How You Can Work Less and Charge More by Incorporating Software into Your Client Experience

Oct 20

Updated September 2024

White text box with text For Interior Designers How Software Can Help You INcrease Your Interior Design Fees over background image of woman at desk

Let’s talk about efficiency and how finding efficiencies in your interior design business operations can make your services so much more appealing to potential clients while also giving you an edge over your competitors.

Thomas Edison famously said, “There’s a way to do it better - find it!” I think for everyone, there are better, easier, more efficient ways of doing the things that fill our days. But, we are either too busy or simply not motivated to spend the time to find and implement those better ways.

But, what if there were a simple way to attract more clients, increase your fees, and reduce overwhelm?

It’s likely sitting right in front of you—the manual tasks you dread doing. The emails you wish you had time to send but don’t. The delays in getting back to someone that make you look and feel unprofessional.

It might be as simple as a $10/month software.

Let me start by sharing a story:

The nurse from my daughter’s doctor’s office called to reschedule her upcoming appointment. She told me she was in the process of calling 70 other patients to reschedule them.

SEVENTY PHONE CALLS???? WHAT?!?

*If I have to make one phone call, I cringe. Imagine 70!!

Here’s the thing: likely, 50+% of those people won’t answer their phones when she calls. She’ll leave messages, wait for return calls, and then play phone tag. Once phone contact is made, each person has to look through their calendar while the nurse offers one time slot option at a time until they can find a time that works for both parties.

This rescheduling task alone will take this nurse several days and weeks, not to mention what a pain it is for the patient to have to play phone tag during their busy work week to manually reschedule an appointment for an already jammed schedule.

Now imagine a different scenario.

The nurse emails a link to all 70 patients, which allows each person to select a desired time slot on their own. (I understand this may not be the best example because there may be privacy laws around this for the healthcare industry, but you get the idea).

Sending one email to all 70 people takes max 10 minutes.

Each patient saves time not returning a phone call, having a whole conversation, and running through a bunch of time slot options.

Everyone’s happy. Many hours/days/weeks of time are saved!

Not only is the nurse able to maintain her sanity, but each one of the 70 patients is unbothered by a pesky re-scheduling call.

Which of these scenarios feels more luxurious? From the patient side and the nurse side?

DING DING DING: Option TWO!!

This is only one example of a frustrating experience a client may be exposed to if you’re still operating with clunky, old-school scheduling processes.

A business that operates with maximum efficiency can and should charge more for its services because it is providing an elevated level of client support that is convenient and seamless. They are making it easy for clients to do business with them.

Clients are willing to pay MORE to work with a business that has a streamlined scheduling system, sends automatic reminders, provides on-time appointments, and communicates clear expectations promptly and proactively.

These days, people are used to AND EXPECT speed and convenience from service providers (think Netflix, Amazon Prime, DoorDash). Clients value these services and acknowledge they are indulgences for which they are willing to pay more. Saving time and making things easy have a high perceived value.

This is why I encourage interior designers to invest in software to automate parts of their client experience (but do this one thing first).

Think about your interior design business:

For which steps of your process might you be able to implement a better way?
What can you implement that will save you hours of time and countless headaches while simultaneously allowing you to provide clients with a better, simpler, more convenient experience?
- Setting up a scheduler? (We love Honeybook and Acuity).
- Creating a beautiful on-brand investment guide? (I love these).
- Removing steps in your process that are inconvenient? (like, why so many meetings?)
- Using templates for your email correspondence? (Check these out).
- Updating your website with language that clearly explains your process?

Ditch the annoying and outdated, and find better ways to operate your interior design business. Investing in streamlined processes will have an immediate and substantial payoff. Align the implementation of system upgrades with a rate increase because you’ll be able to deliver a better service to your clients.

Think: Less time on manually scheduling 70 appointments and more time focusing on the high-impact stuff, like selecting the perfect pieces for their design, putting the amazing finishing touches on their presentation, sending them that well crafted what to expect email to calm their fears, elevating their experience at every touchpoint.

In effect, by taking work off your plate and streamlining your interior design processes with software or templates, you can reallocate that time to focus on serving your clients at a higher level, which will, in turn, allow you to increase your pricing.

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