How To Respond To New/Existing Clients Faster So You Don't Lose Them

Are you able to respond to every single one of your clients within ten minutes, whether that be a new potential client inquiring with you or an existing client with a question or whatever it may be? If not, right now, you are not set up for success as far as the standard that consumers have for businesses nowadays. 90% of consumers believe that a great customer service experience has to do with the business's response time. 60% of consumers believe that ten minutes or less is an appropriate, great response time.

So, therefore, customers are expecting us to respond very quickly in today's day and age. And do I believe that we have to respond within ten minutes every single freaking time? Not necessarily. You are not superhuman, particularly if you are a solopreneur or a business service provider, such as we are as hairstylists.

However, I do believe that there are tons of things that we can do to streamline our client communication as much as possible to make it so we can respond to inquiries as quickly as possible, and we can also empower our clients to be able to figure out answers themselves so that they don't have to wait for our responses, so that we can make it so every new potential client who's inquiring with us knows exactly what they need to do, they don't have to wait around for us, so we can catch them before they become disinterested, and we can make our existing clients feel like we've done everything we possibly can to take care of them, even if we are not the ones responding to them, but also make it so we can respond to them very quickly when we are there and we need to be the ones responding to them. So, I'm gonna be sharing with you what those tools are, what my teachings have been to make this stuff happen for years now, and they've been really successful for my students, and even for myself behind the chair. So, if you're ready to make your response times absolutely amazing, let's get into it. Let's go.

So, I'm gonna be sharing with you a couple of the different ways that I teach my students to make it so we can respond to clients as quickly as possible without sacrificing our own boundaries, because what I definitely don't want you to do is feel like you have to be available 24/7 outside of your work hours. It's absolutely unsustainable, your life is very short, and you only have one life to live at the end of the day. So, therefore, it doesn't- it's not even worth it for me to, you know, have a great customer experience if it means sacrificing my life, right? At the end of the day, that's unsustainable and it's actually gonna set you up for failure in the future.

So, I'm all about teaching you how we can have the balance, the best of both worlds, create a great customer service and client experience, but also have boundaries and work/life balance at the same time, and that's exactly what some of these strategies are gonna allow you to do. Have boundaries that do not jeopardize the professionalism of your business, right? So, you'll be able to get the best of both worlds. So, one of the first things is digital assets, so creating digital platforms or assets in which clients can go on there and do business with you, without you.

One of the coolest ways that I teach my students how to do this is with creating a client-only app. So, this is an app that's completely free to create. You can customize it and brand it to make it completely your own, and it will live on your existing client's phone, in which they can go on and do whatever they need to do whenever they want to, whether that be schedule, reschedule, order products, get their questions answered, parking information, address, um, even consultation, uh, uh, uh, experiences for them just in case they wanna reach out to you and show you a picture of the blonde that they actually want, and they're like, "Do you think this will look good on me?" It's like, "Girl, go to the app, inquire that way," right?

So, it's streamlining that communication, giving that client a database where they can very easily find everything that they need instead of having to search for your Instagram or your website, which of the majority of clients are going and finding a booking link through finding your website or your Instagram So, instead of you having to put them through all of that pressure, have this app that just lives on their phone that is customized and branded to you, so that way, they can go ahead and do that themselves whenever they want to. Therefore, they don't have to reach out to you, right? That solves a lot of problems and it empowers the client to do things by themselves. I know for me and the majority of consumers nowadays, we wanna do things by ourselves because that means it's gonna be the quickest way to get it done 'cause we don't wanna wait around for you.

So, I teach students how to do this, and it's been really, really cool to get them to put it in- ah, put it into action and how much it reduces the stress that they have on their business. Then, we have frequently asked questions, so, uh, uh, your client-only app is a great place to have those frequently asked questions, your story highlights in Instagram, um, and then also your autoresponders as well. So, if you're not taking advantage of your, um, Facebook Messenger and Instagram autoresponders, and then maybe even your business phone number app if you have one that I recommend that you would have, um, setting up your autoresponder to have a link to or have buttons that click to different frequently asked questions and answers. Um, I love this feature on Instagram and Messenger, like, it'll pop up with, like, a couple bubbles and buttons that will share, like, a question, and then they can click it and they'll get the answer to that question automatically.

I think that's a really beautiful way to make it so you're giving that client an answer without them having to wait around for you, so making sure that you're setting up those FAQs and autoresponders in every single place in which somebody may reach out to you, right? Then, um, fully built out profiles. So, a lot of the times, I'll go on s- a service provider or a business's Instagram or their Facebook page or their website and their address is nowhere, or they haven't taken advantage of every single place where they can fill in information so that that client can get what they need and understand where you're at, um, from the very beginning, right And that's super important because if a new potential client is trying to fi- figure out what the tea is with you, they don't wanna have to reach out to you to figure it out, so answer their questions right up first and foremost, right? So, like I sh- all the stuff that I just shared with you, all of this is to make it so your client can do business with you, without you.

Very, very, very important. And online booking is its whole thing by itself that also is included in this, but that is h- a lot of other episodes, right? And, and online booking, i- i- it's, it's, it's a, it's a whole concept within itself. I'm a big firm believer that online booking should only be available to your existing clients, not any new clients, becauseSimultaneously, alongside everything I'm saying here, um, I think digital forms and having a digital form, a digital consultation form, is the only way that new clients should be able to inquire with you.

You should have one sole organized way that a new potential client can start their journey with you, which is, uh, going to allow you to respond to these clients much faster, and here is why. If you have a bunch of different clients inquiring with you from a bunch of different angles, then you have to constantly be checking your texts, your Instagram DMs, your Messenger, your email. That's a lot of different places to check. It can get overwhelming.

It can get lost in the mix. You can forget about it, et cetera, et cetera. If you have one place in which you are fielding all of the inquiries, in which you are also getting all of the answers that you need up front to be able to give this person an answer back that is very clear, concise, has the quote for the price and exactly what they would need to book to be successful, that is going to allow you to do business a lot faster in an efficient way that is taking very good care of the client. And if you funnel everybody through one sole way, one sole journey of starting to work with you, then that will allow you to set up backend automations in which you do not have to be involved and you can respond to this person as quickly as possible.

So, what I teach my students how to do is how to set up a digital consultation form process in which they can up- your client can upload pictures, they can answer all the questions that you want them to answer, so that way you know exactly what they would need to book online, and then you, as the hairstylist, will literally click a button, one button, that will, within your control, share with them exactly what they need to book and then it's done. Like, literally my students are responding to inquiries in a matter of seconds after they get them because they can click a button without having to write an email or ask more questions or go back and forth for a week just to get ghosted when you tell them the price. Like, we are setting expectations up front and clearly we are fielding all the information that we need as quickly and efficiently as possible and we are responding as quickly as possible without having to manually write out anything. That's the type of systems and shit and automations that I teach, honey, and that I've been doing for years and are becoming increasingly and increasingly more important and prevalent.

I've been telling y'all, y'all early adapt- adopters, if you've been following me and learning this stuff and implementing this stuff for a long time, girl, you have been set up for the future for a minute. The future is here now, and anybody who has not jumped on this wave and is not taking advantage of this modern day technology and these strategies that we've developed over years, you're missing out, girl. You are missing out. So hop on board and let me show you the way.

Okay? I'm sick of begging you, girl. I'm sick of trying to explain to you why this is so important. I am down to support you and help you make this happen, as I have my thousand plus students up until this point.

And so those types of systems, digital assets, and automations on the backend can very much help you. Now, another thing that I will share on top of this, even though I only recommend that you have somebody go through a digital form process before they go to your online booking first is, um, you can have it so people are redirected to your online booking right after filling out the digital consultation form, even though you have not reviewed the inquiry yet if you would like to But you can still have backend automations that will then cover your butt in any case scenario such as if somebody went on your online booking and they booked the wrong thing and it contradicts what they said in the form or they booked at the wrong time or they just didn't book at all even after the inquiry. So that way, if somebody, if you're trying to get somebody to... Or, s- you have a new potential client who's trying to book immediately, um, then therefore they can just go on there and get what they need to get done, done.

And this is like an alternative strategy that we teach that kind of builds on top of the main way that I teach it in Pre-Visit Pathway. And so this is just another option for you to be able to capture that some- somebody's interest as soon as possible before they become disinterested because you can't get back to them, but the majority of the time it doesn't really make that big of a difference because with the way that we set things up with the digital form and the automations on the backend, you can get back to somebody so freaking quickly. Like, this is the type of shit that allows you to go on vacation and still get new clients booked without you even having to check your phone for less than five minutes in a day. This is the type of shit in which you don't have to worry about your clients being left on read or left on delivered and not being answered for days because you know that they can get the answers themselves and they prefer to get the answers themselves and you've set them up for mo- the most success possible This is the type of shit that I want to teach you how to create, my friend.

So, if you are interested in learning more about how me, my students, and how the modern day hairstylist is setting this shit up, you can go to hunterdonahue.com or you can check out whatever the hell I got going on right now @hairbyhunty. Hope this episode was helpful for you, my friend. Start to respond to people quicker, quicker and you will see better results in your business.

So much love. Peace out (Chinese 00:04:55).

End of transcript. © 2024 Hunter Donia LLC.