A week or so ago, I posted on Twitter about my firm's journey to onboard about 25 new payroll clients. We are now approaching 8 weeks since we started the work.
Below is a screenshot of the tweet:
We are knee-deep in the middle of onboarding these clients but there are already so many lessons. I'm going to talk about a few of them in this article in what I call lessons from the trenches.
- If you think it will go as smoothly as you imagined, awaken from your slumber. - I'm an optimistic person. In my mind, everything just works out. Then, those scenes in your brain start to play out in real life and you realize that you've been spending too much time in La-la land. My saving grace is that I try to plan for as many scenarios as possible or pivot quickly.
- Be sure everyone understands the process and what part they play. - I created the transition plan early on but somewhere between my travels it got lost. My team was onboarding the most complex clients first instead of the simpler ones. This proved to not be such a bad thing. Once we revisited the transition plan, the simpler clients took priority and were easier to move over because we worked out some mapping issues with the complex clients.
- Take the hits as they come but wear a helmet. - It is always my goal to deliver an exceptional client experience. We failed big time at that. The main reason we failed is because we had to move fast and did not pay attention to all the details. However, we did not let that end us. We promised to do better and worked so that our actions matched up with our words.
- Treat the onboarding like a small acquisition. - We average about 1 or 2 new CAS or payroll clients per month. THAT is a challenge because of our size. Onboarding 25+ new clients in less than a month, SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! We originally kept them on their current payroll platform to prepare. Yet, one important tip I learned from
Lisa Gilreath
of Acuity CFO is to rip the band off fast when transitioning clients from an acquisition to your app ecosystem. I’ve heard others say the opposite but if Lisa says do it that way, that’s the way it’s being done. I think this goes a long way in setting expectations and creating a cohesive and sustainable process.
As I mentioned, we are still in the pit. Once we climb out, this will be a great case study for others that want to do something similar or just need to feel better about how they do things because I do a lot of things right but I am still figuring a lot of it out. I want to end by repeating a phrase a good client often says, "That light you see at the end of the tunnel isn't a train." Once we reach the other side, we know there is sunlight.
Signing off as a voice in #FirmManagment.
