Optimising your Client Experience through WOW moments

Client experience is a critical success factor to any business. Satisfied clients ultimately provide sustainable revenue and longevity of the business. However, we have an opportunity to move beyond just satisfying clients. Clients that experience a service that consistently exceeds their expectations on the upside, not only increase loyalty and retention, they can be an engine for growth. They can be a direct referral source or provide testimonials as to the value of your relationship. Your client experience model could be a key differentiator in your market. Building this elevated client experience can be done through WOW moments, opportunities to delight, excite and surprise your clients by showing you understand and value your relationship with them.

Whether it be in an initial engagement meeting, an ongoing review meeting or any other interactions with your clients, they are all opportunities to deliver WOW moments. By engaging your clients regularly in unique and memorable ways, you can execute on your service model and supplement it with an interaction that sets your service apart.

Creating a baseline of WOW impressions that can be consistently delivered by all staff is critical. Take the time to review each step of client interaction—from before a meeting, the client meeting experience in your office through to other communications and interactions— identify opportunities to exceed expectations.

You may have WOW impressions that you include across all your clients, and provide additional and more bespoke WOW impressions for you top clients. The WOW could be something tangible, such as the physical environment in your office, but it may also be an intangible, such as how you manage the review to provide maximum value. It all boils down to providing top clients an experience they cannot get anywhere else, one that they are impressed with and that they will want to talk about!

Consider the following WOW impressions for your client meetings

Pre-meeting opportunities:

To confirm client meetings, send personalised notes of thanks and thoughts of appreciation for their business. Hand-written notes can be particularly impressive.
Offer them ideas to think through prior to the meeting, offer a note book to write down ideas or a bottle of wine to share with a partner to discuss what they need to ask you the Adviser.
If your location requires paid parking, send a prepaid parking pass with your note of thanks. Or if your office has allocated parking, a sign with their name showing reserved parking.
If you have clients who are traveling some distance for their review, send them a magazine covering their hobby or a even a podcast recommendation to make the journey more enjoyable.
Offer a reserved table at a close by café so they can have an opportunity to sit and relax before your meeting.
For virtual meetings, consider how you can make it more enjoyable for them. If they are a young family, send around a bottle of wine and offer to do the meeting when the kids are in bed. Offer some Netflix suggestions for after the meeting – promising you want them to still have time for themselves that night. For day meetings, offer morning tea to be delivered or even some chocolates and high quality tea for you meeting.

For all of these, you want to help reinforce that this meeting isn’t just a transaction, you want to build a relationship.

In the meeting:

Make every attempt to put your clients at ease with the familiar and comfortable. Make sure staff members know the clients visiting each day, providing a photo and name so staff can greet them in a familiar manner.
Learn and record their preferred beverages and offer them as you go into the meeting
Reassure clients that you understand their values, needs and goals by creating and continually updating a richly written discovery agreement that highlights their plans and the benefits they’ll receive from engagement with your firm.
Use the Client Road Map and goals-based performance review to visually demonstrate the great work you’ve done for your clients and what lies ahead.
Focus on the ‘Why’. Why each of these steps are included in your Roadmap, and why it is important to the ongoing coordination of their financial ecosystem. This will help them understand how one decision or oversight can have broader impact – even when this impact is not always immediate or obvious. Using these tools to tie back to the clients goals will differentiate your review from the typical performance evaluation.

Concluding the meeting:

As the meeting concludes, inquire about events, pastimes, and upcoming occasions. First, it shows that you are interested in more than their financial life. Second, this is a prime opportunity to extract details that can lead to further WOW impressions. For example, this is where you find out about their upcoming vacation. You can use this nugget of information for another WOW opportunity by sending them a guide book, or local history that they can use to prepare for and enjoy their trip.
Upon returning to your office, summarise your meeting and next actions. Send the client an email outlining action steps for both parties. Attach an updated copy of their personalised Client Roadmap. To add an extra piece of WOW, complete these tasks before the end of that business day.

Satisfied, informed clients will help build your business. When you evaluate the cost of acquisition, the lifetime revenue value, and the lifetime referral value of a client, it is easy to see why it is important to exceed expectations at every opportunity.

WOW events, experiences and celebrations

In addition to your meetings, there are creative ways to build WOW moments in other interactions you have with your clients. This can be a simple and cost effective opportunities for the majority of your clients through to more tailored and valued experiences for your top clients.

This document offers some ideas to help you WOW your clients. Remember, though, that to create a WOW effect, the token of appreciation, celebration or engagement should consider your client’s personal preferences, interests and what they would find enjoyable and meaningful. For greatest success and authenticity, start with the client in mind, not the event or gift.

If organising an event, make sure is something that you AND your client enjoy! For more ideas on making your events more memorable, read our other blog here. Plan for two soft follow-ups (such as pictures or a thank you card)—the first within 24 hours and the second within a week of the event.

Celebration opportunities:

Mother’s day lunch
Valentine’s day lunch
Birthday lunch – milestones, surprise
Seasonal-related gifts such as Poinsettia plant at Christmas, Chocolate eggs at Easter, Winter warmer kits in July
Cards hand-signed by all members of the team—for birthday, sympathy, congratulations for events surrounding grandchildren (birth, graduations), anniversary with firm, wedding anniversary
Birthday chocolates or mini birthday cake

Lifestyle goal oriented

Holiday home tour – organise or host a tour of possible holiday homes – even if it’s just an ‘inspiration tour’ years before a planned purchase date
Fishing—Organise a fishing tour for those that have aspirations to purchase a boat, retire or wish they had more time to go fishing
Race car track—Take clients around the track with a professional driver
Golf—short game clinic
Stadium tour— for the sports nuts, organise stadium tours around the grounds, locker room, guest speaker from team
Sponsor or participate in a race team (e.g. Race for the Cure, etc.) with post-race celebration hosted by you
Private guided tour of a local art museum

Family goal oriented

A voucher for a day at the zoo or local wildlife centre with children/grandchildren
Rent out local movie theatre —movie premier or video games for children
Attend a local sporting event – sponsor and host a social tent for your clients. Recreate a corporate box feel, but in your local community
Have a list of service projects in your community— and partner you and your team with clients to volunteer e.g. Smith Family Christmas present packing, charity food drives etc.
Grandparent movie night: Rent an outdoor screen in the summer months and put it up on the lawn of your office or at a park.

WOW gift ideas

Theme-oriented

Hobby-related gifts (e.g., a compact wine reference book for wine-lovers; a subscription to a related magazine; box-set DVD collections related to hobby, Sports jersey of client’s favourite team, etc.)
Holiday-related gifts (e.g., gift basket; sunblock for a beach vacation; magazines for long plane rides, etc.)
Client’s goals-related (e.g., if goal is to purchase a beach house, give a subscription to a coastal magazine or a beach-themed welcome mat)

Theme-oriented

Hobby-related gifts (e.g., a compact wine reference book for wine-lovers; a subscription to a related magazine; box-set DVD collections related to hobby, Sports jersey of client’s favourite team, etc.)
Holiday-related gifts (e.g., gift basket; sunblock for a beach vacation; magazines for long plane rides, etc.)
Client’s goals-related (e.g., if goal is to purchase a beach house, give a subscription to a coastal magazine or a beach-themed welcome mat)

Children-related

Piggy bank for newborns
School Holiday survival kit (wine for the parents; puzzle books or vouchers for the kids, etc.)
Meal delivery for families with newborns

Other ideas

Book, podcast or Netflix recommendations for different clients
Named donations to charities
Home-delivery of homemade soup for ill clients
Gift card to a client’s favourite store
Welcome kit for new pet owner

The is just a sample of some of the opportunities to WOW your clients, in big and small ways. Encourage your team to help design the WOW moments for your clients, ask them to use their personal experiences of great client service as inspiration. This can help build alignment within the team of how you can work together to consistently exceed your clients’ expectations.