How to Surprise and Delight Your Coaching Clients

It’s the goal of every heart-centered life coach to be known as someone who genuinely cares about their clients.

Not only to make them feel respected, understood, and appreciated, but also to help them achieve their goals in a way that feels authentic and meaningful to them.

In other words, you want your clients to have an exceptional experience with you.

But what does this mean exactly?

After 23 years as an executive in the hospitality industry, and now as the CEO of the Brave Thinking Institute, I can tell you that surprising your clients is one of the most overlooked ways of achieving a scalable system of repeat business and referrals.

So, let’s talk about the business case for delighting your clients and how you can genuinely show love and care for those you serve.

What is the Meaning of Customer Delight?

Being able to surprise and delight your coaching clients makes a huge impact on your long-term success., but it can be easy to overthink the “how”.

You don’t have to be the world’s most extroverted, charismatic person, who knows exactly what to say or do at all times.

But the earlier you start practicing the things that actually create a great experience for your clients, the better. 

It means providing consistent, high-quality effort throughout your coaching program, even after they graduate. This isn’t about making flashy promises, being “too nice“, or surprising them with a discount. Intentional engagement, thoughtful surprises, and genuine interest in the lives of your clients are just a few ways to create value over time.

The more you practice these things, the easier it will become.

And when you consistently deliver on the promise of customer delight you’ll begin to build trust and loyalty among your clients.

You’ll also see higher client retention rates, which means fewer people drop out of your programs.

Additionally, you’ll have a higher possibility of people recommending your services to others. 

Why Is It Important to Delight Your Coaching Clients?

One of the best ways you can stand out from other coaching businesses (besides creating lasting results) is through your client care and support.

You want to provide a high level of service so that your clients know that you’re committed to helping them reach their goals.

When you offer sincere appreciation, understanding, and empathy, you demonstrate that you truly care about them and their experiences.

And here’s the deal – when you take the time to listen to your clients and understand their needs, you’re demonstrating true expertise.

This shows your clients that you’re invested in their success. They’ll notice and appreciate that dedication.

So, if you’re looking to grow your coaching business, then you owe it to yourself to learn how to delight your clients. 

What are the 3 Key Things You Can Do to Ensure 100% Customer Delight?

The results you can expect from successfully surprising and delighting your coaching clients are three-fold:

1. You accelerate the growth of your coaching business.
2. You develop a heart-centered approach to customer experience and healthy client relationships.
3. And you increase overall customer satisfaction throughout the entire coaching relationship.

But how do you go about achieving these outcomes?

By creating a positive culture, responding to client feedback, and developing a highly-engaged community.

Let’s start with designing a culture centered on client satisfaction.

1. Align Yourself and Your Brand with Core Values and Principles

As your business grows, it can seem difficult to maintain the same vision that started it in the first place. This includes the original passion, energy, and intent, which tends to get lost as a business grows.

The best way to prevent this watering down of your guiding values and principles is by deciding on your core values and sticking with them.

In times of stress and uncertainty, you can turn to these values for guidance, and they will keep you grounded and focused when faced with challenges and decisions. 

For example, The Brave Thinking Institute has 5 core values:

1. We believe in people. 

2. We believe in love and care. 

3. We believe in integrity. 

4. We believe in fun.

5. We believe in growth.

Let’s focus in on the second one:

“We believe in love and care…

We bring sincere love and care to every interaction. We delight and surprise each other and our clients by anticipating wants and seeking to exceed expectations.”

As you can see, surprising and delighting our clients is ingrained into our culture. It’s a part of every meeting, strategy, and decision-making process. This is important because so many companies talk about being able to surprise and delight their clients, but it’s another thing to live it out in every aspect of your work.

When you step up and embrace the role of life coach, you become part of something bigger than yourself.

The culture you build around your coaching business sets the tone for everything else you do. This includes what you do before, during, and after your coaching sessions.

It guides your actions and behaviors, and it shapes your interactions with others.

An easy way to start implementing this is by starting each coaching session, workshop, or virtual event with your core values and intended impact. You know you’re sharing the right message when you notice those events naturally shift towards more fun and positivity!

So if you want your coaching practice to thrive, create a culture that supports your promise and aligns with your core values.

2. Anticipate Wants and Seek to Exceed Expectations

One small but impactful way you could surprise and delight clients is by sending them gifts on important moments they don’t expect you to notice. For example: on their birthday, when they reach an important milestone in your program, a holiday, or when they complete their final coaching session!

It helps to avoid generic gifts, so a practical way of creating more meaningful gifts is by adding a section to your client intake questionnaire about the things they love or enjoy. Even on a shoe-string budget, you can send a digital card with a thoughtful note or send them a video message.

But there needs to be a balance. While it’s definitely surprising to send them all those gifts and messages, remember to focus on the true value of your service. Gifts are just one way to provide additional delight to the incredible value you provide through your coaching.

Your coaching clients expect you to help them breakthrough limiting beliefs, create a life they love, and bring their dreams into reality.

So, I encourage you to ask yourself this question: How do I continue delivering on my promise?

As a starting point, consider the amount of love and care you are putting into providing your clients with a:

• Clear curriculum.
• Easy-to-follow coaching format and framework.
• Provable, reliable, repeatable process of transformation.

And if you’re unsure of how well you’re performing in those areas, one of the most valuable tools you could start using from your very first client is feedback.

When you survey your client base, you get real, tangible feedback from them.

And when you pay attention to what your clients want more of, what they want changed, and what they could do without, you’ll be able to evolve as a business and ensure clients are as happy as possible.

3. Build a Community and Give Them Opportunities to Give Back

By using virtual platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, or even by phone, you can create impact from anywhere in the world.

And while you can stick with 1:1 coaching sessions, group coaching offers you exponentially more potential.

Not only can you serve multiple clients at once, you can grow a community of like-minded people who share similar goals and challenges.

You can accomplish this by building courses and hosting monthly webinars where your clients have the chance to interact with each other and discuss topics relevant to their lives.

Or you can use social media channels like Facebook Groups to offer free content and resources to your members.

There are a few ways you can build a sense of community in your coaching business:

• Make time at the start of each group life coaching session for light conversation. Even if it’s just 5-10 minutes of icebreakers or asking about their weekends, be intentional about these “water cooler moments“. Protecting this time is a simple way to delight your clients by empowering them to form bonds and generate a sense of loyalty and belonging.

• During live events like workshops or multi-day masterminds, get everyone together to share their energy, get engaged, and invite them to play full out. For example, we encourage attendees to dance along to our “Energizers” at the beginning of DreamBuilder LIVE, where movement experts like Jennifer Joy Jiménez lead them through a fun, lively warm-up.

• Offer your clients an opportunity to band together and support a cause greater than themselves. Our DreamBuilder LIVE event supports the Unstoppable Foundation and provides the opportunity for our audience members to contribute. Their total donation is displayed on a giant check at the end of the event to represent their impact.

These three strategies can help connect you to your clients and build relationships that will last long after your work together has ended.

Ready to Surprise and Delight Your Coaching Clients?

Being able to surprise and delight your coaching clients while helping them create the transformation they desire is a rewarding career. As a life coach, you can make a huge difference in someone else’s life by helping them overcome obstacles, reach their full potential, and create a life they love.

However, not everyone is meant to be a life coach. Some people get into the coaching industry without genuinely caring about their clients, and only serve others to line their pockets.

But if you are reading this post, I can tell that you have a burning desire to make the difference you were born to make and would love to uncover your potential as a heart-centered life coach. And to surprise and delight you – I have a gift of my own:

Click here to download our free e-book: Are You Meant to Be a Life Coach?

You’ll discover how you can make a lasting impact in the lives of others as a life coach and find everything you need to know to make your decision with clarity and confidence.

We’ve seen firsthand that when you take action, you can change your circumstances and create lasting results. So, choose today to change the trajectory of your life and take your first step in accomplishing the extraordinary!

To a calling you love,

John Boggs