Onboarding new customers shouldn’t feel like herding cats. If you’re tired of chasing emails, updating spreadsheets, and apologizing for dropped balls, you’re not alone. This guide is for anyone responsible for getting customers up and running—whether you’re in sales ops, customer success, or just the only person willing to fix the mess. We'll walk through how to use Laserfocus to automate your onboarding process, cut out busywork, and actually make customers feel like you know what you’re doing.
Let’s get practical.
Why Onboarding Falls Apart (and Where Automation Actually Helps)
Most onboarding messes aren’t caused by bad intentions—they’re caused by: - Too many manual steps (copying info, checking boxes, sending reminders) - Zero visibility on who’s doing what, or what’s done - Forgetting something simple (like sending a welcome email) - Not knowing when a customer is stuck, or who’s supposed to act next
The good news: you don’t need fancy AI or a six-month IT project to fix this. Most problems come from the basics being dropped. Automation helps by: - Creating a consistent process, every time - Surfacing what’s next, so nothing gets lost - Nudging the right people, at the right moments - Freeing up your team to focus on actual customer needs
But don’t get starry-eyed—automation doesn’t fix a broken process. It just makes the chaos move faster if you’re not careful.
Step 1: Map Out Your Onboarding Steps (Don’t Skip This)
Before you touch any tools, jot down your actual onboarding steps. Not the idealized flowchart from a vendor pitch—the real steps your team follows, warts and all.
Get specific: - What happens after a contract is signed? - Who sends the welcome email? - When do you set up accounts, or schedule the kickoff call? - What info do you need from the customer, and when? - Where do things usually get stuck?
Pro tip: Ask your team what they really do, not what’s written in the SOP docs.
Why bother? If you automate confusion, you’ll just get faster confusion.
Step 2: Translate Steps into Laserfocus Tasks
Now, let’s get Laserfocus doing the heavy lifting. In Laserfocus, you build workflows by creating tasks, checklists, or automations for each step.
How to break it down: 1. Create a template for onboarding. This is your repeatable playbook for every new customer. 2. Add tasks for each actual step: - “Send welcome email” - “Create user accounts” - “Schedule kickoff call” - “Share onboarding docs” - “Verify billing info” - etc. 3. Assign owners. Who does what? Be specific. 4. Set deadlines or triggers. E.g., “Within 2 days of contract signature,” or “After kickoff call is done.”
What works: - Splitting tasks into bite-sized pieces. “Set up product access” is better than “Onboard customer.” - Including links or templates right in the task descriptions—no more digging around. - Using relative deadlines (“2 days after X”) instead of fixed dates.
What to skip: - Overcomplicating it. Don’t create 20 subtasks for things nobody cares about. - Automating rare exceptions. Handle those by hand.
Step 3: Automate the “Nagging” (Reminders, Updates, and Handovers)
This is where Laserfocus actually saves you time. Once your tasks are laid out, use automation to handle the drudge work.
Set up: - Automated reminders for overdue tasks. If someone hasn’t scheduled the kickoff call by day 3, Laserfocus pings them. - Automatic task assignment when a step is finished. E.g., once the account is created, the “Send training invite” task appears for the next team member. - Status updates to customers. If you want, Laserfocus can trigger templated emails when milestones are hit (“Your onboarding is halfway done!”).
Pro tip: Don’t spam your own team. Limit reminders to things that matter—a daily digest or a nudge after a real delay works better than constant pings.
What works: - Clear handoffs. When onboarding moves from sales to success, automation makes sure nothing gets left behind. - Surface blockers. If a customer hasn’t provided info, Laserfocus can highlight it so you’re not waiting in silence.
What doesn’t: - Pretending automation replaces human contact. Customers still want to hear from a real person, especially if they're stuck.
Step 4: Keep Track—Dashboards and Visibility
If you can’t see who’s onboarded and who’s stuck, you’re flying blind. Luckily, Laserfocus gives you dashboards and reports that don’t require a PhD to understand.
How to use them: - Monitor progress: See at a glance which customers are moving and which are stalled. - Spot patterns: Are most customers stalling at the same step? That’s a process issue, not a people problem. - Share updates: Use simple reports to keep your boss or team in the loop—no more cobbling together updates from Slack and email.
What works: - Reviewing dashboards weekly in team meetings. It keeps everyone honest. - Tagging “at risk” customers so you can jump in before they churn.
What doesn’t: - Obsessing over vanity metrics. Focus on what actually moves the needle (e.g., time to first value, not just “tasks completed”).
Step 5: Review, Rinse, Repeat
Here’s the boring but critical part: your process isn’t perfect, and it never will be. Automation lets you find the bottlenecks faster, but you still need to tweak.
How to improve: - Ask your team every month: “Where are we wasting time?” or “What do customers always ask for?” - Trim steps that add no value. - Update templates in Laserfocus as your process evolves.
What works: - Small, regular improvements beat massive overhauls. - Listening to the folks doing the work, not just management.
What doesn’t: - “Set it and forget it.” Automation is only as good as the process it’s running.
What to Ignore (For Now)
There’s a lot of shiny stuff in the onboarding world. Here’s what you can skip until you’ve nailed the basics: - AI-driven personalization: Most customers just want a clear path, not a chatbot. - Integrating every tool you own: Start with Laserfocus and your main communication channel. Add more if you need it. - Obsessing over NPS right away: Focus on getting customers live and happy first.
Wrap-Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate Often
Customer onboarding doesn’t need to be complicated. The real trick is getting the basics right, then automating the busywork so your team can actually help customers. With Laserfocus, you can build a process that’s clear, repeatable, and—most importantly—doesn’t make your team want to quit.
Start with a simple workflow, automate the repetitive stuff, and keep tuning as you go. You’ll save time, drop fewer balls, and make a better first impression. That’s what actually matters.
Now, go fix that onboarding chaos.