5 Ways To Improve Your Client Experience Through Blogging
Improve your client experience through blogging
Blogging for your business regularly has an ocean-load of benefits - you’ve probably heard about how good it is for your SEO and how it can help you attract aligned clients, but what you might not know is that it’s also a powerful tool for ‘wow’ing your current customers. If you want people to go absolutely coconutty about you and your service or product after working with you, you’ll need these 5 ways to improve your client experience through blogging.
This guest blog is brought to you by me, Katherine, Sunshine SEO Studio’s very own warm-weather addict. I’m an SEO blogging specialist going beyond ‘just’ monthly articles to craft blogs that don’t gather dust on your website, they put in a real shift for you - even during your busiest times.
The benefits of using blogging to improve your client experiencE
Using your blogs in these ways is going to offer you 2 major benefits. The first is that your clients and customers will feel looked after, supported and sure that they’re in safe hands, and the second is that the amount of time you spend writing the same lengthy emails will be drastically reduced. You can say hello to;
A better brand reputation
Rave reviews
More time to spend on your actual product or service
Now, let’s get into 5 specific examples of how you can implement this in your own business.
5 ways to improve your client experience through blogging
Sunshine SEO Studio guest blog for Harriet Evans Ops
To answer FAQs
If you added up all the time you spend typing out the same long answers to the questions you get asked again and again, I bet you’d get a shock. Answering individual FAQs is not a good use of your time, so it’s time to bank some content to help you out. Writing a blog for each FAQ, where you go into detail about the answer and direct your reader to other resources and information around your website? Much more productive.
The reason this works so well is twofold: you can reply to those question-filled emails in half the time it would usually take, and it’s also a great SEO strategy - just look at Google’s ‘people also asked’ section! Being prepared is always a good look, and your customers will really appreciate you having an elevated answer to their query.
2. To outline your process
There are many ways to set expectations with your clients about what the process of working with you will look like - Harriet is the expert in this sort of thing! Just one of those many ways is by including a blog somewhere in your onboarding experience, outlining each step in the journey you’ll go on with your client.
This is particularly useful if your business has a specific bespoke process (some of my clients are dress or accessory designers in the wedding industry, for example), or you’re working in a way that isn’t immediately familiar to people. Receiving an email (automated, perhaps!) that guides your client through each step and what to expect next is like giving them a reassuring hand on the shoulder - nobody likes to be left guessing, particularly when they’ve spent money on something!
3. To show options or examples
The next way to improve your client experience through blogging generally appears once you’ve started working with someone, and they have a range of options to choose from for the product or service you’re providing. In the wedding industry this applies to suppliers such as stationery designers, who may want to present fonts, cardstock styles or envelope liners available to their client, for example.
Instead of sending a lengthy email containing lots of links to different places on Instagram, Pinterest and your website, sending one link to a blog that goes into detail about their choices looks slick, professional and well thought out. You’re already giving your client something to think about, so making it as noise-free as possible really improves the experience for them.
A great client experience expert (hey, Harriet!) can advise on exactly where and how to place this into your workflow for best results.
4. To qualify enquiries
We’ve all been there - spent hours emailing back and forth with a potential client, only to find out they don’t have the budget or they’re actually looking for something a bit different. This can either result in a disinterested (or worse, disgruntled) recipient who will now never turn into a client, or…you might not be surprised to hear, you could use blogging to make this an all-round more pleasant experience for everyone involved.
Part of the enquiry process should be some sort of qualification element, where you figure out whether this person is going to be a good fit for your service (or, in some cases, product). There are a few ways you could look at this from a blogging perspective, including;
Using blogs to showcase case studies or examples of previous work you’ve done for other clients, so your new enquiry can figure out if that’s what they need
Taking your readers through behind-the-scenes processes or inside your tools, technology, studio etc to show them what’s inside
Showing different examples of your work alongside rough investments/price points for each. This option works particularly well with my wedding industry clients such as florists, who can create different variations on an element such as an archway or aisle meadow
You never know, if someone gets a great experience with you even though you’re not a good fit right now, they could become a potential client in the future - or, at worst, they might recommend you to someone for whom you’re the perfect fit.
5. During and after offboarding
Harriet will tell you that offboarding your clients is an often-overlooked process and, along with her many brilliant ideas for improving this part of the customer journey, it’s another opportunity to include your blogs. When you’re parting ways with a client, either because the project has come to an end or because it’s simply time to go in different directions, there are a few things to think about:
How are you going to collect a review from them?
Is there a way to continue the relationship, keep them in your circle, and possibly even up/downsell to them?
Harriet has you covered for the first part, and I have some ideas for part two - improve your client experience from start to the all-important finish with some more blogs to:
Give them more information to help them use or get the most out of the product or service you’ve provided. For example, when working with a client who wants to publish their own blogs after I’ve written them, I always send them a ‘publishing and promoting’ guide - a link to a blog to help them maximise the impact of the service I provided
Answer any questions they might have about your service or product later down the line. An example of this might be a wedding veil designer who, after posting the product to the customer, could send links to blogs detailing things like how to safely travel with their new veil, how to steam it correctly, how to wear it in their hair…
You may even choose to have a separate, hidden selection of blogs that only become available for people who are working/have worked with you, inviting them into your world and allowing them to stay there even after the end of their project. Within these blogs (and every other one you write, for that matter!) you should have clear pointers to your relevant services, giving them more opportunities to work with you in the future.
Introducing: The Shell Collector. My blog library building service that also focuses on integrating your new evermore content into your process, just as I’ve suggested in this blog. I’ll write 5 or 10 blog pieces for you, specifically designed to help improve your client experience and streamline your process. If you’ve already worked or are working with Harriet, we can collab on how this looks for you so the two services work side by side!
Guest written by Katherine, Sunshine SEO Studio.