How can I use automations to improve my customer onboarding experience?
If you’re searching for ways to make your customer onboarding smoother, faster, and more impressive, automation might be your secret weapon. Businesses today are expected to deliver a quick and seamless onboarding experience, but juggling emails, forms, meetings, and tasks can make it tough to keep everything on track. So, how can you use automations to create a better first impression, reduce friction, and set your customers up for success?
Why does automated onboarding matter for customer satisfaction?
A great onboarding process is the difference between a loyal customer and one who quietly disappears. Manual onboarding is slow, inconsistent, and prone to missed steps or delayed communication. When you automate, you deliver the same top-tier welcome to every new customer—no matter how busy you are. Automated onboarding systems can guide clients through sign-ups, form completion, welcome emails, educational content, meeting scheduling, and follow-ups, all while saving your team hours every week. Research from Harvard Business Review found that effective onboarding programs can improve customer retention by 82% and increase productivity by over 70% (HBR). That’s a major impact for small businesses and growing companies.
What are the most common onboarding steps you can automate?
Most customer onboarding journeys include a handful of repeatable steps, making them ideal candidates for automation:
- Welcome emails and personalized messages: Instantly greet every new customer with branded emails, guides, or intro videos.
- Custom forms and information collection: Automate the delivery and collection of intake forms or onboarding surveys, ensuring nothing gets missed (Custom Forms).
- Appointment scheduling: Let customers book their own onboarding calls or demos with an online calendar linked to your availability (Calendars / Appointment Scheduling).
- Task assignments and reminders: Send automated reminders to both your team and the customer about upcoming steps or documents needed.
- Education and training delivery: Automatically enroll new customers in welcome courses, email sequences, or send step-by-step tutorials (Email & SMS Marketing).
- Progress tracking and follow-up: Use automated check-ins, surveys, or feedback requests to ensure clients don’t drop off mid-process (Workflow / Automations).
- Reputation and review prompts: When onboarding is complete, trigger an automatic request for feedback or a review (Reputation / Review Management).
How do automations actually work in onboarding?
When you use a platform like Surge by Thrive, onboarding automation combines different features—forms, calendars, email sequences, and workflows—into a single, connected journey. For example, as soon as a new client signs up or fills out an inquiry form, they automatically receive a welcome email, access to a scheduling link, and a personalized checklist of next steps. Your team gets notified of new sign-ups, and progress is tracked in your CRM (CRM / Lead Capture). You can even add AI-powered chatbots (AI Bots) to answer FAQs or guide customers through the process 24/7. This reduces manual back-and-forth and creates a seamless, professional experience from the start.
How can small businesses build an automated onboarding workflow?
You don’t need to hire developers or invest in enterprise tools to set this up. With Surge by Thrive, you can:
- Map out your ideal onboarding journey: Write down every step a new customer should go through, from first contact to becoming fully active.
- Automate your intake forms: Build forms that capture all the information you need, and send automated responses or notifications.
- Connect your calendar: Offer self-booking links for onboarding calls, demos, or training.
- Create automated email and SMS sequences: Schedule reminders, next steps, and educational content to go out automatically.
- Set up progress tracking and tasks: Use workflows to trigger internal tasks and mark milestones for each customer.
- Gather feedback and reviews: Automate the request for testimonials or Google reviews once onboarding is complete.
What results should you expect from automating your onboarding process?
Businesses that automate onboarding see shorter onboarding times, fewer missed steps, and higher customer satisfaction. According to research from HubSpot, companies with automated onboarding report up to 50% reduction in time-to-value for new clients (HubSpot). Automating repetitive onboarding steps also frees up your team for higher-value tasks, leading to better employee engagement and less burnout. And when your onboarding feels effortless, customers are more likely to refer friends and stick around for the long haul.
How do you keep automations feeling personal and human?
Automation shouldn’t feel robotic. The key is to use personalized emails, custom content, and timely touchpoints. Tools like Surge by Thrive let you personalize each step using customer names, relevant details, and custom triggers based on behavior. You can even set up automated prompts for a real team member to jump in with a phone call or personal message if a customer seems stuck. The blend of automation with a human touch is what creates a five-star onboarding experience (Forbes).
Frequently Asked Questions about Automated Onboarding
Can onboarding automations handle complex client needs?
Absolutely. Modern platforms let you branch onboarding workflows based on customer type, product purchased, or even answers in forms, so each person gets a journey tailored to them.
What if my team isn’t technical?
No problem. Surge by Thrive’s workflow builder is drag-and-drop and comes with prebuilt templates for onboarding, lead capture, appointment scheduling, and more.
Does automating onboarding impact long-term customer relationships?
In a positive way! By removing friction and delivering a smoother start, automations increase satisfaction and set the tone for ongoing engagement.
Get started with automated onboarding using Surge by Thrive
If you’re ready to take your customer onboarding to the next level, try Surge by Thrive’s all-in-one automation platform. From Custom Forms to Appointment Scheduling, Workflow Automations, AI Chatbots, Reputation Management, Email & SMS Marketing, and CRM/Lead Capture, everything you need is in one place. Book a live demo or contact our team to see how you can wow your new customers and scale your business—without the overwhelm.