Stop Texting Your Clients

"Wait, what???" you might be saying to yourself.

"I shouldn't be texting my clients? But that's what sets me apart!"

Wrong. 

Your relationship with your clients is what sets you apart. And believe it or not, texting your clients from your personal phone (and more importantly having your coaches do it) is actually putting your business at risk. 

Each week I talk with a different fit pro who is so proud of the fact that all their coaches personally reach out to clients. 

And I get it. I used to think we were going above and beyond in the past when we did it too. 

But like most things, I got older, wiser and realized the riskiness of communicating with clients this way.

Now don’t get me wrong, there IS a time and a place for sending texts in your business (and I’ll get into that later) but when we’re talking about chatting with current clients, it’s the wrong option.

Why?

For starters, it violates the three essential components of client communication.

Or as I like to call it, the Client Communication Trinity - or CCT for short.

What is the Client Communication Trinity?

The Client Communication Trinity are three components you must have in order to choose the right way to communicate with your clients.

The medium doesn’t really matter (voice, text, email, etc), it needs to have all three areas covered for it to be a solid choice for your business to use.

So let’s dive in.

Ownership

The first piece of the CCT is Ownership.

And honestly, this is probably the most important one and the one more coaches gloss over.

DON’T.

You will come to regret it in the future.

If you, as the gym owner or head coach, don’t have full ownership over all the communication in your business, you’re risking losing members.

Think about it for a second. Coach James has been texting Client Beth from his personal phone for the past year as they’ve been working together at your gym. Sounds great right?

James has been doing an awesome job helping Beth get results and the personal accountability and connection is a big part of it.

Yay James 🙂

But one day, James comes to you and lets you know he’s leaving to join the new gym down the road.

Uh oh.

And you know what else? I can almost guarantee he’s already texted Beth to let her know and convinced her to come with him.

Even if Beth doesn’t want to change gyms, she has no way of getting in contact with you. All she knows is to text James her schedule as it’s been so easy in the past!

If you let (and even encourage) coaches to text clients from their personal phones, you’re asking for them to take all your clients when they leave. It’s not something we like to think about or plan for but most coaches are going to one day move on to something else.

Make sure they don’t take all the communication with them.

Instead, you need to own the communication.

When James does leave, you should be able to plug yourself or another coach right into that same message thread with Beth and not skip a beat.

She shouldn’t have to change anything about the way she communicates with your gym. Do that, and you set yourself up for success.

Centralized

The second component of the CCT is having a centralized place for all client communication.

If you’re like most gyms I’ve seen, you’re inundated with messages. You’re receiving phone calls, text messages, emails, Facebook messages, contact forms on your website…

It’s a lot to maintain.

The fact is, you need all these ways for new prospects to contact you as you want it to be as easy as possible for them to reach out.

But once they become an actual client, you need a centralized location for all private client communication.

If you try to manage multiple forms of current client messages, things are going to slip through the cracks. I guarantee it.

How do I know? Because it happened to us all the time!

We received an email from Beth that I thought our Admin had already responded to. Of course, our admin thought that I had already replied back so neither of us did.

Beth say waiting for days before we finally realized our mistake.

Not a very good look and a poor experience for Beth.

So make sure this doesn’t happen.

All current client communication needs to come to one centralized location so everyone at the business knows what had been taken care of and what still needs to be responded to.

There should never be a question about who is responsible for it and if it’s been done or not. You should be able to take a quick glance and know right away.

It Needs to be Special

I know, I know, “special” can have a lot of different meanings. It’s not super descriptive but it encompasses a lot.

Here is what I think about when it comes to special communication.

- it’s personal and makes me feel unique as a client
- it’s super simple for the client and the coach to use
- it comes across as professional

This is the one category that sending personal text messages mostly fits (but violates the other two). Everyone wants to feel special and unique and a personal text does that.

But have you ever been on the receiving end of one of the “bulk” texting services a lot of gyms use??

“New message from: 886-98”

Yeah… it doesn’t take a genius to realize this is a mass text service and I that doesn’t make me quick to read it or even respond.

This is where email generally fails as well. We all receive sooooo many emails in the course of a day that things are bound to get lost. Plus, I always have to go search to see if I received a new message in my email. I’m not alerted right away upon receiving one.

The other reason email doesn’t work is it’s a very transactional type of communication. That is fine for prospects inquiring about our services but we want current clients to be more conversational and not feel like another transaction.

The last piece is even though we want to create deep relationships with our clients, we still need a level of professionalism.

Think about this, if you visit your doctor for a physical, do you ask for their personal cell number in case you have any follow up questions or to schedule your next appointment? NO!

Now as coaches we might not be the exact same as doctors in regards to our relationships but the concept is still the same.

There needs to be a line (it might be a fine line) between your personal and professional relationships and using a personal cell number to communicate does not look professional.

It’s similar to those gyms out there who are still using acmegym@gmail.com as their main contact instead of yourname@acmegym.com.

It might not seem like a big deal to you but it sets the tone of your level of professionalism from the very start with new clients.

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Alright, there you have it. The Client Communication Trinity. If you make sure all your communication with current clients falls within these three rules, you’re not only lowering the risk for your business but you’re setting it up to scale in the future.

Even if you’re missing just one, it can be a major risk to the future of your business.

Now there is a time and place for texting within your business - prospects. 

New people who inquire about your business are prime examples of where texting can be super beneficial. Unfortunetly, most coaches keep that going through all stages of the client journey, which is a bad idea. 

As soon as a client moves from prospect to client, you need to shift from Selling to Servicing. 

If you don't make this transition, you're making it more likely for that client to leave. 

Most coaches completely miss this step to make sure you transition from texting to a better form of client communicateion (in lines with the CCT) as soon as they become a client.

The relationships you can form with your clients is your number one asset in our industry. Why leave that to chance?

Keep it within the CCT and you’re set!