5 Places to Elevate Your Client Experience: Defining Luxury

Last week marked a significant milestone for me: 5 years since I went “full-time” in my business. And throughout these years, I’ve been relentlessly refining the client experience to ensure that my clients get nothing less than the best. That’s why today, I want to share with you 5 places you should start focusing on if you want to elevate your own client experience.

Defining a Luxury Experience for Your Clients

Luxury looks different to everyone, but for me and my business, luxury looks like:

• Anticipating and answering questions from clients (and prospective clients) before they even ask

• Under promising and over-delivering (always!) – I’ve been known to go above and beyond!

• Having an easy booking process in place (and being easy to work with in general)

• Being consistent across all platforms (the energy and experience you see on Instagram is the same as when you receive an email or book a consult call)

• And of course – surprising and delighting along the way

I feel like creating a luxury experience for your clients often sounds like a “buzz word” but the truth is, you don’t have to overcomplicate it. A luxury experience often doesn’t need to have a million moving parts and in fact, it’s often better to do less really well.

Why Creating a Luxury Experience for Your Clients is Important

Your clients are your business’s lifeblood. They are the reason why you do what you do, and without them, your business simply wouldn’t exist. By providing them with an exceptional experience that goes above and beyond their expectations, not only are you ensuring their loyalty, but you’re also setting yourself apart from the competition. Creating an elevated client experience is important for you as a business owner as well, because it allows you to increase your pricing and value, and you’re more likely to increase your word-of-mouth referrals as well.

When you set out to create a luxury experience, it’s important to remember that your client’s experience starts from the moment a potential client finds you (whether they land on your website, Instagram, TikTok, etc). Next, let’s dive into the 5 places you should look FIRST when trying to elevate your client experience.

5 Places to Elevate Your Client Experience

Your Website Experience

What kind of experience are you giving potential (and current) clients with your website? Is it professional and aesthetically pleasing? Easy to navigate? If your current clients WERE trying to refer you to more ideal clients, would they feel confident sending them your website knowing that it’s an accurate reflection of what you offer?

If not, this is where I encourage you to start. There is so much emphasis on social media and while those platforms can be incredibly effective for growing your business, your website should NOT be an afterthought. Ideally, your website will reflect a brand that your ideal clients want to book, and will give them a better understanding of the experience they should expect (and get excited for!).

Social Media

As I said above – social media is an incredibly effective tool at our disposal as small businesses. Take a look at yours when looking to elevate your client experience: are your social media accounts visually appealing? Are you giving them a professional and welcome look into you and your services? Are you showcasing your values and making prospective (AND current) clients know how excited you are to work with them?

I’m going to talk more about email communication next, but your customers likely enjoy an aesthetic experience as much as you do. They will appreciate the extra effort you put in. When it comes to email, that’s why I use Flodesk personally for my own email marketing. If you want to give email marketing a try (or just want to elevate your current email experience), here’s a link for 50% off!

Your Communication

Effective communication is a MUST when offering a luxury experience for your clients. DMs and texts are not giving luxury! Do you have a response email that you’re sending after the initial inquiry? If it indicates of your response time (ie. 2 business days), are you always responding within that allotted time? Do your clients know what to expect from you and are always confident in the next steps? Communication is one of the most important elements in providing a luxury experience for your clients.

Your Pricing + Services Guide

Another thing to consider is any collateral you send out that is a reflection of your business and brand. In the creative industry, do you have a pricing or service guide, and what does that look like? Do you have any brochures or forms or anything you send to your clients? If so, do they feel “on brand” for the luxury experience you aim to provide? Personally, I use Honeybook as my CRM (which not only helps with my pricing guide but also helps with my booking process, which I will talk about below!). If you don’t use something like Honeybook yet, here’s a discount code so you can get 25% off!

Your Booking Process

Last but certainly not least, what does your booking process look like? Is it easy to navigate, or are your clients jumping through hoops to work with you? When I think about creating a luxury experience for my own clients, I know that I want to make it easy for them to work with me, and I want them to feel well-cared for in the process. When you are working to elevate your own client experience, I encourage you to walk through your current booking process from start to finish and make note of areas where you can improve. Like I’ve said throughout, it doesn’t always have to be BIG changes. Sometimes 1% better is enough.

Creating a Luxury Experience for Your Clients

Remember – you don’t need to completely revamp your client’s experience overnight. You can start slowly, and improve one area of your client experience at a time. It’s taken me a long time to dial in my systems and processes to ensure I can deliver a luxury experience for my clients every single time, and while I don’t think it needs to take as long as it did for me (there are so many more resources available now!), I also want to encourage you to just get started. I’m cheering for you!

Do you want more advice like this while growing your creative business? Head here to be notified when more mentoring space opens!