I wanted to include some important tips and reminders regarding consultations and retention, proven to help you improve your conversion & retention rates! Please note that for Independent Contractors, all of this information is highly recommended, but not required! 

Check out this recording I made : loom.com/share/f8ae1d357bd645d49b67854...

Regular Check Ins

Make it a normal habit to regularly check in with your clients. Ask them what’s working for them, what’s not working for them. Perhaps what they’d like to see more or less of in their therapeutic work with you, and how they feel about the therapeutic alliance. Look for opportunities to enhance the therapeutic alliance and ensure the client is satisfied throughout

End of Session Booking

 We have online booking for an added perk & ease of convenience, but I’m also the first to admit it SUCKS in terms of having consistency in caseloads. For that reason, we recommend making it a normal procedure for you to rebook clients at the end of sessions. With all new clients, off the bat you can name the structure of your sessions will include 5 minutes at the end of session to wrap up and assign homework, rebook and complete homework. Don’t leave rebooking open ended, pull up your calendar and do your best to get the client booked.  Of course this isn’t always possible, but its a great habit to TRY with most of your clients (again, way easier for new clients than existing ones!). Feel free to give your clients your reasonings why consistent bookings are key. (See Consultation Tips reasoning for 4 bookings)

Adding Value

We don't want just clients, we want fans! We want clients to have an experience that they want to share with others because not only of the work you do, but the value you give them. This does not mean breaking your own boundaries by giving them extra time, or answering their emails after hours! Our goal is to take it from good therapy to great experience. 
 
How to add value? 

• Give them a weekly take away email  (Make sure to get consent and its charted in their file - tip: have a section in your notes for take aways so that its not extra work - and you can copy and paste it into an email) 
• Provide a welcome package (Create an email template - with "my top tips for starting therapy" or what to expect from therapy with you "top 5 things", something easy and quick to send for their first booking)
• When in office sessions, provide supplies, journal, fidget toys, offer tea - coffee, adjust the lights, offer blankets, pillows
• Send a "custom" music playlist, meditations, audio books, guide books, book recommendations (eventually you can have your own resource, to have your "go to" for certain things, or a whole folder 
• Offer custom reminders (Changing to text instead of email - or schedule send) 
• Every couple of sessions, highlight or summarize the progress
• Custom virtual backgrounds 

Please share any other ideas of how we can add value to our sessions! Let's turn our clients, into fans! 

Client Feedback 

We are less likely to give feedback face to face. We want to offer surveys as a way for clients to offer feedback so that we can then customize our session to the client and their needs. This will be exclusively internal - and will be incorporated into Jane.

Questions will include:

1. What do you enjoy in session that you want more of? 
2. What do you not enjoy in session that you want less of? 

*If what they don't like is therapeutic necessary, then we get the opportunity to speak to that and to them about it, explain the why. 

These client feedback surveys should be sent out after the completed session 2nd then after the 7th session. 

Here's how to send the feedback form: loom.com/share/d642a7b439e54b3f97891bf...

Consider Longer Sessions 

This is another way to add value! Especially for clients who talk a lot in sessions, this way we can give them a bit more as well. For example offering 75 minute and 100 minutes (double session) at 1.5 or 2x the rate to match.  This is a good way to increase revenue, retention and also add value, especially during the first visit. 

New Offerings

Any time you have a new offering / training - tell your clients! This can be done via email, or when you increase your rates yearly. When you list your training, explain how it can help the client - clients want to know what could be helpful for them, or even someone they know. 

Return Visit Reminders

When a client tells you they need to wait to book because of X , Y or Z (for example, I need to wait for my kids soccer schedule), find out when they will anticipate having a better Idea of their availability. For example “Yeah no problem at all, when does that soccer schedule usually come out?” Once you have that knowledge, add a “return visit reminder” for that client for that specified date. They will then automatically receive a notification from Jane that reminds them to book. Our clients are BUSY!! Often times they just forget, and Jane can help us remind them. 

Every week, I like to run a report from Jane to see how many of my clients haven’t attended therapy in 3 weeks or more. I then send all of these clients return visit reminders, to remind them to rebook.

Pacing Conversations

Approach the pacing conversation from a therapeutic treatment standpoint. Discuss pacing with your client and help them understand why  you are recommending a given pacing for them (whilst taking into consideration their comfortability, availability and finances of course). For example, it would be important for a client to know if you are beginning to process trauma, that booking 1 month out each time is not going to be as therapeutically beneficial than consistent sessions. Help our clients understand the why behind the pacing recommendations can make them more motivated to maintain consistency. Naturally pacing should CHANGE over time and clients should need us less and less (in most cases, that is). When this happens, have that conversation with the client and ensure they are on board with this change and committed to the process.

Referring Out

Do your best to allow the client to feel comfortable enough to share with you if you aren't the right fit for them. You can’t possibly the right therapist fit for everyone, and that’s completely okay. What’s important here is that the clients feel comfortable sharing this and that we can help them find the right fit. If we are all allowing those conversations to happen, we’ll be referring to each other and working towards everyone having their ideal caseloads.