What happens every time a new client comes in?
They sign the quote or say yes on the phone, and a chain of small tasks begins. Someone opens the client record and copies the details from an email. Someone else creates the folder on the shared drive and gives it the usual structure. The list of documents you need gets sent out. The team is told there is a new client, and a welcome email goes out with the contact details.
Each step takes very little time, but together they add up, and they are squeezed in between other jobs. So onboarding happens in bits, whenever there is a gap, and each client gets a slightly different welcome. One is asked for documents straight away and another is forgotten for a good while. Someone on the team finds out there is a new client because they hear it in a meeting.
While the business is small, memory and goodwill hold this together. As the company grows, the slips start: a folder never created, or a notification that never reached the person who needed it. The client notices from the start, and it is the first impression they take away.
Which steps repeat?
It is worth writing them all down, because they rarely match what you think you do. A typical list:
- Collect the client's details, usually from a form or an email.
- Create their record in the tool where you keep your clients.
- Create the shared folder with the subfolders you always use.
- Ask the client for the documents you need, such as signed contracts or tax details.
- Tell the team and whoever will run the account.
- Send the welcome email.
- Suggest a first meeting.
Your list will be different. Writing it out can reveal a step that only one person does and nobody else knows about. That is the first step to be lost when that person is on holiday.
What can be automated, and what should stay with a person?
Steps that move data and follow a rule automate well. If the details are already in a form, there is no reason to copy them into the record by hand. If every client gets the same folder structure, a process can create it the moment the new client is registered. Team notifications and the welcome email can go out on their own, with the right name and details.
A process like this can connect to any tool that has an API, such as your email and your document storage. The automations we build include error handling and retries. If a step fails, the system tries again and, if it keeps failing, alerts a person.
The decision to take a client on happens before onboarding, and a person makes it. Other parts are best left with someone too:
- The first conversation. A welcome email can go out by itself, but the meeting where you work out what the client needs belongs to your team.
- Checking sensitive documents. The system can request them and file them. Someone checks that they are right.
What should you decide before you start?
Four decisions help the process work first time.
- The list of steps and their order. Write it with the person who does the work. They know the details.
- Who is responsible for each step. And who steps in when that person is away.
- What happens when something is missing. If the client does not send a document, decide who chases it and how.
- Which data goes in. Decide which client details you ask for, where they are stored and which stay out of the automatic process.
One useful side effect of thinking about onboarding this way is that the process ends up written down. Even if you never automate it, the next person who joins the team will have a clear list to follow.
How does it change your team's day?
The person who used to run onboarding by hand stops being the single point everything depends on. When a client comes in, the record and the folder are prepared together and the notifications go out at the same time, and that person can concentrate on what needs judgement: talking to the client and checking the delicate material.
For the client, the welcome is the same every time. They receive the same messages and are asked for the same things in the same order. That conveys order, which is hard to manage by hand when work is piling up.
How to get started
Write on one page the steps of the last onboarding you did, with who did each one and in which tool. With that page, you can already see what repeats and what does not.
If you want to check whether your case is a fit, get in touch. We work at a fixed price per project, we hand everything over documented, and the system is yours. If onboarding at your company is not a good candidate for automation, we will say so. You can see the rest of what we do on the automation page.