The first part in nailing down your instruction process is to figure out exactly what you will be instructing them on. All tiny blue orange clients get instructions on how to use their custom site. If they purchased an audit, they get instructions for keeping their site safe.
Those are pretty big picture items, but there are certainly smaller instructions that clients would benefit from — a logo usage guide for all of the files you send, care + washing instructions for the scarf you made, framing ideas + vendors for the photo prints they ordered after your photo shoot together, a collection of recipes + fitness ideas after your health coaching sessions with them end.
If you aren’t inspired yet, turn to your inbox + look at the questions clients always ask after they purchase or after your service wraps up. Could those questions be answered by preemptively providing instructions? Most likely so — and this is what will reduce the number of emails you get. Win-win!
After you settle on your instruction topic, you get to decide how you want it delivered — text, image, audio or video. Most tiny blue orange clients get PDF instructions with screengrabs + step-by-steps written out. We also record tutorial videos for items where text just won’t do. But your notes may be best spoken + delivered in an mp3 file for them to add to their iPhone. It really depends on a few things — the content, your brand + how you’ll deliver it.
For example, our tutorial videos are often loaded into a temporary Dropbox folder. When the link is sent, it includes a note that they should download the file as it will be removed after x weeks. Then they can store it on their computer or add it to a video hosting service for keeping. In theory a pro account of a video hosting service might be a good option for us to let clients have links indefinitely, but some clients really want to load videos into their own account OR they love loading them onto their iPads to watch as needed. Not every hosting account allows for clients to download videos, which is why Dropbox is what we use.
Once you have your topic + your medium, it’s time to create. We make instructions for each project, but we do not start from scratch. Our instruction template has core items that every site we build features + then the unique items are added. But if you are creating a recipe video for your fitness clients, you can record that once + be done for all clients that purchase that service.
Don’t be afraid to have fun with the delivery too, if that’s your brand voice. A quirky email with authentic but amusing language + animated gifs might be the perfect way to wrap up a project with a client on the right note. Let your brand be the star while providing your customers with the unexpected extra of knowing what to do next.
