After Hours© 012: Onboarding & Offboarding Clients

A lot of submissions for After Hours involve questions about systems.

And systems is a huge topic to cover because there are so many elements to the correct system set-up and usage. 

So today, let’s talk about just one part of your client process inside your business system. 

Onboarding and Offboarding your client. (Yes, okay it’s actually two parts technically).
 
Today's topic: What is client onboarding and offboarding? 
Estimated read time: ~4 minutes (Skim time: 90 seconds)

What kind of problem is this?

Not having an onboarding and offboarding system is a Clarity problem. 

Why? Because you most definitely need to have these both in place for happy, recurring and referring clients. 

Think of your business like a cruise ship. 

Your client has bought tickets to a weekend cruise. 

But you’ve made them wade through the beach with their suitcase to get onto the ship.

No help with their baggage, no itinerary for the weekend and no chauffeur to their room. 

Eek that’s a bad start to a cruise right? 

Well that’s how your client feels when you have no onboarding process. 
Lost. Thrown onto the ship with no help or guidance. 

And the same goes for onboarding; you’ve thrown them off the ship along with their luggage. 

So the cruise could be great but it doesn't matter. 
The whole experience is remembered by the bad. It’s ruined.
They’re absolutely never buying a ticket to this cruise. 

And that's what it feels like to your client to have no onboarding or offboarding experience. 
 
Read the next section for the Boring Studios story or skip to how to make your documents. 

What experience do you want your client to have?

When we first started freelancing, we had no recurring clients. They never came back.

We had no idea about systems, processes, documentation and definitely not onboarding and offboarding.
 
Then, we added all our systems in place, including our onboarding and offboarding, and our clients would purely send us emails to say hi, see if there was anything we could do with them.

They were so keen to work with us again at any level because the experience was so good. 

A bonus is that with onboarding and offboarding you also save a bunch of time not having to explain client portals, contracts, terms and conditions, communication, where the assets are or how to use them – why?
Because all that information is in your onboarding and offboarding doc. 

This week you will

Step one: Cover your bases 
 
Your terms, conditions, contracts, proposal, timelines, offers, client process and client portal should be made before you make the onboarding document.

Things like;

• How to communicate with you (usually through the client portal)
• Key terms from your contract (like who owns the work after)
• Timelines and process so your client knows when things will be done (from your Proposal)
• Client portal to house your comms, projects, upload documents/assets and keep your client across the project from start to finish

Step two: What to include in your onboarding?

• A warm welcome
• Reiterate project, timelines, process, communication methods and key terms
• A link to the client portal which explains how to use it 

Step three: What to include in your offboarding? 

• A warm thank you
• Reiterate completed project tasks
• A link to their assets through Dropbox or whatever you use to deliver these.
• Link to a testimonial space for them to leave you a review.
• Referral deal such as “refer a client and you’ll both receive 20% off”  

Step four: When to give these documents to the client?

• Onboarding should be provided once the deposit is paid, the contract has been signed.
• Send with an email that welcomes them to your creative world
• Offboarding should be provided once all projects are completed and final payment has been made. This gives your client full un-watermarked access to their assets.

Clients want to be given the silver service. Give it to them. 

Your client might not always be right but they are paying you for something. 

Just like going to a hairdresser, you expect a good haircut. 
Just like paying a mechanic, you expect your car to work. 
At the end of the day, you are providing a service. 
You are the service provider. 

So make sure it’s enjoyable, understandable and seamless for the client.
They are in your hands.  

That’s how you get recurring clients. 

Chat soon,
Penelope