The Ultimate Onboarding Guide for New Clients With Simple Steps

People love to feel like they’re getting additional value, and if you can bake this into your offer without raising your rates, you’re well on your way to satisfied and repeat clients. The goal of a kickoff meeting is to reach a shared expectation around the purpose and objectives of the project. You can also use the time to firm up deliverables, timelines, roles, communication channels, and other terms agreed upon in the sales state. 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.

LearnDashboard Examples Hundreds of dashboard templates to help you start tracking performance. Most of the steps required to bring a new customer on board don’t require innovative thought. These types of repetitive admin tasks are the perfect candidates for automation.

Routine Check-Ins

We’ve all heard the expression “underpromise, overdeliver.” And this is both true and powerful when it comes to client relationships. Since you’ve done all the hard work of setting expectations during pre-onboarding and onboarding, the maintenance stage is about delivering what you promised. By creating a tight pre-onboarding and onboarding process – more on that below – you reduce the risks of misunderstandings and refine processes, making it easier to work together. The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. GuideCX is a client onboarding system that allows you to create assignments and tasks that teach your client how to use your product.

Use a template to create an onboarding process from the ground up. Although check-ins are more like a best practice than a step, they should be a feature of your onboarding process. Your objective is to empower your customer by providing them with all the resources to onboard autonomously. That means your process requires certain features to guide customers from setup to realizing their first win.

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This normally includes a guided tutorial or set-up wizard to take your customers through each step of the set-up process. This welcome email teases the start of their onboarding process, sharing three steps the customer will need to take to get started. If you can ensure these 4 criteria are met, you have greater chances at a successful client onboarding AND a streamlined workflow in and between all your teams. Now, even though coming up with a client onboarding strategy essentially is a complex, extended business process, it must still be explainable using a few words, similar to a value proposition.

Each project provides steps and tasks to complete as onboarding progresses. They also provide a step-by-step onboarding process so new users don’t get overwhelmed with a long to-do list. The playbook serves as a “how-to” for building relationships with customers and providing the most effective onboarding experience possible. Download these free templates to successfully plan and implement customer onboarding best practices.

Some reps should be dedicated to amortization definition new customers, while others should help the existing ones learn how to use add-ons and upgrades. Remember, repeat customers are more valuable than new ones because they’re purchasing additional products with little or no acquisition cost. These people already trust your brand, so it’s up to your team to keep them happy and engaged. You can’t expect every customer to instantly know the ins and outs of using your products or services. To keep your customer churn as low as possible, create a quality onboarding program. To get your customers acquainted with your products or services, it’s necessary to implement best onboarding practices.

Create a standard welcome packet with fields that you customize for each client. If you use a CRM tool, consider making this part of your automation, so clients automatically receive a welcome email when they enter a new project phase. Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. Only ask a new user to accomplish one task at a time and provide clear instructions on how to do it. The more you can tailor your solution to their needs, the easier it will be to achieve wins — and loyal customers.

Automated process:

If you left a good impression, there’s a good chance for the client to refer your company to anyone in need. Plus, you can always use them as a case study or a testimonial. Make sure you are creating this plan with the client and getting their feedback along the way. Both the client and the team you have in place should be in agreement about the plan before moving forward.

And our community of satisfied clients can attest to that, too. Now you’ve answered the question of ‘what is client onboarding’, you can now focus on how to ensure you have a successful process of onboarding clients. When your client retention rates are high and you have happy customers, you will build a positive reputation. Your clients and customers will recommend you to their network.

Practicing a people-focused approach (that is, being attentive to each clients’ specific needs and goals) is a bottom line of good business practice. The next step of a successful client onboarding process is to send a welcome email. You are forming a business relationship that needs to remain professional in order to achieve your goals and the client’s goals.

• The flow of your onboarding process will depend on each user’s specific needs.
• You want to celebrate those with your new customers and get them excited about being one step closer to their goals.
• Now that you’ve almost finished onboarding your client, it’s time to get set up to work.
• Did you know that it’s 5x more expensive to acquire new clients than it is to retain existing ones?

Collecting and acting on client-provided data will move your relationships and business forward, faster. Whatever your CMS is, create a plan to integrate analytics, the client’s own data, and their technologies into your engagement. It may sound like a lengthy process, but it’s worth investing the time and energy into creating an effective onboarding system. A good onboarding process helps to build a strong client relationship. It keeps your new client happy and lays the foundation for a successful future relationship with them.

Gone are the days of tedious new client onboarding processes. Onboarding – The onboarding phase of new customer acquisition is where the new client actually starts working with your company. This is when they are introduced to your products, services, and culture. This old Roman saying stands true to date, and even more so when it comes to customer onboarding systems. A written set of processes gives you a paper trail that records the contact details and agreement terms between you and the client.

Streamline the initial set-up

Once all the legal technicalities are out of your hair, send your client a welcome packet. It can be a welcome email with all the resources, file management systems, and tools they need to have access to, or it can even be a physical welcome packet. So, at this phase, allow your sales rep/account manager to do a bit of relationship building with your client.

Gather customer feedback, identify friction points, and track key metrics so you know what’s working and where to improve. Your customer’s goals and metrics will be unique to their situation. Allow them to define success, then help them create measurable milestones to get there with benchmarks to hit along the way. Before purchasing your product, your customer should know what to expect. Your sales process should lay out the qualifying factors for using the product.

Portal’s CRM understructure means data collection is organized and tied to a specific contact for easy access and retrieval. Portal also combines billing, eSignature collection, and knowledge base creation, so all your client information is in a single location. The last step of the research phase is to collect your client’s assets. These essential pieces could include a brand style guide, buyer persona information, their lead qualifications, logos, and design files — anything they have relevant to the scope of work. Many service providers bundle all three documents — business proposal, contract, and initial invoice — together upfront to speed up the process. While this approach is more expedient, depending on the nature of your work, some clients may find the package overwhelming or even presumptuous.

Show your client that you have not just done your homework for an A+, but you’re aiming for the extra points too. Ask questions, get everything in writing, and make sure you’re both fully aligned. The ability to onboard new customers quickly and efficiently can be a great asset if you decide to grow your business. The last onboarding phase occurs after the work has been in progress for a substantial time, but it’s necessary to close the loop on the client communication cycle. It’s best practice and just plain old-fashioned good manners to make a round of introductions so all stakeholders understand the others’ roles. If you have a remote working team, mentioning time zones is an excellent detail, impacting communication and feedback time.

Research ideas – This step lets you research campaign ideas and brainstorm with your team. For RevenueZen’s Jake Moffett, keeping clients in the loop is the most important thing. It’s no wonder then that building relationships is Devin Johnson of Kennected’s top tip. The majority of our experts, 70.7%, take between one to three weeks to fully onboard a new client.