Your business processes are the backbone of your business. They can make or break the experience of your coaching clients. If you want testimonials that will sell your next course intake for you, then pay attention to your processes.
What Are Processes?
Business processes are ways you have standardised points of the customer journey. For example, your onboarding process is how you welcome new coaching clients and make sure they have everything they need to make the most of your program. Some people class enquiries and discovery calls as part of the onboarding process, and some people label them as a separate process. There is no wrong or right answer. Your processes should make sense for your business.
Turning these common points of your customer journey into a business process allows you to automate these tasks so you can save time. You can also ensure all your coaching clients receive the same level of service.
Bad Processes Will Make Your Customers Nope Out
Over the weekend, I was surprised to learn my Mum had quit her job. It was only a few weeks ago that she was telling me how well her first day had gone, and she was looking forward to this line of work. So what happened?
This company had 5 or more apps that Mum had to download to do her job. Some functions required her to access multiple apps to get a single task done. It was annoying, but she was willing to overlook it.
The thing that made her call her supervisor and say she wanted to quit was the training. She had to complete an online training module before she could work unsupervised with clients. The company sent her an email explaining the training and a link to the training portal. That is where things went wrong.
2 hours into the training, Mum realised that the email had said the training would take 90 minutes to complete 4 modules. She hadn’t even moved onto Module 2. She had started the wrong training course. After 2 hours of training, she had enough for the day. She logged off and decided to try again the next day. The only problem was the portal was down the next day.
The day after, she went looking for the training she needed to do and couldn’t find it. There were other courses in there, but not the one she had to do. She called her supervisor and couldn’t get through to her. Meanwhile, she was getting automated emails reminding her to complete her training or she wouldn’t pass her probation.
After 2 days of not hearing from her supervisor, she called Head Office and was told that someone would look into it and call her back. Did she get a call back? Nope. But luckily, a few days later, her supervisor finally returned her call. At that point, Mum said she wanted to quit, but the supervisor told her that the training was easy and not to be too hasty. She tried talking Mum through the process, but there was still no joy. Mum is still getting automated emails reminding her that she had to complete the course all this time.
Her supervisor must’ve spoken to Head Office about the issues because they called Mum and apologised that she hadn’t been called back as promised. They checked her training portal, and apparently, she had already completed the training, so there was nothing to worry about. Except, Mum had not completed the training.
Through frustrating and unnecessarily complicated processes, Mum had gone from excited about her new job to quitting in the course of a week.
Processes are there to make your coaching clients’ life easier and ensure they know what they need to do next. They need to support your coaching clients and simplify everything.
How to Review Your Processes
We’re going to continue to use the onboarding process as an example but apply these process review tips to every process in your business.
Write down every step of your business processes and the information your coaching clients receive at each point. Bring up the emails they are sent and the supporting document and read through each one. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Am I overwhelming clients with too much information at this point?
- Am I leaving coaching clients with questions?
- Are my emails too long and risk clients not reading them?
- Am I sending emails too frequently, and my clients are not opening them because they feel spammed?
- Is there a better/more personal way I can communicate this?
Think back to previous courses. Have you received any questions? Have you had people show up feeling confused or unsure of what to expect during the first coaching session? Have you had people asking questions that were covered in your onboarding process? These are all signs that your onboarding process may not be clear enough.
Brainstorm ways you can simplify things or make them more engaging. Can you record a welcome video to send/embed in your welcome email? Can you schedule an orientation session a week before you start your coaching sessions so you can go over housekeeping and give your coaching clients a chance to ask any questions they have? Do your coaching clients know how to contact you if they have trouble completing the forms or preparing for anything?
It could be useful to sit down with someone and ask them to go through your process with you so you can see what your coaching clients experience.
Your Business Processes Make or Break Customer Experience
Business processes are a key part of the customer experience. That is why our copywriting services include help with the onboarding and offboarding processes. Reviewing and standardising those two parts of the customer experience can elevate the overall experience of working with you.
Browse our copywriting services to see how we can help you. We can also book a call to work on your business processes only. Use the contact form to get in touch, and we can book a Pick Our Brains call for £199 per hour. Within 2 hours, we will create a framework for your onboarding and offboarding processes. Book 4 hours if you want us to write all your onboarding and offboarding emails and create a feedback questionnaire too.