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Building the forms
First time here. You are creating the four ClickUp forms and the response list. Go to Build.
Weekly send check
It is Monday. You are checking which clients crossed a send day this week. Go to Send.
A client answered
An answer just landed. Every response gets a reply, and low scores get a call. Go to React.
Clients rarely quit loud. They drift quiet.
We bill month to month with a 14-day notice. That means every month, every client decides again whether we are worth it. Most of the time they decide silently. C-Stat is how we hear the quiet part early enough to fix it.
One saved client is worth $17,964. One answer read in time can be the save.
What changed from the old check-in
We used to ask clients how they felt about the strategy. That was the wrong question. Clients hire us to run the system. The strategy now shows up inside their reports, on the Strategy tab, where they can see it working. C-Stat asks about them instead: what they see, what they feel, what they want more of.
"How do you feel about the current strategy? Are you confident in the next steps?" Questions like this make the client do our job, and they can plant doubt where there was none.
"Are you getting more of the right kind of calls and jobs?" Questions about what they see and feel in their own business. That is signal we can act on, and it respects what they hired us for.
One honest note: C-Stat is one input. Their report data and how they act on calls stay the other half of the picture. A great score does not cancel a bad trend, and a bad score outranks a good chart.
Four quarters, four promises, four check-ins.
Every client's first year runs the same four-quarter roadmap. Each check-in lands about ten days before the quarter ends, and asks about what that quarter was building. We never ask about results we have not promised yet.
Foundations
The trust layer. Site fixed page by page, Google profile rebuilt, reviews answered, tracking on. Visibility moves first. Calls follow on a delay.
Pillar Pages
The pages that win money searches. Service pages, proof pages, location pages. Each one is a door that stays open.
Own the Map
The map, block by block. Map results across every part of town they serve, with review momentum that keeps the profile hot.
Convert and Compound
The payoff quarter. Proof content, page polish, the AI layer locked in. Then we map year two.
The roadmap source of truth is clients/_shared/templates/roadmap-matrix-v1.json. If the roadmap changes, the stage questions get re-checked against it.
Seven questions. Two minutes. Same spine every quarter.
Every check-in is seven questions: two about the quarter we just finished, then five anchors that never change. The anchors are the trend line. The stage questions are the timely part. Star ratings are required, typing is optional, and no check-in ever grows past seven.
These five repeat word for word in all four check-ins. That is what makes the scores comparable across the year. Never reword an anchor. Change one word and every past answer stops meaning the same thing.
Catches: money doubt. The quiet "is this worth it?" that turns into a cancel email.
Why it pays: month-to-month means every month is a re-buy. This is the closest we get to "will you stay?" without planting the thought.
If it's bad: red flag. Call within 48 hours. Bring their report and connect the work to calls and jobs in plain words.
Catches: confusion. Justin's rule: clients who are confused leave even when they are happy.
Why it pays: clarity is the product. A client who understands what is happening sticks around to watch it work.
If it's bad: simplify their next report and send a two-minute Loom walking through it in plain words.
Catches: relationship strength. Owners only put their name on things they trust.
Why it pays: a 5 here is a referral waiting for the right moment. A 2 is a client halfway out the door, even if the other scores look fine.
If it's bad: red flag path. Something is broken in the relationship, not just the numbers. The call is about listening.
Catches: what they actually value. They tell us, in their own words, what keeps them.
Why it pays: the answers are the playbook for keeping THIS client. Stacked up across clients, they shape what we build next year.
If answered: the reply must name it. If we can do the thing, we start. If we can't, we say so straight.
Catches: small gripes before they compound. Churn almost never starts big.
Why it pays: a $17,964 relationship rarely dies from one big thing. It dies from three small things nobody fixed.
If answered: fix the small thing fast, then tell them it's fixed. That one-two is worth more than any report.
Why now: the first check-in lands at day 80, on purpose. New clients decide to stay or go between days 90 and 120. We hear them before that window opens, not after.
Form preamble (paste as the form description):
Catches: friction at the start. A rough onboarding poisons the whole first year.
Why it pays: hard starts are the top predictor of an early cancel. If starting with us felt like work, the day-90 decision is already leaning wrong.
If it's bad: apologize once, fix the process for the next client, and tell this client what changed.
Catches: expectation drift. Quarter one moves visibility first. Calls follow on a delay, and we said so on day one.
Why it pays: clients don't cancel because nothing happened. They cancel because they couldn't SEE what happened.
If it's bad: show them where to look. A short call or Loom walking through their own report usually flips this score by itself.
Then anchors A1 to A5, in order. Full form order: name field, Q1S1, Q1S2, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5.
Form preamble (paste as the form description):
Catches: quality drift. More calls of the wrong kind feels like failure to an owner, no matter what the numbers say.
Why it pays: our promise is the right jobs, not just rings. By day 170 the calls should be arriving. If they're not, we need to know before they tell us by leaving.
If it's bad: check which pages and searches are driving their calls, adjust the targets, and tell them the fix in one paragraph.
Catches: invisible work. Done-for-you dies quietly when the client can't see the doing.
Why it pays: this is the silent killer for retainers. The work can be excellent and the client can still feel ignored.
If it's bad: their monthly update is not landing. Make the work visible: shorter, plainer, with the new pages linked by name.
Then anchors A1 to A5, in order. Full form order: name field, Q2S1, Q2S2, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5.
Form preamble (paste as the form description):
Catches: the map promise, checked from the owner's own phone. Quarter three IS the map quarter.
Why it pays: for emergency trades, being on the map IS the phone ringing. If the owner can't find himself, his belief drops even if the grid data is improving.
If it's bad: put their map grid from the report next to their experience. The grid fills block by block. Show which blocks are won and which are next.
Catches: review engine health from the client's seat, not our dashboard's.
Why it pays: reviews are the trust signal both customers and Google read. If the owner feels the review side is dead, the whole engine feels dead to him.
If it's bad: trace the chain: are the asks going out, are replies going up, is anything stuck? Fix the broken link and report back.
Then anchors A1 to A5, in order. Full form order: name field, Q3S1, Q3S2, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5.
Form preamble (paste as the form description):
Catches: the ROI story in the client's head. What they BELIEVE drove their year decides the renewal, not just what the data says.
Why it pays: if the work drove jobs but they don't connect the two, year two is at risk. The story matters as much as the numbers.
If it's bad: build their year-one recap with the receipts: the calls, the jobs, the pages that drove them. Then book the year-two conversation.
Catches: renewal intent and what they want next, in their own words.
Why it pays: this is the most valuable open answer of the year. It writes the year-two plan and tells us when a client is ready for more.
Always: read every word. The reply names what they asked for and what happens next.
Then anchors A1 to A5, in order. Full form order: name field, Q4S1, A1, A2, A3, Q4S2, A4, A5. Check-in 4 swaps one rating for one required typed answer.
Scoring: one number, one delta
Record both on the response task in ClickUp. The delta is the real signal: a client sliding from 4.6 to 3.2 is in more danger than a client steady at 3.5.
Build it once in ClickUp. Then never rebuild it.
Four separate forms, one response list. No branching logic, no fancy settings. Branching breaks quarter-over-quarter tracking, so we keep four plain forms instead.
- Create the response list. In the client-ops Space, create a List named "C-Stat Responses". Every form submission from all four check-ins lands here.
- Add custom fields to the list: Client (dropdown of active clients), Quarter (dropdown: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4), C-Stat Score (number), Delta (number), Flag (dropdown: Red, Yellow, Green), Owner (people).
- Create form one. On the list, add a view: + View, then Form. Name it "SwarmSystem Check-In Q1".
- Paste the Q1 preamble (copy button in the Check-in 1 module above) as the form's description text.
- Add the name field first: one required short-text field, "Your name or business name". This is how the response gets matched to the client.
- Add the five ratings in order: Q1S1, Q1S2, A1, A2, A3. Use the Rating field type set to 5. Mark all five required. Paste each question word for word from the copy buttons above, including the "1 = / 5 =" ends in the field's help text. If Rating fields are not on our plan, use a Dropdown with options 1 to 5 instead.
- Add the two typed questions: A4 and A5 as Long Text fields, both optional.
- Point submissions at the list. In form settings, submissions create tasks in "C-Stat Responses". Turn OFF anything that emails the client back automatically. The reply comes from a human.
- Duplicate for Q2, Q3, Q4. Copy the form, swap the preamble and the two stage questions, keep the anchors identical. For Q4, the field order is: name, Q4S1, A1, A2, A3, Q4S2 (Long Text, required), A4, A5.
- Create the wins list. A second List named "Wins and Words". Strong quotes from open answers get copied here. This is the testimonial bank and the case-study feed.
- Optional automation (recommended): on "C-Stat Responses", add an Automation: when any Rating field is 2 or less, set Flag to Red, assign the Owner, and post to the team Slack channel. Exact triggers vary by ClickUp plan. If automations are not available, the Monday ritual plus same-day reading covers it manually.
Build check: submit one test response through each form and confirm all four land in "C-Stat Responses" with the right fields. Delete the test tasks after.
Ten minutes every Monday. That is the whole ritual.
Check-ins go out by client age, not by calendar. Day 80, 170, 260, 350, counted from the client's first paid month. Every Monday, check who crossed a send day since last Monday, and send.
| Check-in | Send day | Why that day |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Foundations | Day 80 | Ten days before the day-90-120 stay-or-go window opens |
| 2 · Pillar Pages | Day 170 | Ten days before the quarter closes, while it is still fresh |
| 3 · Own the Map | Day 260 | Same rhythm. By now we have two deltas to compare |
| 4 · Year One | Day 350 | Two weeks before the year mark, ahead of the renewal talk |
The rules of sending
The AM sends it
From the account manager's own email, not a system address. Subject: "Quick 2-minute check-in on [Business Name]". Two sentences and the link. Done.
Never with bad news
A check-in can ride along with a report ONLY if the report is good news. Never ask how they feel in the same email that delivers a problem.
Existing clients join in
A client already at day 200 does not start at check-in 1. They enter at their current day and get the next check-in ahead of them (day 260).
The send emails, ready to paste
Swap [First Name], [Business Name], and [LINK]. Keep them short. These read like a text from a person because that is what gets answered from a job site.
One reminder, then stop. No response is an answer too: log it. A client silent for two check-ins in a row gets a yellow flag and a personal note, not another form.
A response nobody acts on is worse than no survey.
Every answer maps to an action. Reading the response, scoring it, flagging it, and replying takes ten minutes. This table is the whole playbook.
| Signal | Flag | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Any rating of 1 or 2, or a negative typed answer | RED | Owner pinged same day. Call within 48 hours. Script below. |
| Any anchor drops 2+ points from last quarter | RED | Same path. The slide is the signal, even if the score is still a 3. |
| Any rating of 3 | YELLOW | Address it in their next report or Loom. Watch it next quarter. |
| 4s and 5s with a win in the typed answers | GREEN | Reply with thanks. Copy the quote to "Wins and Words". A win in their words = case-study timing. |
| No response after the one reminder | LOG IT | Two silent check-ins in a row = yellow flag + a personal note from the AM. |
Every response gets a human reply within 2 business days.
Not a form letter. Two lines from the account manager, naming one specific thing the client said. This is the single biggest reason clients answer the next one, and it is the retention move itself: being heard is the product. If we ask and go silent, we taught them not to answer.
Reply templates below. Red gets a call offer. Green gets a thank-you that names their win.
The red-flag call, in five moves
- Acknowledge. "You said the reports aren't clear. That's on us." No defending, no explaining yet.
- Diagnose. Ask what it looks like from their side. Listen longer than feels comfortable.
- Show the evidence. Open their report and connect the work to calls and jobs in plain words. Data, not opinion.
- Fix one thing fast. Pick the biggest gripe and fix it this week. One visible fix beats five promises.
- Follow up in writing. Same day: "Here's what we talked about, here's what changes, here's when." Then do it.
After the call, update the response task: Flag stays Red until the fix ships, then flip it. A red flag older than 24 hours with no owner pinged is a process failure, not a client problem.
Six things we never do.
Reword an anchor
A1 to A5 are locked. Change one word and the year-over-year trend line dies. New questions can be proposed for the stage slots only, next annual review.
Ask about strategy
No "how do you feel about the strategy" or "are you confident in next steps." Clients hire us to run the system. The reports show the strategy working. We ask about what they see and feel.
Grow past seven questions
Seven questions, two minutes. The moment it feels like homework, response rates die and the whole system goes blind.
Send with bad news
A check-in never rides in the same email as a problem. Asking "how are we doing" while delivering bad news reads as tone-deaf and scores as anger.
Let a red flag sit
Same-day ping, 48-hour call. A red response that sits unread for a week is a cancellation we chose not to prevent.
Treat C-Stat as the whole picture
It is one input. Report data and call behavior are the other half. A great score does not cancel a bad trend, and a bad score outranks a good chart.
C-Stat is a conversation with a form attached.
Program scoreboard
Three numbers keep the program honest. Track them in ClickUp; review at the quarterly team check.