193. How do we give our clients a VIP experience?
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Want to give your clients a special experience? ⭐️ This speedy episode with hosts and brand strategists Phil and Lauren will teach you how to run a tight operation that makes clients want to return for more. From communication recommendations to file naming (yes, really!), you'll get inspired to view every client interaction as a branding opportunity.
Episode transcription
Phil
If you ask me, I think our clients get a VIP experience. So today we thought we'd record a little potty potty.
Lauren
Oh, my God.
Phil
Podcast episode, let's keep it short. So it's easy for people to digest. Let's also keep it short, because it's the end of the day and I'm exhausted.
Lauren
Sounds great to me.
Phil
VIP experience, where do we even begin? Because I do think we give our clients this.
Lauren
Yes. And I think the first thing to just call out is that a VIP experience doesn't necessarily mean that you are at your clients every beck and call, to me, a VIP experience is related to hospitality, and it's giving clients a truly luxurious experience. And that doesn't always mean that you have to answer them immediately, although quick communication can certainly help things. But it's more about putting thoughtfulness and seeing an opportunity to really create a branding moment with every single interaction that you have with a client.
Phil
I love that. Does this apply for products and service businesses?
Lauren
I think so.
Phil
I think so.
Lauren
I think so. There's one example that comes to mind naturally, when do you remember when you first got your Casper mattress?
Phil
No.
Lauren
Okay.
phil
Tell us the story.
Lauren
I mean, you're kind of setting up for failure, because I don't really know if there's so much of a story here. But basically, the package arrives, and it's like, incredibly branded, there's some like, witty line of copy, you open it up. and there's information that's on these like cute little branded note cards, and then you get to unfurl your mattress and watch it blow up. And just every single moment was branded, and special. And it felt high end, it's kind of like when you get a new Mac device, how the way that the instruction sheets always fit perfectly into the packaging, and everything is just high quality, and beautiful. I'd say those are physical product examples. But that same feeling that you get when you're interacting with a high quality physical product needs to be applied to whatever experience you're providing your clients.
Phil
So listener, how are you providing a VIP experience in your business? That's what I want you thinking about right now. Interesting that we're talking about this because I have thought about how I just enjoy little touch points along the journey. When I was traveling, working remotely, this was harder. But since I've now been in the same place, for the most part, the last year, I've actually reintroduced little surprise, almost like analog type check ins with clients. So I'll give an example.
We added a question on our brand, brand audit intake form. So our clients actually write down their mailing address. And when that brand intake form comes into my inbox, I do not delete it, or file it or archive it until I have gone to my closet and grabbed a postcard. And actually sit and write, I handwrite doesn't take me long, I enjoy doing it. But I hand write just a little note to that client stick of 50 cent postage stamp on it, and write their address on it. And I pop it in the mail the next day. And that's an example of literally something that cost me 60 cents that I think the client isn't expecting, but they do remember, I think so much of our work tends to be focused on digital, and so I like to think about physical things that I can do that remind people about the value of the experience, not just a digital good on a screen, but actually us interacting. So I feel like a postcard with my weird handwriting. My handwriting is kind of weird. You know, someday I have little little pins with our logo in this really cool it kind of rose like bronze tint that I'll also pop in a card and send it to someone. These are little things that I like to do because it reminds people that the experience is physical and digital. Just an example that came to mind.
Lauren
For sure. I tend to focus on the digital parts, of course, just given that I kind of had up the client projects. But I think that physical touch is a really nice way to make someone feel special and again to go out of what's expected to again create that VIP experience. On the digital front. I'm shockingly, given how disorganized my Google Drive is, I'm shockingly very, very strict about how we named files. I'll give an example Costya, our genius designer will always send us a screenshot of icons as he's working on them for the client. And it's the typical screenshot filename like screenshot, you know, whatever the day it is bunch of numbers bunch of letters. And it could be easy for me to just send that screenshot file as is. But I always, always, always rename it to whatever the client code is like CTH_ icons_ 01, because then they know that they're getting a file that's named, not only with their name, but it's been carefully named with the what they're looking at. And it also has the version number on there. And I just think that taking that extra step, to show that you care makes a really big difference.
Phil
I think I'd absolutely compounds Imagine to how we both have our own little vices or our own little like instances of, I don't know, maybe just making sure we take extra care. I think we talk about these sometimes, but a lot of times we just do, we just operate and always kind of strive for that excellence. I think that's really important because we're all doing it. I guess I would also think too, if you've got a team, you want to be inspired to lead and inspire your team to think about their own opportunities for those touchpoints. It's not a matter of coming up with them as the boss and then handing them down. I mean, certainly, yes, you want to communicate, you want to create operating procedures. You want that experience to be delivered consistently across the board, but you also want to inspire the people on the inside to think how can I make this experience special. All of this together as a compounding effect,
Lauren
You bring up a really great point. And it reminds me of something that I experienced the other day, that was very, very interesting as we're starting to document like our own processes. So I took an art class many, many, many years ago. And the instructor brought up this story to show how important presentation is. So what she said was imagine you drew a stick figure on a piece of paper. And if you creased up that paper, if you folded it in half and or crumpled it up and shared it with someone, that person might think, Okay, this is just a scribble on a piece of paper, it's meaningless because it's creased, it's not cared for, it's not framed, you know, this doesn't mean anything, it's just a scribble, I can toss it in the garbage.
But if you take that scribble of the stick figure and you frame it, and you make sure it's not creased, and you present it with absolute care to whoever the recipient is, you talk about how it's valuable than that stick figure drawing is going to seem inherently more expensive. It's going to be more valuable just because of the way that it's been presented. And so something that I try to do when presenting anything to a client is to not only say you know what was changed or what was done, but give an additional two to three bullets of why it was done. Because I want them to understand that every single thought has value to it. And a lot of care was put into getting to that deliverable to the point that it
Phil
Got to I love that. Can you give us an example?
Lauren
Yes. So we had a client where we were doing Instagram templates, and the first ones weren't totally connecting with them. And so we went back and kind of reworked it and looked at some inspiration posts that they shared and tried to figure out how we could take those inspiration posts and make the lineup with the brand board. And so when we did those revisions, we shared the updated Instagram template, and we could have just left it there being like, here's your your new Instagram templates with revisions, let us know what you think. But instead, we shared the updated revisions and said, here's a quick summary of the things that were changed. And here are a few other things to keep in mind. So for example, your logo is hugging at the bottom so that it's not going to be visible from your main feed, which will make it feel less promotional in a very good way. We've sized this to be vertical to maximize the real estate that Instagram allows you to have in a single post. Little details like that really, really make a difference because it also proactively answers any questions that a client might have before they even have to ask them. So it puts you in a position of expertise instead of submission, which is really critical to get clients to quickly sign off on things and also trust what you have to recommend.
Phil
Good example. I love that example.
Lauren
I think those are my main tips.
Phil
I think it's great. We set out a mission to create a short but actionable podcast episode. I think we've done it. We've given you some ideas on how we've taken action on this within our own business. But now it's time for you hopefully you've been brainstorming and thinking, how can you apply this for your own? We would love to hear from you. What ideas are you marinating on? How are you going to implement some of those little VIP touch points please share with us. You know where to find his both I’m @philpallen
Lauren
I’m @thelaurenmoore
Phil
On Instagram and all the other places. If you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoyed other episodes we appreciate when you take the extra time to leave us a review on Apple podcasts five star five star that helps other people discover this podcast so we work hard to create. Thanks for hanging out with us on a shorter than usual episode. We'll be back next week with a guest so you're gonna love them. See you then on Brand Therapy.
Lauren
Bye bye