578: New Client Experience: Why Your Onboarding Process Matters
Brought to you by: Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
How does your onboarding process impact your client relationships? We discuss why a smooth, clear onboarding experience is crucial for building trust and client retention. We break down common pitfalls, such as unnecessary complexity and redundant steps, and share strategies for making the process simple yet effective. From setting clear expectations to using digital forms efficiently, we cover everything you need to create an onboarding experience that sets the tone for long-term client satisfaction. Plus, we share personal insights from a frustrating onboarding experience they had, highlighting why clarity and efficiency matter.
Main Topics Covered:
The role of onboarding in client retention
Common onboarding mistakes and how to fix them
Balancing necessary and unnecessary complexity
Using automation and digital forms effectively
Setting clear boundaries and expectations upfront
Main Takeaway: “The smoother and clearer your onboarding process, the more likely you are to gain loyal, raving fans instead of one-time customers.”
Your onboarding process is more than just paperwork—it’s your first opportunity to impress your clients and set the tone for their entire experience with you. If the process is confusing, redundant, or overwhelming, potential clients may walk away before ever booking a service. But when onboarding is smooth, intuitive, and well-communicated, it builds trust and confidence. Clients feel cared for from the very beginning, making them far more likely to stay with you long-term. A well-structured onboarding experience isn’t just a necessity—it’s a powerful tool for client retention and turning first-time users into loyal, raving fans who recommend you to others. Keep it simple, clear, and efficient, and watch how it transforms your business! 🚀✨
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Onboarding process, client experience, smooth process, clear communication, client retention, trust building, necessary complexity, unnecessary complexity, digital forms, client expectations, follow-up steps, automation, boundaries, ideal clients, onboarding audit.
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:01
Hi. I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. We are the host of pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you for coming on this journey with us. Whether it's your first episode or many that you've listened to. Today is episode 578, and we're going to be talking about why your onboarding process matters. We want to thank pet sitters associates for sponsoring today's episode and also our executive producers through Patreon. They are Adriana, Barbie Beck and Erica, Jan and Janie, Jenny And Julie, Katherine and Keith Liz and Lori Lucy, Sarah Savannah, Scott and Teresa and Yvonne. Thank you for finding value in the show. Thank you for giving back supporting, listening to the episodes, sharing with a friend. We appreciate it all. If you are listening and would like to become an executive producer with them, you can go to pet sitter, confessional.com/support, to see the ways that you can help out. So
Collin 00:53
recently, Meghan and I won a gift certificate to a local business that we wanted to use, and we were excited to try out their services for the first time, or something we had never done before, but the entire onboarding process and actually getting up to the point of using those services and redeeming that gift certificate was quite a headache for us. We had a lot of different steps and was pretty confusing, and it made us really think about the importance of having a new client experience that is really emblematic of how you want your business to operate and how you want to represent your business to new clients, and why that experience really showcases you as a business. We
Meghan 01:30
don't want our businesses to be confusing. We want them to be very simple, straightforward. Clients don't want to be confused. They want to know exactly what the next steps are, to have that clear process and that roadmap laid out for them. So
Collin 01:42
when we talk about onboarding here, we're really talking about the entire process of bringing a new person into your business that's going to educate them about what you do and how you do it. It's going to expose them to your professionalism and all of these experiences. It's going to allow them to see you for who you are, and is really the first taste of their experience with you. I know some people may include the marketing messaging and all of this stuff as part of the onboarding, but we're really going to start with somebody who is interested in your using your services and has contacted you and is ready to actually book you, but you have to walk them through several steps. So when we talk about onboarding, that's where we're focused on right now, but
Meghan 02:25
the process needs to be smooth. It's super important to have that smooth onboarding process, because that's what clients expect. They want convenience, they want clear communication, they want minimal friction. They want to know exactly ABC What do I do? And so marketers often say, when you have somebody interested in your business, you need to clarify for them what the three steps are, A, B, C, 123, don't make it any more complicated than it has to be, and don't really include any more steps than the first three. It's like going to a restaurant and trying to figure out, what do I want on the menu, and there's 87 different options. It's too much. People just want to know the first couple and then when they complete those, you can tell them the next steps after that. Yeah, but
Collin 03:04
this, again, is really their first impression with you. This is beyond the marketing messaging, the videos that they see, the reels or the ads on Facebook that you're running. This is what sets the tone for the entire client relationship that you are going to have together over the duration of their using your services. So what do you want that to be? Do you we want that to be smooth, right? We want that to be seamless and frictionless and easy for them to come on board. We want to showcase how we operate. Because if they have a bad experience there, that's what they apply to and take into every other experience that you want them to have in your business,
Meghan 03:45
they say, Ah, this first impression wasn't good, so probably the next one and in the following step won't be easy for me, either. That first impression is so important, not only in relationships, but business. It's kind of a relationship we want that smooth onboarding, because it builds trust in clients. It increases that client retention that we all really want. We want clients coming back year after year, pet after pet. We want them to be talking about us and to be our raving fans out in the community and on the digital spaces and to their friends and coworkers.
Collin 04:15
You mentioned that word trust, this is really where we start building that we have to effectively take somebody who knows nothing about us, who's never experienced us before, and turn them into that raving fan, that raving client that uses us every time they have a need. That entire process, it's not easy. It doesn't happen instantaneously, and it's nothing that we should take for granted, that takes hard work, that takes intentionality in thinking through every little step, in every detail that builds trust when we say we're going to do something and we follow through. That's that builds trust that doesn't happen the first time we say, we scoop the litter and we scoop the litter that happens when we say the next step in this process is for you to get an email, and then they get an email you.
Meghan 04:59
But this process isn't always easy. That mistakes can be made in our onboarding process. It could be filling out forms online. Maybe there's a misspelling in a form, or the link doesn't go exactly where we need it to, or they have to repeat the same info in person at the meet and greet, you ask digitally how much food the pet gets, and then you repeat that process in the meet and greet the client may perceive that as redundant or not necessary, or that you're just
Collin 05:24
not paying attention. This is especially prevalent if you ask a question over the phone when somebody calls you or they text you, and then you have them fill out that same information on a form, and then you ask that same information in person, or you ask it in another way or in a different way. This is annoying to clients, because they'll say, I already told you this. Why don't you already have this filled out? Don't you already have this information somewhere? And then there's just inconsistent communication. Maybe you change the onboarding process midstream, where you are doing all things over the phone, you're doing all phone conversations, and then suddenly and unexpectedly, you start emailing the person, and without telling them, the next step is going to be you're going to get an email from you, and then you're confused why they're confused, or why they didn't get the email. Or maybe you say, Oh, I collect all this information over the phone. But then you say, well, actually, I need to do an in person consultation. And it really stems from us not understanding the best ways and methods to collect information or to communicate with people throughout the process. Yeah, we
Meghan 06:22
definitely don't want to confuse clients, because they don't know what the next step is. If we ask clients to repeatedly create profiles, maybe we have a form on our website, and then you review that and say, Okay, well, now the next step is to go to my website and fill out another form. Well, that's probably not going to have a good taste in the client's mouth, because they're having to basically do double the work. And this gets to a conversation that Collin and I have repeatedly of how much hand holding do we want to do for clients in our business? And this is definitely something you have to decide for yourself. Do you want to be super high end, super high touch, where all the client needs to do is fill in their address and the pets that they have and the names of their pets, and then you just show up and collect the rest of the rest of the information at the meet and greet. Or do you want the client to do all of the work before the meet and greet, everything about their pets, feeding and walking regime? Unfortunately, there's no right way to do this. It's whatever workflow works best for you and what you want your clients to experience as
Collin 07:18
long as you communicate that to them, that's what's really critical here, is that it doesn't really matter what the process is. Of course it does. Right? You can't just say, Okay, now you're going to jump through three hoops of fire, and you need to climb Mount Everest and get back to me, right? There is some sense that we have to apply to this. However, it is our job. It is beholden to us to communicate what the entire process is what's the expectation of the client? Because if you have a client who is expecting a very high touch hand holding experience, and you don't tell them that actually you need to go fill out three different forms and answer 100 questions, that's not going to land well with them the same way. For the other thing, maybe somebody really wants to fill out all of the detailed questions themselves, and instead, you withhold that, and then you go all high end and high touch, letting people know upfront the expectations and how much work really is. What we're getting down to here is on them, that cuts out all of the confusion and really lets the client know how what to do next, which is just what we didn't have. Whenever we went to go to this local business, we had this free gift certificate that we wanted to use. First, there was confusion as to whether we even had the gift certificate. They didn't believe us, right? And so we had to prove to them that we did that. And then there was we needed to create schedule, the actual consultation, but we also had to create individual profiles for each of us, and then after we created those, they were going to do a phone consultation. And so we scheduled the phone consultation, which was supposed to be different than our in person consultation, but it turned out that the phone consultation was supposed to happen at the actual location of this business, and Meghan and I thought it was going to be in our home. So we had to rush over to do the phone consultation, and then we were asked all of the same questions that were in our online profiles that we had already created in person. And then we actually had the actual consultation before we could get to the redeeming of this thing gift certificate in the first place. And the whole thing was just a constant reminder of, this is unpleasant. This is not fun. This was supposed to be an interesting experience for us. We were excited about actually getting to do this. It was something we had kind of thought about before, but now it was free, and we were going through this process, and it just robbed us of that fun and of enjoyment of what we were actually there to do, and how much more so as business owners ourselves, do we need to cultivate that relationship through every step with our potential clients? It's not just about meeting the needs of our existing clients and basically saying, Once you run through the gauntlet, I'll take care of you. It's I'm here for you at every step of the stage, every step along. Along the way, I am here to make sure that you have an amazing experience, so that the first time you're wowed by me isn't whenever you get home and your dog is happy or isn't whenever you get that first report. It's when I tell you that what to expect during this onboarding, and then I follow through with that. It's keeping our promise at every stage.
Meghan 10:21
But there is a balance here between barriers and simplicity. Now, we had a lot of barriers at the Med Spa. Unbeknownst to us, we were just handed a free gift certificate, and we thought, oh, wow, cool. We're gonna go get this thing. But turns out, there were a lot of hoops we had to jump through. There is a fine line between that and going, too simplistic, going, I just take anybody and everybody. If you just call me, I'll show up and take care of your pets. Well,
Collin 10:47
especially in a pet care business, right? We have to, we actually require a lot of information, an extensive amount of detail, before we can execute. Well, we we have to know how, what kind of medications pets are on and how to administer those we have to know behavioral quirks. We have to know feeding regimes. We have to know all of these things for not just our safety, but the pet safety, our team safety and well being of everybody and make sure that our service is delivered accurately, right, that there is a bulk of information that we just have to have. It's necessary in order to do our what we need to do.
Meghan 11:26
Even if you don't think that the service you offer is complicated, there is still a lot of information that you have to have. When we collect that data for the pet details that's crucial for, again, our safety, their safety, the quality of care we want to give the best care, which means we need a lot of details. We're not going to apologize for that. And then emergency preparedness is your dog on special heart medication? Well, it probably means that during the summer months, we're not going to walk them as long because we don't want there to be a safety
Collin 11:52
issue. What this really boils down to is we as a business owner have to find the line in the balance between necessary complexity and unnecessary complexity. That necessary complexity being all of this information that we need to provide accurate and amazing care, versus unnecessary complexity of duplicate forms or repetitive questions or unnecessary hoops and steps that people have to jump through without streamlining it, that's what we want to diminish, if anything, we need to find ways to reduce as much unnecessary complexity so that we can add the necessary complexity and make that as robust as possible. What happens is, when both the necessary complexity and the unnecessary complexity are high, it means it turns off clients, because it's just not worth it to them. It's the VA. They don't see the value. So finding ways to reduce the unnecessary so that we can get that necessary and not feel like we're dragging it out of clients, not feel like we're just banging against a door that nobody's answering. We can do that by making the process smooth, simple and straightforward. Something that
Meghan 13:01
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Collin 13:55
this pre onboarding step is what gets missed from a lot of people. Of saying, Hey, I'm so glad you contacted me and you want to get started. Here's what the next steps are going to look like before we can start rendering service, and whether that's verbally or whether that is on your page or something, just letting people know what to expect really makes this whole thing. It sets it off on such an amazing foot. And
Meghan 14:18
then next is the streamline forms you need this use the software effectively to gather information digitally one time, try your best to not ask the client the same thing over and over again. Yeah. The
Collin 14:28
great part about using a digital collection form like this is that you can link it to other things. So maybe you have a Google Forms where you have that information entered, it syncs over to a Google sheet. You can then copy that information from Google sheets into your software or into a profile that you create, or whatever, or maybe you're, you know, take all this information through paper forms. Well, you can scan those OCR and then copy and paste that somewhere so that you're not having to, you aren't having to, you know, copy and paste so many times, and the client isn't having to do
Meghan 14:59
that either. Sure whatever you choose to do, make sure that it is consistent. Stick with a clearly communicated onboarding routine. So again, whether that's phone, virtual or in person, but try your best not to mix them randomly, because again, that creates confusion in the client. They're not likely to go with you. They think, oh, this is too hard. I don't understand. I just want to walk away, which is kind of the point that we got to at the Med Spa. I was so confused on what was actually happening. I was getting really frustrated and but because this thing was free, I was like, Okay, well, we're committed to this. I really want this thing, but I almost walked away a few times. Yeah,
Collin 15:35
it really got us questioning. You just had us fill out this forum online. Why are you asking me for my birthday again? Okay, why are you asking me for these things? Go to the profile. It's all there. It was frustrating. It was inconsistent, and it was not using technology very well, right? They had these tools, they had these systems, they had these processes, or so we thought, and there was no connection between them. There was so much redundancy. And we when we use technology, we don't want to replace anything. We don't replace relationships and one on one communication. What we want to do is enhance clarity. We want to make things simple. And so whether you are using pen and paper and phone calls for your business and onboarding process, we know there are a ton of businesses run like that, that is totally fine. What is really important here is that you have a system in place, and that whether you're using a booking software or pen and paper and calendar, that you know and know the steps of what's required, so that you don't lose track and the client knows what to expect
Meghan 16:39
when you keep things simple for not only clients but yourself, it is easier to set those boundaries. Having those clear boundaries helps attract ideal clients and repel the ones that are not suitable for your business. You don't want to work with them, because when clients know your office hours are nine to five, Monday through Friday, they know when to contact you and when it's not office hours. They know, okay, well, I probably shouldn't expect a response over the weekend.
Collin 17:04
Well, and in the context here, of the onboarding, when clients know that the boundaries of what it requires, what's required to become one of your clients, it really prevents them from trying to skip the steps or jump over things and create a shortcut. And this is what's hard, right? We get this a lot, where somebody says, I want you to walk my dog tomorrow. And we say, okay, here are the three steps it takes to become a client. And they say, I don't have time for that. I want you to walk my dog tomorrow. And we go, then we can't walk your dog tomorrow unless you go through these steps that again, it's boundaries. It's also setting the expectation of how we want to be worked with and make sure that they know that, because if you start off a relationship being able to cut corners and make shortcuts and get around your policies, you're just setting them up to do that every time they need you, and it's more and more headache every time it happens, which
Meghan 17:57
is why some pet care businesses choose not to do last Minute bookings. They say that if a client contacts us last minute, we're not going to take them on because that sets a bad precedent, that we're going to be available last minute every time, and that may not be what they want their business to look like. So think about ways that you can improve your onboarding process right now. Maybe you do an audit of your onboarding experience from the client's perspective. You fill out the forms like a client. Would you? Obviously you're not gonna have a phone conversation with yourself, but yeah, maybe I am my own worst client,
Collin 18:31
but you could have friends do it right. You can have family do it. Maybe you could have existing clients tell you what the onboarding experience was like. If you have team members have them do it, the more eyes and ears and experiences you can have going through this process will allow you to make sure it's strengthened, and that a lot of the assumptions, because what happens is we know what the outcome is that we want, and we know the process and the steps that go on behind the scenes. But sometimes those assumptions can mean that we skip over steps unintentionally through the onboarding process. And we assume people will know what's going to happen next, when, in all actuality, they don't, because it's all in our head. If
Meghan 19:09
you So, if you don't have an onboarding process, create a checklist for one what exact steps do clients need to do. And if you do have a process already, make sure that everything you put on that checklist is being done currently. Also check to make sure that you have follow ups for clients if they miss a step and need to go back and do something, or if it's been several days and you need to follow up and say, Hey, are you still interested in this? Try to automate those, if possible,
Collin 19:34
or at least have scripts that you've pre written ahead of time. I know this is a big step that we took in our own business of having these because we were having to remind people or these same situations kept coming up and coming up. So we just thought, well, we need to make a Google Doc with all the same stuff so that we can just go copy and paste it and be done with this and not have to waste any more brain power. So just having these scripts that you need for various steps along the way make sure that you are also consistent. Stint in how you're communicating and telling people with this so that you can reduce that variation and confusion. So
Meghan 20:05
when you think back to your onboarding process, is it a smooth process? Are there any kinks or mistakes that need to be worked out? Find a simple yet effective process. Make sure that you have boundaries set up and that your process ultimately is clear, so the client knows what to expect and
Collin 20:21
that it matches the services that you're trying to offer. An onboarding experience for somebody that is wanting overnights would look different than somebody who's wanting drop in, visits versus walks versus cat sitting. However you have your business structured, make sure that the questions that you're asking, the steps throughout the process and all that is designed to cultivate trust towards the service that that person ultimately wants, and all the while making sure that you are also communicating those boundaries. What those next steps are. You can't cut corners. You can't contact me at 9am or 9pm sorry. In order to keep this moving forward, you set the tone, and the client's response to your tone and your boundaries and barriers in your process will tell you whether they're actually going to be a good fit for your business in the long run. Because never forget, this is a two way street. Yes, they want to use your services and how you use them, but do you want to work with this person? Part of that interview process is the onboarding and whether they actually work through that in the way that is beneficial to everybody,
Meghan 21:28
or if they just complain their way through it, I have to do this next step, and I didn't. I found this confusing. I'm not sure what to do, and you have to make those decisions yourself. If you think your process is simple and it gets you what you need, but you have somebody that complains at every step of the way. They're probably not a good fit for your company. If you would like to share your onboarding process or success or horror story with other listeners, you can email us at Pet Sitter confessional@gmail.com or you can look us up on Facebook and Instagram. At Pet Sitter confessional, we would love to know how you have changed your onboarding process over the years. I know the 13 years we've been doing this, ours looks completely different than we did, very different early on. We would also like to thank pet sitters, associates and our Patreon people for supporting today's show, and we will talk with you next time bye. You
