Helen Ewing

How Efficient Is Your Client Intake Process?



Posted: Thursday, August 05, 2010

by Helen Ewing
The Ewing Group, LLC

Following up with clients can be a cumbersome process if it is not systematized for consistency and flow. Having a successful, repeatable process pays for itself over time. Client confusion over what comes next is eliminated. Delegating the process to others becomes effortless. Attaching metrics to the process identifies what works and what does not.

So, what can you do to streamline your client intake process? The fewer the steps, the more time becomes available to work on other critical business tasks. The first thing to do is to document the steps. Add the approximate time it takes for the step plus the cost of any materials that are sent out. Sometimes, materials are more important to us than they are to clients. A follow up email survey to clients on how valuable the materials were to them would identify which materials to eliminate or change. Brochures and client profile questionnaires can be too lengthy.

Next, review the documented steps. Add up the time the process takes and multiply it by your average labor rate. Add in the materials cost to get the cost for one client. Next, multiply the result by the number of clients who go through this process per week, month, or year. If the cost seems high, avoid tweaking it by rationalizing the time or cost now. That step comes next and your first estimates tend to be more honest since the numbers were not attached to them initially.

Evaluate the steps and materials that cost the most. Determine what can be reduced or eliminated without sacrificing the value to the client, not to you. For the steps and/or material costs that could be reduced, plug the new data into the new process and calculate what the annual savings will be if they were adopted. Implement the new process and measure the new result to determine if the changes really did save time and money to your business.

If the savings were not significant, consider outsourcing the process or automating it for lower rates. Try reducing more steps by repeating this streamlining process. Perhaps, your process is as efficient as it needs to be for the size of your current business level.

A business owner told how his client profile form had two pages of questions he requested his clients to answer as part of his coaching intake process. He reasoned that the answers to the questions would familiarize himself more with clients to make the coaching sessions less sterile. After realizing the automation cost in collection, the time involved in keeping information up-to-date, as well as becoming generally familiar with two pages of answers, he chose to streamline his intake process and reduced the number of questions by 60% . Both he and his clients are much happier without sacrificing quality.

How will you improve your client intake process?
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Grace O'Malley
 1 year 293 days ago.
42 fans.
Streamlining in every regard makes things better for the client and the business. Thank you for pointing out that clients do not want to get bogged down by long and drawn out surveys!
» left by Helen Ewing 1 year 288 days ago.
7 fans.
Thank you, Grace. You are correct!
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