How to shape your business success by mastering your user journey: First impressions count!

The quality of your user journey can make or break your business!

This might sound like a bold statement but it’s very true. 

Your user journey is how your clients experience working with you and ultimately, will impact their impression of you and your business. 

A great user journey can lead to more sales, referrals and a happier client base…which is what we all want!

There are several parts to the user journey but it all starts at the brand awareness stage when people first start interacting with your brand…

The brand awareness stage

For many businesses, the user journey will start when a client first discovers their brand. This first point of contact is often social media!

Your social media profile is a great place to build up a rapport with your audience and start that initial conversation. It also enables them to get to know more about you, your business and what you’re all about!

But remember: first impressions count, so it’s imperative to have good-quality content and a well-set-up profile that looks professional!

Initial contact 

The next point in the user journey is often when the client reaches out, this could be in the DMs (if it is, make sure you’re replying in a timely manner) or they’ll find themselves being directed to another place to further engage. 

For example, A link in your bio that takes them to your website!

If this is the natural next step in your user journey, you need to ensure that your website is aligned with your social media and feels cohesive! Your website should be easy to navigate so they can find all of the information they need, without feeling overwhelmed and know how to make an official enquiry!

The formal enquiry 

Next comes their first proper contact with you and to make a good impression, this needs to feel easy, organised and welcoming!

This starts the moment they go to book a call with you. 

To keep things streamlined and easy in my business, I use Dubsado! I use this to introduce people into my world and automatically send out a little form to anyone who books a discovery call with me. 

This is so I can gather a bit of background information prior to our call so I can put my best foot forward when we chat and feel prepared! The form will ask for a bit of information about them and their businesses, and their goals as well as leaving space for them to leave links to any social media channels they have and/or their website. 

The discovery call 

After you’ve impressed your potential client with how easy it was to book a call with you and enter your world, you want to bring that positive energy into the call with you!

Make sure you’re present, responsive and helpful during the call! This is likely to be the first time you’ve spoken face-to-face so you need to leave a good impression!

Some people like to record their calls so they don’t miss anything and so they have something to look back on to demonstrate their client's future progress after they've been working with them for a few months. If doing this enables you to better show up on the call, go for it (but make sure to ask for permission!).

Signing on

After your call, it’s time to send over the proposal!

Again, I use Dubsado to ensure a consistent and easy experience for my potential clients!

By creating proposals on Dubsado, the client has the ability to look through everything we discussed during our call, be introduced to me on a more professional level and provide me with some additional details about them that will enable me to enhance their user journey later down the line (such as their birthday and address so I can send a card!).

Onboarding

Once your client has agreed to the proposal and signed your contract, the onboarding process starts.

This is such a key part of the user journey and creating a positive onboarding experience for your clients is the best way to kick off your working relationship. Like everything you’ve done up until this point, it needs to feel easy, organised and on brand!

Keep an eye out for my next blog where I’ll be taking you through everything you need to know about creating a seamless onboarding experience to wow your clients and make your brand stand out from the crowd!