in the onboarding phase, consider sending them a feedback survey, this is something you can then use to adjust any bumps in the client journey. So if you send them feedback, a customer feedback journey, like how was your time spent with such and such photography or such and such business, they would hopefully give you real feedback, and you can improve that client experience. Improving your client experience comes down to slowing down and listening to your current and former customers. So I want to encourage you to look at how you can better serve your future clients by looking at what’s already been done.

And remember, you can automate these at certain points of the different workflow. So if you’re worried about forgetting about sending off that customer feedback survey, remember that you can automate that piece in Dubsado, as well, you have to remember that for each workflow or right, and I have shared in the beginning, that I have a four-phase process for all of my workflows. So if you are in DIY aspects of your workflows don’t feel like you have to automate all the things. Okay, just start off with one phase. And then I want you to optimize it, I want you to map it out. And I want you to determine which parts can be automated and which parts you will need to have to like guide your clients with or do it manually. All right. This is the beauty of just taking the time to map everything out in order to save time in the long run. So if you are ready to start improving your client experience with Dubsado, then please grab the easy-to-follow checklist I use when I onboard my own clients for Dubsado VIP experiences. This will help you get started with Dubsado quickly and efficiently to make a difference in your business.

So you can grab the link to that checklist in my show notes. And if you’re ready to take the leap into learning more about Dubsado for your family photography business, and you’re wanting to learn more about the four-phase process that I teach to all of my VIP clients, then check out my Dubsado toolkit for family photographers. Again, the link to this resource will be in the show notes as well. And I really hope that this short and sweet episode was helpful for you to see how you can start thinking about your client experience in terms of how you’re going to integrate it into your CRM, like Dubsado Like what parts can be automated, and what parts will you need to manually do and you will find that it’s going to be a hybrid if you allow yourself to slow down and see what different parts are always being sent on a consistent basis. Those will be automated, and then what parts you need to individualize for the client experience. I strongly bet that if that’s a phrase, I bet that you are going to see that a lot of it can be automated, and it can still feel like a great customer experience, even if it’s on automation.

Anyways, I hope this has got you to start thinking about your client experience. I hope this was helpful. I love talking about just like what you can do with Dubsado for your family photography, business, and for your creative business. So feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram at dolly DeLong education if this episode was really exciting for you to listen to and just like how this is helping you with your client experience. I will see you all next week on a new episode of the systems and workflow magic podcast again, we’re going to be diving even more into Dubsado. So I’m so excited to see you then. Until then, have a great day. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to the systems and workflow magic podcast. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at dolly DeLong photography.com forward slash podcast. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast player. Be sure to screenshot this episode, share it with your stories, and tag me at Dolly DeLong education over on Instagram. Until next time, go make some strategic workflow magic.