How steps are classified
Each step is matched against keyword rules:
- Automate: sending documents, invoices, forms and reminders; creating folders, tasks and accounts; scheduling links; data entry between systems. These follow fixed rules and run the same for every client.
- Human: kickoff and strategy calls, reviewing answers, setting expectations, introductions, anything involving judgement or relationship.
- Hybrid: steps where automation prepares and a person finishes, such as a welcome email drafted from a template but personalised, or chasing that escalates to a call after two automated reminders.
Steps that match no rule are marked “Review” for you to decide. Time saved assumes automated steps save 90% of their time and hybrid steps 50%. These are rough planning figures, not measurements.
Onboarding moments to keep personal
- The first conversation after signing: it reassures them they made the right choice.
- Explaining what happens next and what you need from them.
- Introducing the people they will work with.
- The first progress check-in.
Common mistakes
- Sending five automated emails in the first hour. Space them and explain what each is for.
- Automating chasers with no human follow-up when clients go quiet.
- No one owning the workflow, so it breaks silently when a tool changes.
Read client onboarding automation: what to automate and what to keep personal, then estimate payback with the Automation ROI Calculator.