Getting your onboarding process right is crucial to your business’s success. Creating a frictionless customer experience will determine whether those clients use your services again or refer you to prospects in the future. 

Implementing a simple and humanised onboarding system can ensure that your client has a smooth and pleasant journey throughout. You benefit from being able to foresee potential problems and therefore develop an honest and transparent relationship with your client. 

I would highly recommend creating a 1 – 2 page onboarding document, with a checklist and summary. This will allow you to keep everything in one place. The structure of your document is highly important! It needs to be easy to follow and simple to use. Keep it succinct and adaptable. 

At the top of my onboarding document I like to have these three questions:

• What does success look like to you?
• What would you like to achieve?
• What is your biggest obstacle?

I do this as it acts as a little reminder that I am working with a real person, with real goals and aspirations. It will also uncover motivations, how we can measure success, and thus ensure we can continue to work together.

The onboarding rule I live by is, to gather all of my client’s important information right at the beginning of the project. Including but are not limited to, the following:

• Invoice details
• Branding (if applicable)
• Birthday/important dates (for customer appreciation)
• Best communication channel
• How frequently they would like to be updated
• If there are any other stakeholders I should be aware of

Lastly, I always suggest dates for our next meeting within this onboarding email, as that is a sure-fire way to make sure the project moves with constant momentum.