You've done everything possible to get new clients to notice your kickbutt offerings.
- Providing quality on time, every time
- Discounts!
- Memorable, marvelous marketing campaigns
Your hard work and smarts are finally paying off with a firehose pipeline of customers who want to buy from you and only you.
That's great and all, but do you have what it takes to ensure that those prospective customers become loyal clients?
There's one more important thing left for you to do to scale your marketing agency and skyrocket revenue. You need a client onboarding template.
Omg. Lookit! We've got one right here with your name it.
Our client onboarding form has everything you need for a successful customer onboarding process.
Let's dig in first with the prep work.
Preparation
We've all been through those awkward moments when we wanted to strike up a conversation with someone we kind of know, but aren't quite sure where to start. This is similar to the client onboarding process.
It goes something like this:
New clients have shown an interest in your business. Super!
They're ready to purchase but aren't sure how to get started. Bummer.
If you don't reduce the friction at this inflection point and smooth the transition to make it easier for them to get started with your services, you'll lose this interested customer!
This is the critical moment where a client onboarding template comes in to save you both.
Plus, having a professional onboarding template ready to deploy when prospects are ready to buy helps your brand make a good first impression.
Here are your prep work action steps:
- Providing quality on time, every
- Send tailored welcome documents to every new client
- Introduce your team
- Give the customer any additional information they should know about your company's services and policies
New clients are likely to purchase from companies with a friendly onboarding process. A client onboarding toolkit is a prerequisite to achieving this.
We'll break down your prep work action steps into more detail up next.
Client's Basic Details
Start a successful customer onboarding process with a friendly introduction.
Gathering new clients' basic information, like their name, title, and company name, is a step toward establishing effective client relationships.
The other essential new clients' details that are a must-have are contact details — phone numbers, email addresses, websites, etc.
Setting Expectations
The customer onboarding process should involve new clients and your company's clear goals and objectives.
Include agreed-upon deliverables, establish communication channels and identify success measurement KPIs in the client onboarding form.
This shows your company's dedication to meeting clients' expectations, leading to fruitful customer acquisition. It also positions your company as a professional, reliable brand and shows you're up to the task.
New Client Questionnaire
Send new customers an intake form to complete for a favorable client onboarding process.
The intake form should gather up-to-date information from the new clients and is paramount in helping you and other relevant team members understand their new customer.
After the client completes the intake form, review the information thoroughly and make sure it's stored where team members can access it easily.
Marketing and Media Tools
Typically, new clients have done a lot of research into their project and goals before they've contacted you.
So, your new client probably has a lot of resources in their arsenal that could help you move the project along. As such, be sure to request access to any resources the client deems useful for the work on the new client onboarding template.
These additional resources are building blocks for the new client onboarding checklist and will help surpass new customer expectations.
Onboarding Meeting
The client onboarding process template should detail what will take place in the first client onboarding meeting. The information collected on the client onboarding template will determine the direction to take during the meeting.
For example, you can choose to share a logical strategy you're using to develop new clients' workspace. This is critical knowledge to get you and the client on the same page.
Ask questions about any concerns you might have and allow room for new clients to ask questions. Remember to take notes, so you don't miss or forget key points.
The onboarding process benefits from building positive customer relationships if done right.
Strategize
To plan for a new client's growth, you'll want to engage in fact-finding into the client's goals first. Strategizing is key in the client onboarding checklist.
Here's how to achieve this in the client onboarding process:
Market Research
The first step is to investigate your new client's competitors. It's essential to get the latest information and know what your new client is up against.
Top Competitors
They say knowing your competitor is smart business. Something about keeping friends close and enemies closer. So, identify the five top competitors for your new client and what gives those competitors an advantage over your customer.
List the competitors' website links and even the keywords used in the meta title. Use competitor analysis tools such as Similarweb and SEMRush for diving deeper.
Competitor Ads
Research your onboarding client competitor ads' target market, the ads' placement, and how the competitors efficiently increase their campaign.
Another thing to consider is how your customer onboarding competitors create touchpoints for new customers and maximize advertising results.
Audit Websites and Traffic
Inspect your new customer's competitors' websites to know where their site traffic comes from and their SEO optimization strategies.
Use tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Ubersuggest to learn how you can give your new clients a competitive edge.
Marketing Strategy
The client onboarding process template involves developing ways in which your new clients may shift their business to top levels. Again, consulting a digital agency is helpful if you don't know how to plan your marketing strategy.
Target Persona
After putting together the relevant information and detailed metrics, the next step is to outline your new customer's ideal prospects and target audience. Describe their demographics, drivers, and pain points for a new client to figure out a solution.
Goals
Use the new client's target audience to create a series of goals. The intention is to increase the new clients' company awareness, leads, and drive sales.
Outline the steps for how your agency will increase customer acquisition and website traffic for your new client in great detail.
Value Proposition
Think of the unique features your new client's products or services possess that you can highlight to attract their target customers.
A promise for value to be delivered improves customer understanding, drives sales, and builds customer engagement. They should be relevant and valuable solutions for the top priority needs of their target customers.
Brief The Team
Assign the new client a team for their project. Ensure you're moving together with relevant team members for successful client onboarding.
Client briefs
The briefs should be part of the new client onboarding template. Provide new clients with documents containing:
- Relevant, detailed information
- Product or service they offer
- Questionnaire responses
- Marketing strategy you've outlined
These are essential assets the team needs to carry out a smooth project from start to finish.
Client handoffs
Schedule a meeting with the team assigned to the client's project. During the meeting, elaborate on all the aspects of the new client and the task at hand.
Assign responsibilities such as team lead and stating the relevant clients' communication lines. Inform the client of the team and who's handling what.
Putting workflows into project systems
The client onboarding template should include standardized project workflows.
Have a proven sequence of steps through which the project is accomplished. List all the project details and identify how they will fit into the project management workflow.
Project management software provides relevant tools for organizing workflow. You can use other tools such as a cloud-hosted Google Drive folder and Notion page to build the project workflow you want.
Kickoff
The project is about to start, and the team members and clients must set the vision for the project for the next few months.
First-Month Plan
We all know that failing to plan is planning to fail.
So during the first month, you've got to create a work progress record.
Incorporate all the work plans for the new client during the onboarding process for the next four weeks. Define the path, ideas to be implemented, and how those implementations will contribute to the overall goal.
Setup Reporting Templates and Tools
Reporting tools come in handy for demonstrating how the project is moving forward. Setting up these templates helps you display detailed project metrics.
In addition, these tools allow options for client access and ability to view or share completed reports. Reporting also adds transparency to the project and keeps clients at ease.
Kickoff Meeting
At this point in the client onboarding template, you must have a clear purpose for the project kickoff meeting.
Schedule the meeting and inform the client and relevant team members. Follow up to ensure the stakeholders confirm their attendance.
When you hold the meeting, try and get a shared understanding of what needs to be done and agree on how you will collaborate during the entire project lifetime.
Research reports anatomy
After the meeting, you should create a report discussing the client's problem you're solving, the methods you'll use, the expected results, and the conclusions.
Acknowledgments and references should be included for a complete report. This is necessary for validating solid elements of the clients' products or services.
Project Launch
After achieving your objectives in the client onboarding checklist, the next step is to launch the project. This is the real deal — the fun part — that follows the client onboarding process.
First, create a new client workspace consisting of all the onboarding documents for the project's official papers.
After compiling the project objectives, deliverables, and timelines, it's time to get the client's approval and set project in motion. You can then add clients to your project management software to keep them on the same page.
Follow up
Post Onboarding Meeting
When it's all said and done, you can mark off the new client onboarding checklist.
Send your clients emails to request a meeting. The post-on-boarding meeting will help you understand their customer experience, track onboarding success, and how you can improve for a future new client onboarding template.
Ongoing educational sequences
You should regularly train new clients on your onboarding process through channels such as webinars or email newsletters. In addition, keep your the client informed of any news or changes and bring any project concerns to their attention quickly.
Keep Clients Engaged
You and your new client should agree on the best way to communicate. The channel should provide convenient tools to share information and chat with your new client and your team quickly and easily.
Strengthening client relationships with prompt, clear communication and easy channels in which to do it keeps them engaged and clears misunderstandings.
Conclusion
A new customer onboarding template/form is necessary for ensuring customer satisfaction and creating a high customer lifetime value.
The best asset of a customer onboarding strategy is providing the new client with a frictionless entry point into your team. In addition, the client onboarding process matters as it determines the new numbers of subscriptions, sign-ups, and purchases.
Your action steps for a kickbutt client onboarding process:
- Get all the relevant information — client details, competitor details, KPIs, measurements, reports — and store where all parties can easily access it.
- Assign a team to your new client and make the necessary introductions.
- Engage in a client kickoff meeting to get everyone on the same page and details fleshed out.
- Ensure transparency into critical business processes. Make sure clients can access data and reporting so they can keep track of the milestones and feel good about where the project is headed.
- Get a post onboarding meeting scheduled so you can ensure the future success of a good customer onboarding process.
Following the client onboarding template earnestly works for the best onboarding strategy. The client onboarding process, when done correctly, makes customers comfortable and creates customer convenience in the client's ongoing relationship.
Ready to get your very own new client onboarding guide? Download it HERE.
If you need assistance with client onboarding, don't hesitate to hit us up. Our team is ready to get all the obstacles out of your way!
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