Kristen Doyle 0:00
One thing I’ve noticed about service providers, myself included, is that most service providers kind of cobble together their onboarding over time. They put a couple of things together to get started, kind of a minimum viable product, which is smart. That really is how you should start things. But then over time, they add in maybe a welcome email and a contract and some messages they send manually every time, and it works, sort of. But typically it’s inconsistent, and maybe it takes you way more time, way more manual labor than it should, and that causes you to miss steps.
Kristen Doyle 0:44
It’s really easy to forget once you get established and you have those routines in place to take a step back and put in a real process for client onboarding that runs itself, that doesn’t rely on you remembering to do things, and that creates a better client experience. So today I want to share five pieces of a really solid client onboarding system that saves you tons of manual work and keeps things flowing really smoothly for your clients too.
Kristen Doyle 1:21
You’ve built a strong business with happy customers, but somewhere along the way, you picked up advice that says you need to be doing more, post more, sell more, hustle harder. But that’s not what you need. Welcome to Small Business Savvy. I’m Kristin Doyle, and I am so glad you’re here. On this show, we’re covering what actually works, business systems, website strategy, simplified marketing, the stuff that grows your business without burning you out. Let’s get into it.
Kristen Doyle 1:53
One quick note before we jump into this today, if you sell digital products, then this can apply to you a little as well. Your version of this client onboarding would be your post-purchase sequence. So take a lot of the things that I talk about today and apply them to what happens after people make a purchase from you.
Kristen Doyle 2:16
Now we talked in episode 181 about why being transparent about your process matters and about how it affects the client’s emotional experience, how they’re feeling about working with you. So today, we’re going to kind of keep going in that direction by talking about how to build out the actual system that makes that happen.
Kristen Doyle 2:39
So there are five pieces of a really solid client onboarding system. The first one is your welcome communication. This really sets the tone for working together, helps to confirm to people that they made a good decision, and it gives them their next steps so they’re not left wondering after they signed a contract and paid you money, all right, now what? What’s going to happen? When am I going to hear from her? They’re not just left waiting for you to reach out to them.
Kristen Doyle 3:08
Because it is so important that they get that welcome communication right away, it really needs to happen immediately, which means this is a prime spot for you to create an automation. This really has to be automated, so that there is no delay whatsoever between them paying you the money and then getting that first welcome communication from you.
Kristen Doyle 3:29
The next piece of it is some sort of expectations: document, process, email, page. You need somewhere that lays out the expectations, what’s included, what’s not, how are you going to work together? And depending on your process and what you offer, this might be split into more than one place. In fact, it is for me, so I’ll just talk you through how this works in my business.
Kristen Doyle 3:54
I like to put the what’s included and what’s not directly in the contract. I use a platform called Moxie for my CRM, which I absolutely love, highly, highly recommend it. And I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. Their client agreement process is sort of a combination of basic client intake form information, having the client choose the package so that they’re acknowledging what they’re purchasing, and then there’s the actual legal contract as well. That all goes in one document for me, and I put my deposit payment on there as well. Since it’s all in one document that is covering specifically what’s included, and then the contract is also clarifying what isn’t included.
Kristen Doyle 4:39
Now, as far as how we work together, I like to do that either in that welcome email that goes out automatically, or for my Clear View Sites work, I have actually created a page on my website that I send my clients directly to in the welcome email that really breaks down the process. Now I was able to do that for my Clear View Sites offer, because that process is extremely streamlined. Every client works the exact same way. This is not a custom web design project where I might be doing totally different things from one client to the next. I am building essentially the exact same thing for all of these clients, of course, you know, customized to them, but the bones are the same. The process is very streamlined, and so I have that on a web page where it’s all broken down for the clients.
Kristen Doyle 5:30
If your process is more flexible, like my custom web design projects and VIP days, then you might need to do this in the welcome email. You might need to make some adjustments depending on the client and the specific thing that you’re looking for.
Kristen Doyle 5:44
The third piece of your onboarding is gathering the information you need to work with your client. I recommend that you do this in two separate parts. The first piece is the basic intake form, basic information you need from them when they sign up to work with you. You want to make that really easy. Don’t make this the place where you’re trying to collect all of the information, because that adds a little bit of friction and can create some roadblocks to people working with you.
Kristen Doyle 6:14
In fact, I have personally had an experience where I hired someone or I wanted to hire someone to do a service for me. And the form that was attached to the deposit payment and the contract to actually book them had probably 20 questions on it. Most of them were long in depth questions about my business. It was all the information they were ever going to need to work with me. And I understand why sometimes we want to grab all that information up front.
Kristen Doyle 6:45
But what happened for me is I was motivated and excited after our discovery call, and I was ready to work with them, but I couldn’t sign up, because at that moment, I didn’t have the time or the mental bandwidth to really think through these long essay style questions and gather up all of the information about my business that they were going to need. And so it really ended up making me delay signing up with them for quite a bit longer, and for some people that might even put them off from signing up with you at all.
Kristen Doyle 7:16
So my recommendation is that your initial intake form, when you’re bringing them on board as a client, that intake form is short and sweet. For me, that’s on my client agreement with the deposit and the contract, the details of what’s included, and I really just gather basic contact information and a couple of questions about what it is that they want to accomplish, or what we’re doing together, maybe what their biggest goal is.
Kristen Doyle 7:44
That’s where my clients tell me, you know, I want to rebuild the whole website, I want to create a brand new website for this offer, or new business, or whatever, just a basic question that lays out what they’re hoping to accomplish. Enough information so that when they sign up, I remember who they are, and I know what we’re going to be doing together, but not so much that it overwhelms them. And then they get the full intake form with all the information that I need after they’ve signed up, and they have plenty of time to look at it and work through all of the questions, and that also gives me a chance to kind of hold their hand and guide them through that bigger intake form.
Kristen Doyle 8:25
Depending on what your service is, you might need a considerable amount of information from people. As a web designer, I need a ton of information and links and photos. I need so many things from people that I needed to find an easy way to collect that, and I absolutely can’t collect that all up front.
Kristen Doyle 8:44
So when it comes to collecting all the details, the biggest goal with that form is that you are getting the information you need to provide your service without a bunch of back and forth emails that might get lost in your inbox. Now I have done this in multiple ways. I started out just doing it in Google Docs. I had kind of a Google Doc workbook, I would make a copy of it for each client and then have them add their information to that Google Doc and upload their images to a Google Drive folder that they would share with me. And that works perfectly fine. In fact, if you are looking for a free way to do this, if you’re just getting started, I think it’s the perfect way to start gathering information from your clients.
Kristen Doyle 9:25
I have also tried creating these forms to gather all the information in my client management platform, my CRM. When I tried to do this, I was using Dubsado, but Moxie, which I use now, has the same types of forms. Most CRMs have the same type of forms that work this way. What I found with those forms is that people weren’t really able to save their progress and come back to it later. They couldn’t come back and make edits if they thought of something down the road, and there was no way for me to ask them to revise specific questions or to make my own comments.
Kristen Doyle 10:01
So what I’ve ended up using is a platform called Content Snare that is specifically built to gather content from your clients, and it allows people to save their progress, every question they answer saves immediately. It guides them through the process. It gives them a handy little checklist, each question is listed on a sidebar, checked off if they’re done, they’re flagged yellow if they need more attention. And it really just guides them through the process. It has commenting so we can go back and forth if they have questions for me, or if I need to request a revision, I can do that. And it has just made the process so so smooth. Absolutely love it, highly, highly recommend Content Snare. I’ll put a link for that in the show notes as well.
Kristen Doyle 10:44
But like I said, if Content Snare is not in your budget right now, then I would stick with something like a Google form, over doing forms inside your CRM unless you happen to have the type of service business where you really don’t need much information answered and the form doesn’t need a lot of back and forth with your client.
Kristen Doyle 11:01
All right, the fourth thing that you need in your onboarding process is confirmation of the timeline. Everyone needs to know what is happening when, and who is responsible for what. This is another thing I like to put in multiple places. It goes on the client agreement. It also goes in the welcome email that gets sent out automatically to them, and then for certain services like Clear View Sites, where it is that streamlined, very consistent client process every time, this also goes on the client process page that I’ve built out on my website.
Kristen Doyle 11:36
The goal here is to make sure that they have an easy place to reference what’s happening, who is responsible for each piece of the process, and they know exactly what their due dates are, or when you might be waiting for them to send something.
Kristen Doyle 11:50
And then the last piece of this that is so important is that you continue to have next step triggers throughout your process. In every step of your client onboarding, you have to make sure every piece of anything you send out to your client has a next step trigger of some sort. So what is the thing that officially kicks off the work? For me, that’s when they sign a client agreement, that kicks off sending the welcome email. The welcome email gives them an overview of the process, the due dates, those things, but it also gives them their one next step, whatever that is. When they complete that step, there should be another next step trigger pointing them right to the next thing they need to do and so on.
Kristen Doyle 12:30
The goal is that no one is ever left wondering or texting you, Hey, should I be doing something for this project right now? Are you waiting on me? When am I going to hear from you? A lot of times we can solve those issues with a good, clear client process.
Kristen Doyle 12:48
The big thing to remember here is that none of this should be happening manually. No matter what system you’re using, what tools you have, you should have a way to automate this process so that each piece of that handoff gets to happen without you getting in the middle of it. That means, if a client’s next step is to book a call, then they should automatically get a link to schedule that call emailed to them or be redirected to a page to schedule that call when they finish a certain part of your process. If there are emails from you that need to go out, put those into automated email sequences. If there’s a form to submit, you are sending them to those forms in your automated emails, or as a next step after they submit something.
Kristen Doyle 13:31
Now there are loads of ways that you can do this. Most CRMs have workflow capability. Moxie is what I use. They have workflows in their CRM. I know Dubsado And HoneyBook do as well. Those workflows can typically send out emails with links to schedulers, to forms you need them to fill out, all of those kinds of things. They can also usually send out text messages for you if you have that set up. All of those kinds of client communication that need to go out on a regular schedule, you can usually set that up right in your CRM.
Kristen Doyle 14:05
Now, if you don’t have a CRM, then you can always use something like Make, which is my personal favorite, or Zapier, is another alternative, to create those automations for you so that when certain things happen, the client automatically gets an email or is directed to a page or whatever next step needs to happen. A lot of people don’t realize you can connect Make, and I believe Zapier does this as well. You can definitely connect Make to your Gmail account and have it just send individual emails out for you as a response to certain things that your client might do. So if you want to have it, you know when the client submits this form, email them the link to the next one, you can absolutely do that with Make.
Kristen Doyle 14:43
All right, let’s talk about what you actually need to do this week. Let’s talk action steps. Take a look at your current onboarding process. Map out what happens from the minute somebody says yes to working with you, all the way through the process. And identify everywhere you’re doing something manually, that it could be automated instead. Look for gaps where clients might be confused or waiting on you. If you’ve ever had a client text you or email you, Hey, what should I be doing right now, that is letting you know that you have a gap right there. So pay attention to those spots.
Kristen Doyle 15:16
If you have time to tackle this as a bigger project, then start at the beginning and just build out that onboarding process piece by piece so that it all flows and runs together smoothly. But if you are in a season right now where you’re super busy, start with your biggest pain point. If you are constantly forgetting to send the welcome email, then automate that first, and then come back to the rest of the things later. If clients are always asking you the same questions over and over, create that expectations or process document or page on your website to point them to. You don’t have to implement all of it at one time. If you have the time to do it in one project, that’s going to make it flow really smoothly. But if you don’t, start with those biggest issues, those things that will save you the most time or prevent the most problems, and then add the other pieces as you go.
Kristen Doyle 16:05
There are so many reasons that good onboarding is important, but there’s one I haven’t talked about yet at all. Yes, good onboarding sets expectations for your clients. It helps guide them through the process. It helps the whole project feel calm and positive instead of confusing. But one of the other things good onboarding does is it prevents problems down the road. Clear onboarding prevents miscommunication and scope creep and mid project surprises. Anytime those kinds of things happen, you can almost always find an onboarding gap at the root of those problems.
Kristen Doyle 16:40
So as you’re working with clients, when you notice a problem in the project, something that just didn’t go as smoothly as it should have, take the time to go back and look at okay, what could I have done differently, or what could I have done early on to prevent this problem? Why does the client expect this thing that they’re not actually paying me for? And where could I have made that more clear? Where has there been miscommunication? Where has a client missed getting notified about a deadline? Or maybe I sent the notifications, but I should add in some additional reminders of upcoming deadlines, things like that. There’s almost always something in your onboarding that you can do to fix those kinds of problems.
Kristen Doyle 17:21
In next week’s episode, we are going to talk about some of the boundaries and expectations that you can build in to your onboarding materials and to your client process as a whole to prevent those things. So I won’t go deep into details on that one, I will leave it there for today and come back next week to talk more about that. I’ll talk to you soon.
