Illustrative Example: Onboarding a New Client at a Small Services Firm
This is a hypothetical engagement, written to show how our four steps work on one common workflow. The firm, the people and the details are invented for illustration. It is not a client story, and nothing here is a reported result.
Our first client case studies will be published here, with permission, once those engagements are complete.
The Firm
A professional services firm of about 30 people. When sales closes a new client, onboarding passes through finance, operations, IT and the project lead before the kickoff meeting.
Today
The signed agreement arrives by email. Finance sets up billing from a forwarded thread. Operations schedules the kickoff after chasing three people for dates. IT creates accounts from a chat message. The project lead learns the details at the kickoff itself. Nobody owns the question 'is this client ready?', the same details are typed in four places, and no one can see where a new client stands.
Step 1, AI Opportunity Audit
We would follow three recent onboardings from signature to kickoff, map every hand-off, and note where each one waited and why. The deliverable is a one-page map of the current process and a ranked list of the bottlenecks worth fixing first.
Step 2, Process Architecture and Redesign
One intake, triggered by the signed agreement. One onboarding lead who owns readiness. A short SOP for each step, and a single onboarding record in a tool the firm already uses, such as its CRM or a shared spreadsheet. The firm signs off on this design before anything is built.
Step 3, Production Deployment
The intake creates the onboarding record and the tasks for each owner. An AI agent checks that the required details are present, such as the billing contact, the scope and the start date, and routes each task with that context attached. It drafts the kickoff agenda and the welcome email for a person to review. It never sends anything to the client without approval. Everything is documented and handed over.
Step 4, Agent System Optimization
A monitor tracks how long each step waits. When a step waits longer than the agreed limit, the agent reminds its owner or, where the firm's rules allow, routes it to a backup approver. Anything else goes to the onboarding lead. We review the system with the firm each month and extend it when they are ready.
What This Example Does Not Claim
No time saved, cost reduced or other result is reported here, because this engagement is illustrative. Real results will appear only in real case studies, with the client's permission.