3 Onboarding Process Steps to Impress Your Clients
Following the right onboarding process steps can help you make an amazing first impression on your clients and it will help you create a smooth, organized process as clients work with you, too! This is important because being easy to work with is one of the best traits you can possess as a service provider.
When clients have a smooth, almost effortless experience working with you, they’re much more likely to send you more client referrals. And getting more referrals will help you grow your business with LESS marketing! On the contrary, if your clients have a rough, difficult client experience when they work with you, they most likely won’t send you any referrals at all and they may even badmouth you to other people — and believe me, having past clients talk about how terrible you were to work with is the LAST thing you want as a service provider.
Luckily, with these three simple onboarding process steps, you can make it EASY and effortless for clients to work with you, which is going to help you attract more referrals and it’ll make your life less stressful because you’ll cut down on miscommunication between you and your clients.
Onboarding Process Step 1: Officially book the client with a paid invoice and signed agreement.
I NEVER EVER consider a client officially booked, unless they’ve paid an invoice with their first payment or deposit AND they’ve signed my agreement. This ensures that the client is 100% serious about working with you before you reserve their spot and you stop other people from booking it.
Sending an agreement first and having them sign it also allows you to communicate clearly about everything that is (and isn’t) included in the package that the client just purchased. This is important because it will help you down the road if a client wants to add on an additional request or service that they didn’t originally pay for. When you have a signed agreement to reference to that didn’t include the extra item they asked for, you can politely tell them they can add the extra request on for an extra fee, so this way, you’ll actually get paid for the extra work that you’re doing with no conflicts or miscommunication.
Onboarding Process Step 2: Email your client a welcome packet or welcome page.
As soon as a client has been officially booked by paying their invoice and signing their agreement, you need to send them their welcome information to help them prepare to get started with working with you.
A welcome packet is a PDF document with all the welcome info in it that you’d send to your client as an email attachment. And a welcome page is a link on your website with all the welcome info on it that you email to clients once they book you. You can choose to do one or the other, whichever you prefer!
A welcome packet or welcome page should make a client feel “warm and fuzzy” and excited about their decision to work with you, plus it should be communicating need to know information about the process for working with you.
A few examples of what to include in a welcome packet/page are:
A reassuring message that they made a great decision to work with you
Past client testimonials to reiterate the results you’ve gotten from past clients
What they need to provide to you to get started on the work (i.e. completing a questionnaire, sending you photos, send you their website copy, etc.)
How communication will be handled as you work together (i.e. communicating by email, communicating via a project management tool, communicating through text, etc.)
Having all of this information communicated with clients upfront helps to ensure that you have a smooth process working together and it cuts down significantly on miscommunication. Plus, it really impresses your clients because it’ll show them that you really have your stuff together!
Onboarding Process Step 3: Host a client kickoff call.
Starting your client interactions with a kickoff call is the best way to get started because it allows you and your clients to verbally communicate from the start.
This is important because sometimes there’s background information that a client needs to provide to you in order for you to get them the best results possible from working with you. And only gathering this background info via questionnaires usually leads to only vague answers from clients that doesn’t help you much. And some clients don’t even answer all the questions on your questionnaires!
To get real, in depth answers from clients, it’s best to do it over a kickoff call. This way, you can have true clarity on exactly what the client needs from you to get the best results possible.
Through my kickoff calls, the background info I’ve gotten has always been 10x more helpful than just relying on a client questionnaire.
You can use a scheduling tool like, Calendly or Acuity Scheduling, to have your client schedule their kickoff call without all the back and forth emails, too!
To summarize, the three steps to a successful client onboarding process include:
Officially book the client with a paid invoice and signed agreement.
Email your client a welcome packet or welcome page.
Host a client kickoff call.
When you do these three things, you can expect your client interactions to be a lot smoother and your life will be a lot less hectic with clear communication and a clear process to start on the right foot with each client.
