95: How to Build a Simple Customer System That Actually Works

Speaker A: You know the feeling when someone messages you about your service. They're inquiring about one of your offerings and you see it and you're like, okay, I'll get back to that later. And then later turns into a couple hours or the next day, and then you're scrambling, trying to remember, like, what did they ask? And really, you haven't created a system. And I want you to know you didn't lose a person because your offer wasn't good enough. You lost them in the gap, the space between them expressing an interest and. And you actually responding to them. The follow up never happened quickly enough. The experience didn't feel great to them. And most businesses don't have a customer system. They have customer interactions. And today we're gonna change that. And in this episode, we're gonna start getting practical. We've talked about the five pillars, we've talked about finding your weak link. And now today we're gonna start building. And today we're starting with customers.

Speaker B: Welcome to beyond you'd Business, the show where we get real about what it actually takes to lead in business and in life.

Speaker A: I'm Amy Sussex, your behind the scenes

Speaker B: support in systems, client experience, scaling and sustainable growth. I work with visionary women who are done with burnout and ready to step into leadership with clarity and confidence. This podcast is for the women shifting from m overwhelmed operator to being an empowered CEO. Um, the ones who want to build a business that feel as good as they look. Each week we dive into conversations about leadership systems, client experience, motherhood, and the messy middle of entrepreneurship, all through the lens of building with intention, ease and alignment. I created this podcast because I believe

Speaker A: how you lead yourself shapes everything. Your systems, your team, your results, and

Speaker B: what works for you should be as

Speaker A: unique as your business.

Speaker B: If you're ready to step into things differently in a way that supports your vision and your capacity, you're in the right place.

Speaker A: Let's explore what's possible. You understand that your business is made up of five core pillars. You understand that most chaos in businesses doesn't come from everything being broken. It's coming from one or two weak areas that's spilling into everything else and creating pressure and chaos and unstructuredness in the rest of your business. You've also learned that a system doesn't need to be over complicated. It can be. It is a repeatable step. And something simple you can do is every time without thinking is you're repeating that step. So now today we're going to start applying this and we're going to begin with, the most, one of the most important pillars is customers. Because at the end of the day, if you don't have customers and they don't have a great experience, you don't have a business. So if you strip your business down to its core, no matter what you sell, what industry you're in, how you operate, everything starts with customers. How they find you, how you communicate with them, how you move them through a process and how they continue to love you and come back to you and share you and shout you from the rooftops with everybody. And here's where a lot of times most small businesses struggles is because they don't actually have a customer system in place. They have customer interactions. And those things are two different things. Where a customer interaction can be random and with the customer interaction being random, I mean is someone's messaging you, you're responding when you like kind of remember, or when you have time, someone shows interest, you're following up. When you have time, someone asks a question, you're applying different times of the day, it's really becomes inconsistent because again you haven't built in like a bit more foundation and structure of like these are the times I'm going to respond back to emails, these are the times I'm going to respond back to inquiries. These are the times like really setting out that expectation for customers, but also for yourself as well too. And so a customer system on the other hand, removes a lot of that randomness because your makes your communication predictable and ensures that follow ups aren't being missed. It creates structure around how people move through your business. And this is important because most people don't lose customers because of bad offers. They lose customers because they haven't followed up with them or they have unclear communication or inconsistent responses. And a lot of times yes, you may have a wrong offer or you're marketing around it, or the language or something like that, but a lot of times it's not that, it's because you don't have a system in place to be supporting communication with clients. And so a customer system really has three basic parts. It's the attracting, the communicating and the retaining. Attracting, communicating and retaining. So let's break this down further first with attraction. This is how people enter your world. It's not diving into like the whole marketing strategy side of things. But really I want to focus on what happens when someone shows interest. Because when you have systems in place, this is what matters, right? Is that whole attraction of oh, uh, what do they have? I want to learn more. And so like, what systems do you have in place when it comes to, um, how people are finding you and, like, coming into your world? And then the second piece from this is then the communication part. And so do you respond consistently? Do you have a clear way of answering inquiries? Do you have, like, an automated message that says, like, I follow up with in 24 hours, or, like, anything like that? Um, and then really, it's for training. So, like, after someone becomes a customer, do they hear from you again? Do you stay in touch? Are you keeping them in the loop? Are you creating a repeat business? Um, or every single time, do you need to start from scratch? And you're constantly looking for new customers or clients? And I think this is a really big miss in a lot of businesses because really, people are thinking, I want to market to new people, I need to attract new people. And you really forget about the people that have already worked with you. They know you, they love you. I'm sure they've had the most amazing experience with you. So, like, reaching back out to them, like, maybe there's something if. So I'm just thinking, if you're a website company, um, and you build websites, it's been six months. Have you followed up with them? I know my business grows and evolves and changes. Maybe their business has done the same. Like, so maybe they're needing an update on their website or just checking in, are they using it? I've done that recently with a couple dubsado builds that I've had. I've reached out to people saying, like, how's it going? How are you using it? Because at the end of the day, I want to make sure they're using something that I set up for them and that they're enjoying it and that, you know, who knows? And from this, I've had people be like, yeah, actually, I need additional support. Can I hire you on, like, an ongoing basis to continue to help to support with my dubsado? So, like, I didn't realize that was going to be a need necessarily for people. So you never know because other offers can come out of this. And now this is important because you've retained that client without having to go and find new clients. And yes, we love new clients.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: But how amazing is it that you've continued to grow with this other customer, client interchangeable. And as their business has grown and evolved, they're like, oh, actually I could really use support with this. And you're like, boom, I already know their business. You're not having to figure it out from scratch. Again too right. So I just really want to share that because I think so often we forget the value and the importance of retaining and loving on the people that have worked with us. And so most businesses treat these three stages really separately with the attract, communicate and retain. But really it should be one customer, simple experience, simple system. And so if someone messages you about your service, what happens next? You reply, you say when you're available or you give them a link. And so when people are inquiring and you have a, you know, I know I say systems a lot, I need

Speaker B: to find a better word.

Speaker A: But really at the end of the day it's true. So you know, someone's inquiring, you have like, you know, your kind of set response that you would have and then you can customize it and create it more of a client experience in your response, but you're not having to think from scratch, um, what should I say? And like redoing it every single time. And so by you having this already in um, place it creates again more that stability for you in your business. And it's not dependent on how busy you are, how motivated you are, what's happening in your life if you're on holidays, like all the things. So really having like what your message would be and having it, you know, I'm just thinking again because of Dubsado, like having it being like an automated message that goes back out to people. So and then you can be sending like a personal follow up message afterwards. But I think the key here is, and I want to like iterate is like that people are getting some type of message and response back from you and not left in limbo and wondering because we get busy. Especially when you're in the day to day of your business and depending on what your business is like the time, I'm um, stopping my fingers here because the time can be flying and things are happening all the time. And this piece can easily unfortunately sometimes get overlooked. I've seen it in other people's business. I've also seen it in my own, unfortunately. And so this is again by being transparent, something I'm trying to work on within my own business is like how can I have more consistent systems, more consistent structure when it comes to customer service? Um, um, so again like as I'm doing things, I'm writing down this process. I'm like, okay, how can I make this better? How can I make this work? How does this make sense? And really starting to like put those steps in place and change those steps as I'm building out and continue to build out my offers. And I love doing that with other clients as well too because we really can see like how. Because it's again when I said at the beginning, without clients you don't have a business. So how can we make this the best win win for everybody really having this process where you're able to follow up with people, you're not leaving them second guessing with things and it creates less stress for everybody as well. And so really at the goal, at the end of the day it's not about being perfect. It's not about having like these fancy like I know some people are like I want like rainbows to shoot out and unicorns and you know, these crazy emojis. And that's great and that's wonderful. But also like people just want to hear from you and they want to know like how you can help them because they're so caught up in the things that are happening that they just want to know that they're being taken care of. And at the end of the day, customers, clients, they want to feel seen, heard and valued and what you're offering, they want to make sure that they're getting the best support from you for that. And, and so by you putting the system in place of how you're attracting them, how you're communicating with them and then having this follow up to retain them is key. And I've seen it so many times that people are not following up with people. Somebody leaves a program and they're no longer in your group coaching program or your one on one offer anymore or they are done with the website build or they're no longer hiring you for social media or whatever the case may be, you don't know what's happening in that person's life and things shift and change and evolve and really at the end of the day, I don't know about you, but I care about the person and I value the person. And I check. I uh, this used to be a big thing. I know especially in like my wellness business when I used to massage people, if I didn't see people for like three months or six months, I, I knew them because as you're working with people, you get to know them on a personal level. They'll sometimes share stories and stuff. So like you have this connection with people and if I would hear from them, I would want to reach out to them to say, hey, how are you? How are things going? And I was doing it from a genuine place because I cared, not because I was uh, wanting them to be like, oh, you haven't booked with me. Like, I didn't want that. I wanted it because, like, I care about you as the person. And so really taking those thoughts and feelings and putting that into this business, because at the end of the day, I care about you. I want to help you in your business so you can do the things that you want to do with your family, with your loved ones that light you up. And so, you know, I want you to remind you that it's important to follow up with somebody in six months because you care about them as the person and you never know because you have this genuine conversation, what comes out of it. Maybe they have somebody else that they know and they were like, oh, yeah, I haven't talked to Amy in a while or Susie or so. And so I, you know, people sometimes forget what you do or you don't aren't, uh, always top of mind for people. So by you having a follow up conversation in three months or six months, it's just opening that door again because maybe you, what they offer, you know, somebody else, that could be a value of that too. So I just want to remind you that it's so valuable to love on and appreciate and to communicate with the people that you used to work with that maybe have fallen off the radar to do that follow up and get

Speaker B: them back on the radar again and

Speaker A: have that conversation again. So really, at the end of the day, figuring out and setting up a system in place for your customers. And so next time we're going to look at the next pillar, sales, and how we can build a process for that. So next time we're going to get into more about sales. But I want you to remember, your business should work with you, not because of you.

Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to beyond you'd business podcast. I hope you're walking away today with clarity, ideas and the inspiration to go take action. If you love this episode, take a moment to follow the show and leave a review. It helps more women like you find their way here. Until next time, lead yourself and everything else will follow.

Speaker A: This podcast is produced, mixed and edited by Cardinal Studio. For more information about how to start your own podcast, please visit www.cardinalstudio.co or email mikeardinalstudio. Co. You can also find the details in the show notes.