What is client onboarding?

Client Onboarding: Welcome new customers to your business, answer their questions and concerns, and ensure they understand the goods or services they’ve signed up for. This is called client onboarding. This step is crucial for getting to know the client well and setting the tone for future conversations.

You can bring on a client in three different ways:

• Virtual onboarding: This is an onboarding process you do from afar using digital tools, videoconferencing, online slideshows, document/video sharing, and online presentations.
• In-person onboarding: This is a hands-on onboarding process in which you show your client and their team everything they need to know in person. This works best for complicated goods and hardware.
• Hybrid onboarding is a mix of virtual and in-person onboarding based on the client’s needs, how they prefer to communicate, and your service.

Client onboarding isn’t just meant to get the business relationship going; it’s also meant to make customers happier, keep them from leaving, and build a lasting connection. A better bottom line for the business can come from more loyal customers, more recommendations, and better onboarding of new clients.

Synonyms

• Customer onboarding

Why onboarding new clients is important

Get more deals done.

Training might not seem important before you close a deal, but it is. Wyzowl’s research on customer onboarding shows that 63% of customers say it’s one of the most important things they look at when choosing a business to do business with.

When they close deals, your sales team must discuss your hiring process. People who might buy from you will decide if they want to based on what they hear.

Show What You’re Worth

When you get a new client, onboarding is the first time you’ll interact with them as a company. This means it’s a great chance to show how skilled, knowledgeable, and valuable you are.

Choose how you want to act in every meeting from now on. Show your new client you’re well-organized, quick, and dedicated to their success.

Build relationships with clients.

Getting things right during onboarding is crucial because you’re setting the stage for a future friendship. You can build trust and a relationship with new clients immediately when you successfully onboard new clients. This will help you give them a good experience in the future.

Keep clients longer by

74% of customers say they’d choose a different company if the hiring process were too complex. Although the phrase “too complicated” isn’t precisely clear-cut (some things are complicated no matter what), the truth is that clients who are quickly brought on board will have a shorter time to value and are much more likely to stay with the company for a long time.

The same goes for clients who feel like they are essential and welcome. You’ll make an excellent first impression and help them feel like they fit if you show that you care about their success. And that’s what makes it likely that they’ll stay as loyal buyers.

Tell the client what to expect.

Like our happiness with other things, clients’ happiness depends significantly on what they expect. If you don’t set clear boundaries in your work relationship, your clients may feel like they were lied to or sold too much.

A thorough onboarding process, on the other hand, can set standards and stop disappointments in the future. Customers are much less likely to leave a bad review if they know exactly what you’ll do for them and what it’s like to work with you.

This is more than just keeping your image safe, though. Every client should have clear rules about how to talk to you, how long to respond, how much work you can do, and what the end product or service needs.

Clients who don’t know what you expect from them might cross the line, be challenging to work with, and stress out your team for no reason. Clients will constantly be challenged, but having clear goals during onboarding makes it less likely that this will happen.

Get more clients to refer you.

Happy clients want you to do well. They will tell them about you if they know someone who needs your goods or services.

As we already said, it all starts with an excellent experience for the new client. People will remember that you care about them and help them quickly reach their goals. Some people might even tell their friends and coworkers how easy the process was.

Word of mouth is vital; it’s responsible for about 90% of purchases. If you do training right, you’ll also have more success getting leads and making sales.

Steps in the process of getting a new client

Welcome the customer to your business.

You need to take care of two things right away when they’re ready to join the family:

• Let your customer know again that working with you was the right choice.
• Ensure they feel confident about what they can expect from working with you.

The first one is pretty easy. You can call them to check this out and send them a small gift to show appreciation. You could send a silly welcome email, branded swag, or something more critical based on your product or service and the client you just lost.

The best way to do the second is through an introduction email. What the client can expect from you and what you expect from them should be made clear in your contract.

Also, describe how the hiring process will work from now on. You can convince your clients that they made a good investment by giving them a timeline for the next steps and an onboarding checklist. This will help bridge the gap between conversion and start date.

Get basic facts about the client.

An onboarding questionnaire is integral to getting new clients because it helps you get the information you need to give each client a uniform, personalized experience.

In your questionnaire, you should ask for simple things like

• Information on how to get in touch (main point of contact and key influencers)
• Name of the business and URL
• Business goals and aims for your service or product
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) they’ll be working on in the next six months or year
• Problems and pain points right now
• A clear picture of their dream customer
• What you can do to help them reach their ICP or become customers

Also, ask your clients to list any tools they already have that you can use to improve your service. This could be customer or sales data kept internally, sales and marketing materials, or even something as easy as a mission statement or one-pager.

It might also help to have them list other products or services they like so you can better understand what they’re looking for. People often have a standard, like a company they admire or want to be like.

Make a SLA (service level agreement).

An SLA spells out how you will work with clients. It is a legal document that tells your customers what they can expect and when they can expect it.

Your contract says what you’ll do, but an SLA tells you when and how your clients should expect it. It’s an agreement between the client and the seller, and it usually has the following:

• Deadlines, milestones, and special needs
• People who are in charge of different tasks
• Rules that the service provider must follow
• Ways to measure how well something works
• When can you expect an answer?
• Service time frames, like “We’ll get back to you within 24 hours, Monday through Friday,”
• Procedures and outlets for support
• A way to take questions or problems to a higher level

An SLA is important because it ensures everyone is responsible and on the same page. It also helps set a standard for performance and reasonable goals, making handling contract risk and compliance easier.

Add clients to your account.

You may need to set up your client on your site or system, depending on your service or product.

Such things could be:

• Setting up a self-service platform for clients
• Setting up master accounts
• Setting up new accounts for tools
• Setting up ways to pay
• Giving people access to certain services or features
• Giving training tools and login information

For example, a marketing company might give their customers Google Analytics, social media management tools, or email marketing software.

Clients of a consultant may be able to use a self-service portal and project management software to keep an eye on work and ask for help.

Hold a meeting with your client.

A kickoff call allows you to get to know your business better. In this step of the client hiring process, you’ll make it official how you and your team will work with them and theirs.

It would be best if you covered the following during the first training call:

• Introducing the team
• How do you like to communicate?
• Scope, goals, and outcomes of the project
• How you’ll work together, including how often you’ll give and get feedback from clients
• Giving your SLA to the client
• Setting up an account (if they need more help)
• Billing, terms of payment, and financial records
• Anything else your business should know

By now, you should know a little more about your business. You’ve made a good impact, too. But this is the first time they’ll meet your team, so it’s essential to review everything you’ve already told them, get their approval, and act appropriately.

Plan your following tasks for onboarding.

This step can be very different based on your business type and how you want to bring new clients on board.

You could have:

• Plans for training events
• More calls to make sure everyone knows what to expect, answer questions, or share information
• There’s a meeting in person coming up
• Dates set for the delivery of the first project goals

The important thing is to let your clients know about these times openly and regularly. Ensure they know what’s coming up and how they can best prepare.

It’s best to put the following steps on their calendar while you’re on the start call.

Set up regular ways to follow up.

Plan how you will report to and follow up with your clients based on what they want, how they like to be communicated with, and the nature of your work. You could email or use a project management tool to talk back and forth, but this is a formal email or Slack message that shows your work and gives clients a chance to ask questions.

• For a content marketing company, this could be a weekly email about how blog posts and social media are doing and when to post them.
• For a consulting company, it could be a call once a month to talk about KPI progress and changes to the strategy.
• If you’ve given your clients a new piece of software, you could send them an update and next steps once a month.

The important thing is to stick to a plan and template. That way, the person or people you work with at the client company can tell executives and their customers everything is happening.

Help each person on an ongoing basis.

Your clients should be able to fully use your product or service when they finish training and informational talks with you. This will fit right in with their routine daily tasks while they’re working with you.

But it’s still important to keep helping your clients, even after the hiring process ends. Among these are:

• Checking in with them from time to time to make sure their wants are being met
• If they ask for it, giving them more training or tools
• Dealing with problems and issues in a timely and professional way

Doing this for all your clients would be best, but it’s essential when first meeting them.

Send a review after the hiring process is over.

From both sides, this works:

• Your internal training team should let you know how they felt about bringing new customers on board, what they think they could do better or more automatically, and if any customers mentioned anything specific.
• It would be best to ask your client how they thought the hiring process went, how satisfied they were, and what you can do to improve things.

You’ll use this feedback to keep clients from leaving because it lets you fix anything you missed. It’s also your chance to improve the onboarding process from the clients’ and workers’ points of view.

The best ways to bring on a new client

Making the hiring process easy and stress-free for your clients is critical to making it work well.

Here are some of the best ways to bring a new client on board:

Essential parts of the process can be automated with software.

Document generation, onboarding surveys, email automation, project management software, and guided onboarding flows in apps (for apps and client portals) all help to cut down on time and work more efficiently.

Don’t depend on software alone, though.

Customization is still something that clients want. Get ready to answer questions and help people right away. Also, don’t forget to have your kickoff call, personal marketing, and regular check-ins.

Add unique little touches.

When people feel like you’re thinking about them and not just another customer, they’ll likely stay with you and tell their friends about your business. Sending a funny GIF after training, remembering facts about their business or industry, or remembering their birthday are all easy ways to do it.

Tell your clients what’s going on.

Your clients want you to be honest and talk to them regularly. Once the onboarding process is over, don’t go quiet. Tell them what will happen next, how to contact you if they have any questions, and when you’ll be back to check in.

Set goals early on and monitor them as the process goes on.

Ensure your clients know what to expect from the hiring process, such as when things will be done, what will be delivered, and how to talk to you. This will help them keep their goals in check and keep them from getting frustrated or confused.

Get input and make changes based on it.

Always ask for feedback from both your clients and your team. Take this feedback to heart and make the necessary changes to improve your process. This will help ensure the hiring process goes smoothly and works well for everyone.

Trends in Technology for Getting New Clients

Software for managing customer relationships (CRM)

When you work with clients, CRM software is what you need. It helps you track who made it through onboarding and their contact history (for example, did you follow up on time?). As noted on their contact forms, you can also inform them about their business and tastes.

Systems for managing documents

It is safe to store all of your SLAs, client contracts, and different copies of contracts in the cloud with a document management system. It also lets you work on contracts and forms together in real-time.

It’s sometimes a stand-alone offering. It’s also sometimes built into CPQ software like DealHub’s. Having document management built into CPQ is helpful because it lets you quickly turn sales quotes into contracts. The system will take care of the rest.

Tools for automating workflows

There are many tools out there that can help you automate your workflow. Using a tool like Zapier, you can set up automatic connections between software like CRM, billing, and training.

These are some other automation tools for training workflows:

• Software for managing projects
• Tools for sending more emails
• Builders of shapes
• Software designed for onboarding

You can use these tools to send questionnaires to new clients automatically, give jobs to different team members, find out if your clients are happy with how you onboard them, and keep them interested by sending them messages or alerts.

Tools for working together and communicating

These days, businesses can’t do without email, chat apps like Slack, and videoconferencing tools like Zoom. They’re also essential to training if you use them to talk to clients.

You can chat with your new customers, share most of your digital client onboarding tools, and hold onboarding meetings this way.

Checking your digital identity

You can use digital identity verification (like fingerprints, 2FA, and MFA) to ensure your clients are who they say they are and keep their private information safe when signing up. Adding this simple step to your process will help you build trust, ensure everyone follows the rules, and stop scams.

Email signatures and digital agreements

Nowadays, most contracts are signed electronically. Your contract management software may have an integration or a built-in tool that lets you do this.

Contracts and signatures were mainly done through email (with a picture or photo of the signature) before these tools came along. E-signatures are not only easier to use but also legal and can be enforced. They are also safe in the cloud.

Chatbots and virtual assistants that use AI

More than just an easy way to client onboarding, adding a robot to your website is a good idea. That way, you can help new customers find information on your site, answer their questions, and get help as they get started. A chatbot or virtual helper can also lead them through web-based onboarding steps like setting up a portal or signing documents.

Use of Data Analytics for Customization

A customer data platform (CDP) takes information from your website, marketing, CRM, and other sources. It puts it all together to make automation and show you how to make the onboarding process more beneficial for each client. For instance, you can use data to send people emails specifically about what they’re looking for on your website and how they use your services.

Onboarding for Mobile

The best client onboarding option works well on mobile devices and is simple for new clients to get to. Everything should be optimized for a smooth and easy experience for users, whether they’re logging in on their phone, tablet, or laptop.