Close Tutorial for Onboarders

Close is a third-party program that FareHarbor uses to keep track of our clients’ progress through the onboarding process—from Account Executives demoing a company, to ongoing support once that company is a live FareHarbor client.

The Account Executives use Close to keep track of their communications with prospective clients. When a prospective client sees a demo of the product and decides to use FareHarbor as their company’s booking software, an Account Executive works with that company to create an onboarding doc. Meanwhile, these steps are being entered into Close so that other FareHarbor team members can see a timeline of the progress.

When it’s time for a client to begin the actual onboarding process, the onboarding information is submitted through Close via custom activities, and the status is updated to Wait for Training. From this point, a Builder in Onboarding will see this lead in the OB Building Queue and begin building the Dashboard, working closely with the AE to complete the Dashboard. After this is complete, an Onboarding Trainer will be directly involved in tracking further progress in Close as the Dashboard is updated, the client is trained, and the company goes Live!

Onboarding steps

• Select company through OB Building Queue (Dashboard Specialists) or OB Training Queue (Onboard Specialists) and look up the company specifics in the Close lead. Assignments are prioritized by Dashboard Creation Request date & Dashboard Training Scheduled date.
  • Builds and trainings should be claimed from the queue at a minimum of 5 days prior to the training date.
    • Contact your team lead or department trainer for the most up-to-date links to the building/training queues.
• The lead should include the following Custom Activities or filled out custom fields by the AE or Lead Generation:
  • Custom Activity: Dashboard Creation Requested (for New Client) is completed by AE
  • Custom Activity: Dashboard Training Scheduled (for New Client) is completed by AE
  • Custom Field: Location – Region

• Updates Dashboard Specialists will make to the lead:

  • Custom Activity: New Dashboard Created in Production

    • Add this custom activity and leave as a draft to “claim” this build * Create the Dashboard in FareHarbor Production and copy the company ID from the admin notes

    • Fill out all fields (Company ID and Dashboard Creation Requested (for New Client) Activity ID of this custom activity and select Done before completing the remainder of the build.

      **Note:** The FH Shortname and FH URL custom fields will be populated automatically once the Company ID is populated into the custom activity.
      

    • Custom Activity: Initial Dashboard Build Completed – Create this custom activity on the lead and fill out all fields associated with the Dashboard build. This will indicate that the build is complete.

• Updates Onboard Specialists will make to the lead:

  • Custom Activity: New Dashboard Training Claimed
    • Create this custom activity to claim the Training and select Done.
  • Custom Activity: Dashboard Training Completed (For New Client)
    • Create this custom activity with all information relevant to the Training. This will indicate that the training is completed.

• Items to update throughout the onboarding process:

  • Onboard Status – OB 6
    • If at any time the onboard status has changed (ie. any delay in onboarding) communicate with the Account Executive, then change the onboard status in Close. The AE will take it from there and will change the status back to “Smooth” once the issue is resolved.
  • Every time you need to communicate with other stakeholders (AE or Builder) in regard to the lead, post a message in the Dashboard Slack channel. Do NOT send messages via DM.
• Items to enter once a company is Live:
  • Change status to “Live Customer”
  • Add an “AM Note” to the lead

Escalation Back to AE

Occasionally an Onboarder will need to get a client’s Account Executive or Account Manager involved in the process for a variety of reasons. Steps for handling this are below. When any of the following occur, be sure to communicate with your manager about updating the opportunity status to “Stalled”.

When to escalate back to AE or AM:

• A client can’t make it to their training, doesn’t provide a time to reschedule, and the Trainer has made several attempts to reschedule the training.
• A client stops responding to your emails and calls. Try for 5 business days alternating between calls and emails and if they continue to not respond, time to escalate to the AE.
• A client is a no-show on a scheduled training. Try to contact the client and maintain ownership of rescheduling the client if you made direct contact with the client between the time you claimed the training and the training date. If you did not make direct contact with the client during this time, escalate back to the AE.
• Website login delay – cannot get information for website login and integration
• Client states they don’t want to go live for 2+ weeks

Communication Process

• Tag the AE in the Dashboard Slack channel regarding the client and explain the escalation
• Onboarder must have communicated with the AE or AM before Onboarding Managers update the opportunity status to “Stalled”
• The AE can pull SmartViews of all clients that have a delayed onboard and create a follow-up plan.
• The AE should loop in the Onboarder on all follow-up communication and work on a plan for how to move forward with the company in the notes section of the company’s Close lead.
• Review full details of the “Opportunity Stalled Process for Onboarding“.