Why Does Our Onboarding Take So Long? (And why that’s a good thing)

Quick onboarding can look appealing at first glance, but in reality, it often does more harm than good. When an agency moves too fast, it usually means they have not taken the time to properly understand the business they are working with. A rushed process doesn’t allow space to ask the right questions or fully explore a client’s needs, goals, and constraints.

As a result, agencies are forced to fill in the gaps. That often means making assumptions about goals, target audiences, competitors, and success metrics. These assumptions might seem harmless early on, but they create misalignment that surfaces later in the project.

Services such as SEO, PPC, and web design are not one-size-fits-all. Every business has different objectives and serves different customers. Treating all businesses the same may speed up the start, but it significantly reduces the likelihood of achieving meaningful, long-term results.

Rushed onboarding also tends to cost more in the long run. When mistakes are discovered later, strategies need to be revisited, and work needs to be adjusted. This could lead to additional and unnecessary costs. Many of these issues could have been avoided if the right research and discovery had taken place from the outset.

A longer onboarding process helps prevent these problems by ensuring the right foundations are in place before any execution begins.

At crdone, onboarding is broken into three clear stages: an initial consultation, an onboarding call and in-depth client research. This structured approach takes a bit longer but ensures nothing is overlooked and sets a strong foundation from day one.

A more in-depth look at crdone’s onboarding process:

Before any contract is signed, we start with an initial consultation to really get to know your business and understand where your marketing is today. It is a relaxed conversation where we talk through your goals, challenges and opportunities, and explore whether SEO, PPC or web design is right for you.

It also gives us both the chance to see if we are a good fit for one another, before putting together a plan for the next steps.

Onboarding Call

The onboarding call is where you will meet the team working on your account, align on campaign goals and KPIs, and agree on how you would like us to communicate moving forward. Some clients prefer a hands-off approach, while others like to be more involved. Both work equally well, but this is simply the time to tell us what suits you best.

We will also use this session to confirm the information we need. We’ll want to understand your best-selling products or services, what you are known for, and the marketing tools you already use, so we can focus on what is already working for your business, build on your strengths, and get more value from the tools you have in place.

Depending on the service, client research may look a little different. However, regardless of the service we’re providing, we’ll examine how traffic is being acquired, what’s driving performance and where the biggest opportunities might be.

We then carry out our research. Whilst this might differ across services, the foundation is the same: understanding how people find you, what they’re looking for and the intent behind it.

That insight can be used in different ways. Such as to shape SEO strategy, guide PPC targeting and inform decisions around site structure, content and user journeys from a web design perspective. It ensures that everything is built around the same, shared understanding of your audience.

All of this adds up to a clear picture of what the business looks like and gives us a good idea of what strategies to implement. This means that each strategy is completely tailored to the needs of your business.

No need to go back and fix things, no one-size-fits-all approach, no stress.

So if you’re looking for an agency that can onboard you in five minutes, don’t pick us.