There are two key parts to a good client onboarding process. It needs to set your clients’ up for success AND it needs to work smoothly for you.
Both of those parts are equally important.
I like to think of client onboarding as welcoming clients into my world, much the same as you’d invite a guest into your home. You want them to have a great experience, while keeping your admin to a minimum.
Common client onboarding mistakes
1. Reinventing the wheel for every client
Do you have a different welcome process every time a new client joins you? It’s kind of the same but you know the quality isn’t as consistent as it depends how busy you are with the rest of your business.
Perhaps your entire process is manual and it takes up way too much of your time, starting with a game of email tennis as you hit different meeting time suggestion back and forward, back and forward.
Now that doesn’t mean that everything in your client onboarding has to be fully automated. How much automation you use will depend on the stage of your business, the type of services you offer and the way you like to work.
I like variety so I’ll happily experiment with my mix of manual and automated. Yet even if I’m manually sending emails, I’m using an email template that was prewritten. I’ve set time aside to think through what my client needs to know, and the information I need from them, then written a template that covers all of that. If I ever need to send an email in a hurry that’s no problem, as my templates allow me to do that without reinventing the wheel each time.
2. Clunky welcome experience
When we first start welcoming clients into our business it’s exciting! We know the outcomes we want them to get and we have a process we want to take them through.
Yet we don’t always take time to consider the best way to welcome them into our business as our eye is already on our first session with them. That can lead to a clunky welcome experience that doesn’t work well for either party.
You know you’ve made this mistake when your welcome email(s) doesn’t cover everything and new clients are constantly asking you questions. Perhaps you forgot to send an invoice or your terms and conditions aren’t as clear as they need to be. You’d patched everything together but now that your client numbers are increasing pieces are starting to fall off.
Take time to look at the questions that new clients are asking you as those questions hold key information for improving your client onboarding. Also, consider what you’re doing that feels repetitious or takes up a lot of your time as that will help you to design a welcome process that works for you too.
3. Client management is a mess
Have you ever realised, 5 minutes before a client call, that you have no clue where the notes you took from your last session are? You frantically search for the post-it note you just KNOW had a really important point on it. Found it! With seconds to spare before the meeting you’ve got the post-it note and your heart is racing. Not exactly the kind of energy and focus you want to bring to a client meeting.
The experience you’re creating for your client doesn’t stop at your first session together. It flows into the way that you’re delivering all of your sessions.
When your client management is a mess there is no way to easily track the number of sessions that were purchased or have been taken, nor where your clients are up to in your process. Client notes are in multiple places and time is being wasted searching for key information or having to trawl back through emails to find the information you need.
Your client deserves better than this and so do you.
Designing a client onboarding and delivery process that is tailored to your client’s needs, and the way you want to run your business, means you’ll be able to provide a great client experience with minimal admin time.
If you’re ready to set your clients up for success and create a fantastic experience for them, then book in a free call with me. I’m a total systems geek and I’d be happy to talk to you about organising and systemising your business.
