Creating a project wrap-up form

One of the areas in which I’ve been particularly lax, is asking clients for reviews of my service.

I always feel slightly awkward about it. Like I’m asking for a favour, which I never normally do.

But social proof is incredibly important to potential clients these days. Not having it — or not having enough of it — could be doing you a serious disservice.

The answers you get from an exercise like this could be instrumental in helping you decide if the approach you’re using is working and how you might change it going forward.

So, I knew I needed to get over myself and add a client evaluation to my end-of-project routine.

What is a wrap-up form?

A wrap-up form is a little more detailed than just a review. It’s where you can ask those all-important questions you often think of when it’s too late.

I didn’t want mine to be anything too long or complicated, just something that would answer those questions and provide a link to my Google My Business review page.

Creating your wrap-up form

Decide what you want to know

Start by deciding exactly what you want to know from your clients. I split this into subsections.

Is my self-promotion working?

I’m currently using several different channels to promote myself. I want to know which of these channels are working and whether they’re worth my time and/or money.

How to get the answer:
For the answer to this, I need to ask the client how they found me. As I know the channels I’m using, I can make this easy by offering multiple choices and an ‘other’ option for anything else.

Am I attracting my ideal clients?

I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have an ideal client avatar. One of those highly specific people with a name, a job title and a preferred holiday destination. I work with all kinds of people in all kinds of businesses — and I like it that way.

But I do want more clients who appreciate good copy, and are a match for my services, skills and approach. So, I need to know if the messages I’m putting out there are attracting those kinds of clients.

How to get the answer:
To answer this one, I can ask the client why they chose to work with me, specifically, and what particularly appealed to them.

Am I delivering what I promise?

Are clients getting the service they expected and am I exceeding those expectations?

And if I didn’t meet their expectations, what could I have done better?

I always encourage honesty in my client communications and would hope, by this point in the project, that the client would have told me if I’d fallen short.

However, they may still have some thoughts on improvements I could make for future clients and this information would be incredibly useful to me.

How to get the answer:
Getting the answers to these questions is easy — I can just ask them.

Give some guidance for the review

Not all clients find it easy to write a review, so it could help to give them a basic framework in case they need it.

Leave it open and be careful not to suggest too much or give them words to say. If you do this, all your reviews could sound very similar — and may not sound very genuine.

For example, in my case they could talk about:

Who they are and what their business is
What their project was and why it was required
What it was like to work with me
How they found my approach
The result they got and how it suits their needs.

And add a link

To make it easy for clients, add a direct link to the page where you want them to write their review. It could be for your Google My Business page, LinkedIn, Trustpilot, or wherever it seems most appropriate.