You have never experienced your own onboarding

It happens once per client, so nobody in the firm sees it often enough to notice how bad it is.

The visibility problem

Daily processes get improved because everyone experiences the friction constantly. Onboarding happens once per client and is handled by whoever handles it.

The founder, who sold the relationship, is usually not present for any of it.

What clients experience

Forms asking for information they already provided. Documents by post. Multiple signature requests over days. Silence while a transfer processes. No indication of what happens next or when.

Each is individually minor. Together they are the client's first impression of how your firm operates.

They just decided to trust you with their money. Onboarding is the first evidence about whether that was sensible.

The silence is the worst part

Transfers take as long as they take. What clients find unacceptable is not the duration but not knowing.

A short update saying nothing has changed and here is when it should complete costs nothing and removes almost all of the anxiety.

How to find out what yours is like

Open an account as a client would. Fill in every form. Sign everything. Count the days, the separate requests, and the times you had to provide the same information twice.

Most principals have never done this and are unpleasantly surprised.

Ask the last three clients

Directly, and while it is recent. They will tell you, and they will be more specific than any process review.

What to fix first

Duplicate data entry, then communication during the wait, then the number of separate signature events.

None requires new software. Most of it is sequencing and telling people what is happening.