Building Trust in the Virtual World
In a field that has traditionally conducted its services IRL, you now have the opportunity to adapt your offerings to meet your clients where they’re at. Literally.
Hello Talking About Money Community! How are you?
If you are like me, you are doing most – if not all – of your work from home right now. You may be using a variety of the following communication tools:
Social media
Email
Text
Telephone
Video chat
And I have a hunch that, for the most part, you are interacting people that you already know. When I ask front-line financial capability professionals if they have been serving new clients in the past few months, most of them report that they are doubling-down on providing exceptional service to their existing clients. Few are taking on new cases.
This is not surprising. In an emergency there is a natural tendency to “circle the wagons” and take care of your immediate community. And it makes sense to strive to make sure that your existing clients are getting what they need in this strange new world.
But as I gaze into my crystal ball (as if … I wish that I had a crystal ball) I am seeing that this phase of working from home might go on for quite some time. And as the weeks stretch into months and summer fades into fall, you may start to realize that you need to attract new participants to your financial capability program, and then provide these new clients with your services in a virtual way.
But how to you both attract new clients and provide them with high quality financial counseling/education/coaching when you have never had the opportunity to get to know them IRL? Is it even possible?
I believe that it is both possible and necessary for you to develop these virtual-world skills in order to continue providing the high-quality financial capability services that you are used to providing in your community. Here are five strategies to integrate into your service delivery, adapted from this Harvard Business Review article, entitled Ensure That Your Customer Relationships Outlast Coronavirus:
Humanize your financial capability service
Let your prospective financial capability clients know that you really and truly understand what they are going through. In your outward-facing communication (most likely on your social media platforms and in your email newsletters) let your audience know specifically who you are and what you are doing for your existing clients, so that they know what to expect if they decide that they want to work with you.
Now is a good time to highlight your work through featuring a bio of one of your staff members or client success story. Prospective clients can’t check you out in the waiting room of your agency or at a community event, so you need to provide that glimpse of who you are and the work that you do in the online space.
Also, is your agency doing any sort of delivery to people’s homes right now, whether it is groceries or kids’ art supplies? If you are doing drop-off’s right now, throw into the bag a piece of program swag: Do you have a little calculator or a pencil and notepad? Something that you can provide to a prospective client to use today might serve as a reminder for them to reach out to you tomorrow.
Educate your prospective clients on how to get by in this strange new world
How have you changed how you provide your services since your community’s stay-at-home order was enacted? Do you have more phone calls with your clients? Are there specific public benefits that you are helping clients apply for? Do you have more flexibility in when you meet with clients, say, in the evenings or on Saturdays? Communicate these specific changes to your audience so that they know what to expect.
One colleague of mine learned as he was shifting his programming to the online space that few of his clients had the basic computer literacy skills necessary to take advantage of his online offerings. After this discovery his team made a quick pivot to offering basic computer skills training to his clients so that they could take advantage to what else the agency had to offer. And as an added benefit, now his clients can utilize their newfound computer skills in other areas of their life, whether it be online banking or applying for new jobs.
Assure your prospective clients of your ongoing ability to serve them
You may have some clients who have told you that “I’ll just wait until this is all over to contact you to get help with my finances.” I know that I have. Since you do not know when the global pandemic will be over (or if you do, please reach out and tell me!), you need to assure your prospective clients that you are still providing the high-quality service that your clients know and trust, albeit in the virtual environment. It might look and feel different, but you are still able to get them from Point A to Point B on their financial journeys.
Revolutionize your financial capability offerings
In times of uncertainty, innovation can make you stand out in a crowd, and even attract some new clients who weren’t aware of you previously. With work-at-home orders you now have the opportunity to change up how you provide your service in a way that you clients may clamor to. If prior to the pandemic you were providing your services tried-and-true fashion of one-on-one appointments and live group workshops, what could you do differently to provide an even better experience for your clients?
Think about past interactions when your clients might have asked for something different than your standard service, when your reply was, “No, we don’t do it that way.” What could you do differently now?
Do your clients want to text with you?
Would their attendance be better in Zoom?
Would their interactions be more forthcoming in a closed Facebook group?
Use your deep knowledge of your past clients – or create and distribute a quick survey to your existing clients – to develop new and innovative ways to serve your new and prospective ones.
Is there a way to foster community during this time of fear and isolation? Your existing social media accounts might serve as a hub to bring your community together under some theme having to do with financial capability. What are the themes that you are seeing in your work? Are you getting the same requests time and time again? Are people venting about the same three topics? Doing some deep listening (as I discussed in a blog post here) can lead to some broad community building.
Tackle the future of providing new-and-improved financial capability services
Meet with your team on a regular basis to review the changes that you have implemented to keep your financial capability program running strong. With an eye towards the future and when in-person services might resume, take note of what your clients highly value right now so that you can plan to integrate them into your “new normal” operations in the future.
There might be a silver lining to this experience after all.
And all the while, you need to be taking care of yourself so that you can take care of others. Need a refresher? See my blog post on professional self-care here.
