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When your business begins, you get to know your clients well, and they may even become friends. However, when your company starts to grow, and your client list expands, it can be challenging to keep track of all those details you kept in mind for those first clients – even the little things that made them feel special. If your client list is becoming more extensive and you’re having trouble remembering specific details, it’s time to set up a way to keep those details in mind and still make them feel cherished. Getting to know your clients makes it easier to keep them engaged with your business.
Know Your Clients & Understand Their Needs
Why is it so important to know your clients? Understanding your clients’ motivations and requirements, you find new ways to engage them and integrate them into your clientele ‘family’.
When a new client makes an appointment on your booking site, you know virtually nothing about them other than their name and contact details. How do you make their first visit so excellent and memorable that they want to keep coming back, without any information on them as people?
It will depend on the kind of services you provide, but what can you ask people before confirming their booking to help make the experience a fantastic one? It’s also crucial to determine what information is essential and what is beneficial but not critical to a good outcome.
Let’s look at how you can get to know your clients better with the features in SimplyBook.me.
Getting to Know Your Clients Before The 1st Appointment
There are several ways you can collect information about your clients, and not all of them require you to ask probing questions or collect personal data. It’s up to you to decide what your clients will stand and whether they are willing to give up some slivers of data for the best possible experience and convenience.
Client Login
When you ask clients to create a login with you, you create the beginnings of a relationship. If the client makes a login or a personal account, they usually intend to continue using that company.
Client profiles are great for clients because it allows them to see their booking history, invest in recurring package deals and memberships, and maybe even be a part of a loyalty scheme (it’s on the development roadmap). It’s also good for our users because clients with logins are more likely to come back, and you can also encourage your clients to download the client app to their smartphones. Clients who download the app are the most likely to keep coming back to your business.
By asking clients to create a login and account with you, you also have the opportunity to ask questions that will enhance their experience and make it easier for you to provide the perfect service.
Facebook Client Info
You have probably seen this option on many websites that require a login to proceed. You might have seen Google or Twitter logins, too, in some places. Facebook login has two distinct benefits. One is that it allows your clients to effectively “login” without completing a profile and personal details. It’s purely convenient. The second benefit of the Facebook Client Info feature is that it allows access to the public profile picture. Wouldn’t it be nice to welcome your incoming new clients by name because you recognise their faces?
Some people prefer to use Facebook to log in because Facebook, by its nature, is already a public platform.
Another benefit to Facebook Client Info is that appointments are often viewable on their timeline – instant advertising!
Client Fields
The client fields feature lets you collect information about your clients. Assuming they agree to answer a few questions when signing up for client login. Unlike intake forms, the client fields feature saves information about the client to their profile and remains there for reference at each subsequent appointment. Using client fields allows you to collect pertinent information that might affect all of the services you provide. Whether you offer personal services such as life coaching or garden maintenance or if you provide medical or physical treatments, there are some things you might need to know.
- Gender (and preferred pronouns and salutations)
- Next of Kin/Emergency Contact (especially for physical treatments)
- Allergies (they do change)
- Address
- Birthday (good for promotional voucher “gifts”)
- Medical insurance provider
The list goes on, but you know what information is crucial to providing an excellent service experience. Moreover, your clients will understand that you need this information to provide their desired experience.
If your clients seem a little reticent about providing details, you can always make the less critical questions optional.
One of the benefits of the client fields feature is that your repeat clientele doesn’t need to provide these details at every appointment.
Intake Forms
While engaging clients with a personal profile is extremely useful, it’s not the only way to gather information about the client and make their experience with you a memorable one.
Intake forms collect information for individual bookings. The data saved from the intake form in the system will only apply to that one booking.
The intake forms feature has the benefit of not requiring your clients to have a personal login. The drawback is that you will need to collect this information at every future booking, becoming tiresome.
Client Reports
The Client Data report in your interface is not a custom feature and an invaluable resource for learning about clients. You can extrapolate a lot of information from the booking history of each client.
When you can see the clients who always book at certain times, have the same services and preferences, you can tailor offers and marketing campaigns to those users far more effectively.
In most cases, your clients will use the same email or mobile number to make their appointments. Consequently, it is easy to filter your clients even if there are different names/spellings/ typos etc. You can also merge clients when multiple instances of the same contact details are used.
SOAP (with or without encryption)
The SOAP feature is ideal for services that are progressive in nature.
SOAP stands for Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan. It’s a note style used by medical professionals, athletic trainers, nutritionists, counsellors, and anyone who needs to make detailed notes on their service plan.
The SOAP feature enables providers to document a time-stamped record with four text fields, which will stay with client records. You can’t export this information from the system.
If you need an extra level of security on your client information, you can also use SOAP with encryption. Encrypted SOAP data cannot be seen without the private encryption key generated at the set-up. This makes it an ideal option for medical records and other patient information.
Know Your Clients Better & Increase Your Marketing Ability
The more you know about your clients, the better you can tailor your services to their needs. When a client experiences a personalised and individualised service that meets all of their requirements (and more), they are happy. A happy client will keep returning throughout their service needs and eventually become an advocate for your business.
More than that, clients who experience excellent service in one area are more willing to indulge in new services you might introduce. They are more inclined to engage with your marketing efforts because they are happy to receive messages from you.
You will find a loyal client and business advocate when you know your clients well enough to exceed their expectations.