How to make your customers love you & your online program
If you already read our 8 Phases of a Numinous Launch guide, you know that launches aren’t over after enrollment closes.
You’ve done all the hard work to get new customers, clients, or members. Now it’s time to love up on them, so that they fall in love with YOU, they transform their lives, and want to keep coming back for more!
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1. If you want a successful online program, your customers need to actually go through the program & do the work…
No matter how amazing, life-changing, mind-altering & badass your online course or membership is, it’s never going to succeed if your customers don’t go through the program.
With so many thought leaders and influencers creating online programs these days, and with all of the valuable content that people are giving away for free on webinars, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook Live… most of us are getting an onslaught of information and inspiration from every direction.
While this is great in so many ways, it really sucks that your customers can very easily be distracted from ever doing a single part of your program. (Who out there has joined a membership and then never ever logged into the membership portal?? It can’t just be me…)
This is a recipe for cancellations & refund requests. AKA losing those clients you worked so hard to secure.
And you won’t get the testimonials and case studies that you deserve... if only all the people who signed up would have just friggin’ consumed your content & did the work. (Seriously, they’re missing out).
Luckily there are solutions to this popular problem. And today we’re sharing the best tools for making sure people fully show up to your program!
LET’S GO THROUGH A FEW OF OUR FAVORITES:
EVENTABLE
Eventable is an online tool that allows you to easily reach customers through their calendars. It only takes a minute to add your live broadcast (with the date, time, and link) to your Eventable account, and then it’s one simple click for your audience to see your events on their calendar. You can choose which audience sees the event, too, so you can broadcast your event to people in your program or people who haven’t joined yet.
How does this help your online program?
As Marie Forleo loves to say: “If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real."
If your live broadcasts are not on your program participants’ calendars, do you really expect them to show up? If you’ve been in the online program game for a while, you probably already know the answer: nope!
Most people aren’t likely to add events to their calendar right away (I know I‘m guilty of this sometimes!). Even if they’re really excited to attend your live broadcast, if the responsibility rests on them to remember the date/time/link for it, they’re likely to lose track of it in the chaos of their daily lives.
Don’t put this responsibility in their hands.
Make it EASY & mindless for them to know when & where your broadcasts are, and people will be way more likely to show up for them.
TEXT MESSAGE CAMPAIGNS
Using a text-messaging service to send notifications, alerts, and reminders to your customers can significantly increase their participation in your program.
There are a ton of great text-messaging services out there, but some of our favorites are…
ClickSend: This is our go-to site for sending bulk text messages to program members. It’s easy to integrate with other platforms like Eventable, so you can streamline your process of alerting clients or customers to your upcoming events.
SimpleTexting: This tool prides itself at being super simple to use, and for being the #1 text marketing service of businesses of all sizes — perfect for scaling your business.
There’s also Salesmsg and TextMagic, which are great for small businesses who are just starting out with text messaging campaigns.
These tools are so useful because essentially what they do is remind your clients/customers about the things they already said they wanted to be reminded about.
The trick is to send a reminder in the hour before your event (and, if you REALLY want to make sure people show up, you can send an initial reminder the day before).
If you’ve ever been in a deep work flow then you know it’s easy to miss important events that you really want to attend. If you send your program participants a text a few minutes before your broadcast then they’re SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to show up.
Why text reminders? There’s a much greater likelihood they’ll be opened than emails. Where the average open rate of an email is around 20%, the average open rate of a text message is 98%! This seems super obvious, but very few businesses are using this technique.
CALENDLY
If you have a smaller group program or have small group elements (like accountability groups) within your larger program, Calendly is a great tool.
You can create calendar events that your program participants can sign up for & when they do Calendly will email & text them before the event at the timing you set up.
Here’s how to schedule through Calendly. & here’s how to limit group booking sizes.
P.S.: Don’t forget to read our blog post on how to increase your webinar show up rates — it could save your next virtual event!
2. Getting people settled into your program is a must
You know your program inside & out. But just because you know it, doesn’t mean the people who just bought it do.
In fact, you should assume the opposite.
You should assume that your new customer bought your program at a red light on their way to work, and they forgot they signed up for it within a few hours. Assume they know next to nothing about what you’re offering. Assume they’re new to all of this and they’ve never been in an online program before.
Because even if someone has been following your work for years, entering a new program can be disorienting.
It’s like walking into a building you’ve never been to, in a part of town you’ve never visited, where you don’t know anyone and you’re not entirely sure what you’re supposed to be doing there.
We see it time and time again with online programs. Some customers and clients even end up leaving and asking for a refund, because that’s easier than trying to navigate the program space with no direction.
That’s why providing initial direction is so important. It can make or break the success of your program.
So here are a few ways to orient your new customers into your program:
WELCOME EMAIL
As soon as someone enters your program, they should receive an email welcoming them and giving them all the information they need to get started.
Don’t make them search around in the membership for this information… put it right in front of them so it’s easy to access and reference!
Tell your clients and customers explicitly about the first steps you want them to take.
Include links to anything relevant.
(And this is when you get them signed up for your Eventable calendar!)
WELCOME VIDEO
This is a great thing to include in the welcome email.
It only needs to be a few minutes long, and it can be that first awesome peek into who you are and what your program is about. (Again, assume that just because they joined already does not mean they’re familiar with the work you’ll be doing).
… That way, your customers and clients also get a feel for you beyond reading text on a screen.
In the video, reinforce the first steps you want them to take.
Some people learn better through listening to someone speak vs. reading instructions on a page, so a welcome video makes your membership more easily accessible.
ONE-ON-ONE CALLS
If you and your team have the capacity to do these, they’re a game changer.
One-on-one calls are exactly what they sound like: you or someone on your team will meet with every new program member, client, or customer.
It only has to be for 10-15 minutes, and it can make your program so much more accessible and understandable. Clients can get their questions answered right off the bat, and this will also help to give a face to your program.
Depending on the size and price of your program, one-on-one calls might not make sense. If it’s your first program ever or you’re a solopreneur, you might not have the resources and time to make this happen.
BUT if you have the ability to have one-on-one calls… do it! Especially if you have a more expensive program.
These are also great for memberships because, if someone is going to be with you for the long haul, you want to make sure they have all the initial guidance they need.
You’ll be amazed at how much more people love & appreciate the work you do when they feel seen and heard by a real person during a 1:1 call… they’ll be way more likely to stick with you after that.
YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM
Your customer service team is your interface between you and your customers. Needless to say, they’re really important.
Make sure you have the right people doing your customer service. People who are friendly, considerate, and helpful. People who would describe themselves as naturally great with other people.
We all can think of negative customer service experiences (hello AT&T) and positive ones (hey there GS Hypnosis). We tie that customer service experience to our feelings of the brand as a whole. And one bad experience can completely turn someone off from your business.
Don’t take hiring a customer service person lightly.
And of course, empower your customer service team with the information they need.
I’ve seen online businesses that didn’t have a system in place for their sales / launch team to keep their customer service team informed about the launch and the new program. Everyone was so busy in their corner of the business that they just weren’t talking to each other.
Not ideal.
Find the right people to care for your customers and clients, and then do everything you can to keep them in the loop on new developments.
3. When you’re ready to hire, make sure you have the right team in place.
When you’re planning and running an online program, sometimes there’s so much going on that things fall through the cracks.
That’s what your team is for. To delegate responsibilities so that you aren’t overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done. To handle issues as they arise so things don’t get out of hand. To make your program run smoother and your life easier.
It seems obvious, then, that you should be prepared to put a lot of time and effort into building the best team possible. Have the right team (we’ll be outlining this in detail in a future article, so stay tuned for that & get on the email list so you don’t miss anything!)
The basic team setup for online programs is:
A customer service specialist (or team, depending on how big your program is)
A community manager
An operations / program manager
Bonus: Facilitators/coaches in addition to yourself. This will help you scale beyond your current business — as your client base grows, you may need additional facilitators that can take on your coaching role.
Bonus: Plan for more & more success
Design your online program with the next 2-3 years in line.
Most course and membership creators create out of passion and excitement. This is a beautiful thing, but it may not be the best thing for long-term success.
When you’re creating your program, or when you’re relaunching your program, use some serious brain energy envisioning your program a few years out.
That way, you’ll be prepared to scale your program as your wildly successful business grows!
As you think about your program in the future, as yourself:
How would you like the program to look over the next few years?
How many people would you like to have in it?
How involved would you like to be? Will you need to hire and train people to take tasks off your plate?
How can having more people in your program make it better? Can you hold that vision & intention?
The answers will help you develop your future plans.
Music: Gaena by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
