Client Onboarding Step-by-Step Guide & Process Checklist

Use this check-in call as an opportunity to build on your relationship with your client and let them know you value their business. Have a list of questions prepared and summarize all the work that has been done in the past 30 days. When the call is over your client should feel confident that they made the right choice by doing business with your company. A winning onboarding process leads to happier clients who stay with your business for longer.

A clear process for client onboarding helps to streamline this process and allows you to focus on supporting your client more directly. Failing to properly onboard new clients and users has consequences that can ripple through the life of the engagement. Without the proper plan in place, execution becomes misguided, and the campaign has no direction. A campaign without clear direction and complete buy-in on both sides doesn’t stand much of a chance. Adapting to the client’s pricing preference is another layer of complexity demanded by clients that an agency owner must deal with in today’s market.

Hold an Internal Client Orientation Meeting

The post-kickoff internal meeting is your opportunity to surface any takeaways from the kickoff call, work through foreseeable roadblocks, and answer questions. Just like the project kickoff meeting aligns your team with your client’s, the post-kickoff internal meeting aligns your different internal teams on the project. We took a hard look at how we onboard new clients at Audience Ops, the blog content service that I started a few years earlier. What seemed to work for our earliest clients simply wasn’t scaling as the business started maturing.

• It helps set clear expectations and ensures that both parties are on the same page regarding the scope of work and deliverables.
• The process saves you time but also helps make sure that you’re not missing any important steps, because it all happens automatically.
• Create your onboarding process once, and you can use it repeatedly to avoid issues with new clients.
• Guided setup is most commonly needed when there are multiple steps or when steps need to be taken in a particular order.
• Most often, your welcome packet will be PDF, but it also might be an email or webpage.
• As stated above it’s a great idea to send something physical to new clients.

Create personalized customer onboarding forms and gather all the information you need with ease. The result is a smoother, more efficient client onboarding experience. It’s important to figure out how each client prefers to receive updates, clarifications, or project-related feedback. It’s best to automate your processes, but sometimes you’ll need to adjust to the client’s expectations.

Is this the same as the customer onboarding process?

The purpose and goals of the project should be articulated, along with any key deliverables and timelines. This is an important opportunity for both sides to ask questions or give input to make sure you’re aligned before the project begins. Regardless of the relationship, ensure every pre-onboarding process includes these checkpoints. It will help protect your business if anything goes wrong and ensure everyone is on the same page before beginning the project. Knowing your offer can also be an important part of client onboarding. It helps create clarity with clients about what you do and what you don’t do.

Creating a client onboarding questionnaire

Revisit the concerns your new clients expressed during the sales process and highlight ways you can help them. A great way to do this is with a quarterly plan, setting expectations, or a list of quick wins. If you’re onboarding new clients effectively (e.g. they become long-term customers), you’re saving money, because it’s cheaper to keep an existing client than it is to attract a new one. The sales team typically plays a crucial role in facilitating a seamless experience for clients, ensuring a deep understanding of their needs and expectations.

We’ll cover everything you need to know about client onboarding, including how to plan it, how to implement it in your department, and how to systemize it for higher ROI. Schedule a check-up call 30 days after beginning to work with a client. This is your opportunity to make sure that nobody has dropped the ball during the onboarding process and to ensure that everything is days sales outstanding dso: meaning in finance calculation and applications running smoothly from their end. In this case, you will need their receipts and records of payment before you can start working for them. Consider making this step (receiving their information) mandatory before you move forward in the process. Before you begin working for a particular client, you need to ensure that you have all the necessary information to get started.

By team

This helps you gather actionable insights into your onboarding process, to help improve it and the overall client experience. On the other hand, if you provide digital marketing services such as social media management, your success metrics would likely be tied to engagement, follower counts, shares, and more. Meanwhile, those offering digital advertising services can measure traffic, ad spend, ROI, and so on. It’s also important to share all previous communications with your team. It can be frustrating for the client to repeat themselves to different members of your firm, so it pays to keep your team in the loop. Ideally, all of this information will be stored in your customer relationship management (CRM) or client management software.

Customer support

Not only does this feedback empower you to ensure your client’s experience is good, it also helps you improve your onboarding process for clients in the future. Instead, your approach to onboarding should be to build relationships with your new clients. Practicing a people-focused approach means putting the people first.

Determine what success looks like

Another effective tip is to create a centralized repository for client information, documents, and communication. This allows team members to access the necessary information easily and minimizes the risk of miscommunication or missed details. During this process you will guide new clients through the initial stages of their journey with the company, from the first point of contact to their ongoing engagement. Basically, I want the client to know that I care how the agency is doing, if they are happy with the work, and what else they need in a relationship. You don’t want the client to think you (the owner or business development person) are the only one that knows anything.