We now have (some) clarity about how we are going to be released from lockdown x.0.
This is great news, and with it, we will see growth in the use of coaching within the organisation and personal setting.
I am inviting you to take some time to develop a good process to start working with new clients. You may already have this process covered off but in a report issued by Hubspot (ok – its marketing industry, but the patterns are transferable to us coaches – right?), 43% didn’t have the necessary time to focus on administration work, which includes client onboarding. How are you covered?
I would argue that client onboarding is critical to ensure that you deliver a great first impression in order to keep your clients. A compelling argument when combined with a belief that 80% of a company’s future revenue will come from 20% of its current customers (Source: Retention Science), and that about 20-50 per cent of all purchases came based on recommendations made by other people (Source: McKinsey)
So what makes for a good client onboarding?
This will depend on your business and the way that you work with your clients. The onboarding process should be a repeatable flow that you can apply to any client perhaps covering off items such as
- A welcome to the coaching relationship, managing and setting expectations, who will take notes, boundaries of the relationship, etc.
- An opportunity to share your code of ethics (such as this one from the ICF).
- Confirmation of the financial relationship – not just about the money but also including when invoices will be issued and expectations on payment as well as how a client can pay.
- What is the ‘package’ or ‘services’ have they have signed up for? How frequent are the sessions, duration, location etc?
- Confirmation of your terms and conditions – this could be especially important as IR35 enters our space again in April 2021.
- Access to additional resources (do you share using Google Drive, Microsoft Onedrive, Dropbox or others).
- In an always-on business world, what are your hours of working and how will you communicate between you and the client?
- What are the responsibilities of you to a purchasing organisation?
- What psychometrics or tools, if any, are you going to refer the client to?
- What goals/outcomes are you working towards? This may not be clear yet but this gives you an opportunity to focus on purpose-led intervention.
This list is not exhaustive and your process should be focussed on delivering relevant content pertinent to that great coaching experience that you can deliver. What other ideas do you have?
Although counter-intuitive, at some point the coaching relationship will end. How will you both know that, and how will you both exit the coaching experience?
What about automation?
Some of these steps can be automated. Last year, I ran a coaching programme and used Docsketch. This allowed me to email/send, track and gain electronic signatures on a coaching contract from a good number of clients in a cost-effective and efficient way. There are other systems but this just worked and I had no cause to look elsewhere. But remember to keep it human….
Your challenging action
The challenging action for you is to take a sheet of A4 paper, and/or some sticky notes and draw out your process. What is going to be done when? Who is responsible for what? How will you review the process after you have run through it a few times? Congratulations, you now have a solid client onboarding process that should increase the clients’ initial experience of you, your coaching and your business.
Co Coaching
It has been wonderful over the past few years to see how people have grown through there development and learning. I am so grateful that Co-Coaching has formed part of there journey.
The dates for March are
4th March evening – general co-coaching practice and feedback
15th March afternoon – co-coaching around productivity
Co-Coaching is for coaches of any level – we are all learners on our never-ending path to mastery 😉
Some Stats
55% of people say they’ve returned a product because they didn’t understand how to use it.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of customers say that onboarding – the level of support they’re likely to receive post sale – is an important consideration in whether they make the decision in the first place.
84% of customer-centric companies focus on the mobile customer experience.
68% of customers will pay more to work with a company with a good customer service reputation.
