How to Automate Customer Onboarding in 5 Steps

Customer onboarding is the first operational interaction a new client has with your business, and it sets the tone for the entire relationship. Yet most companies still run onboarding as a patchwork of manual steps: emailing spreadsheets for customer data, hand-creating accounts in three different systems, and relying on someone to remember the follow-up checklist. The result is a process that takes 1-3 weeks, varies wildly between team members, and frequently drops the ball on critical setup steps.

Automated onboarding compresses this timeline to hours while ensuring every single step happens correctly, every single time. Here is how to build it.

Step 1: Create a Centralized Intake Form

Replace scattered email threads and phone calls with a single, structured intake form that captures everything you need upfront. Use Typeform, Jotform, or a custom form embedded on your website:

• Company details: Legal name, DBA name, tax ID/EIN, billing address, shipping address(es).
• Contact information: Primary contact, billing contact, operations contact, and their respective emails and phone numbers.
• Account preferences: Payment terms requested (Net 30, Net 60, COD), preferred shipping method, order format (email PO, portal, EDI).
• Tax documentation: File upload fields for resale certificates, W-9 forms, or tax-exempt documentation.
• Product catalog access: Which product categories or price tiers the customer should access.

Use conditional logic in your form to show or hide fields based on the customer type. A wholesale distributor needs different information than an e-commerce retailer. This reduces friction and ensures you collect exactly what is needed.

The form is your contract with the customer. If you need it during onboarding, ask for it on the form. Going back to the customer for missing information adds days to the process and signals disorganization.

Figure 1: Automated onboarding flow with sequential account creation and parallel background tasks

Step 2: Auto-Create Records Across All Systems

When the intake form is submitted, Make.com should trigger a scenario that creates the customer record in every system they need to exist in:

• CRM (HubSpot/Salesforce): Create a new company record and associated contacts. Set the deal stage to "Onboarding" and assign the account owner based on territory or product line.
• Accounting system (QuickBooks/Xero): Create a customer record with billing address, payment terms, tax status, and the assigned price level.
• Order management: Set up the customer in your OMS or e-commerce platform with their specific catalog access and pricing tier.
• Shipping platform: Create a saved address in ShipStation with the customer's default shipping preferences.

The key is that all these records are created from a single data submission. No one re-types the customer name, address, or tax ID into multiple systems. This eliminates the #1 source of onboarding errors: inconsistent data across platforms.

Step 3: Automate Document Collection and Verification

For B2B onboarding, you typically need signed agreements, tax certificates, and financial documents. Automate the collection and processing:

• E-signature integration: Auto-generate a customer agreement using DocuSign or PandaDoc with pre-filled fields from the intake form. Send it immediately upon form submission.
• Tax certificate filing: When a resale certificate is uploaded, auto-store it in Google Drive or SharePoint with a standardized naming convention (CustomerName_ResaleCert_State_ExpDate).
• Credit application processing: For customers requesting net terms, auto-run a business credit check through Dun & Bradstreet or Experian Business and route the results to your credit manager for approval.
• Expiration tracking: Store document expiration dates and set up automated reminders 30 and 60 days before certificates expire.

Step 4: Deploy the Welcome Sequence

Once all accounts are provisioned and documents collected, trigger a welcome email sequence that onboards the customer to your ordering process:

• Welcome email (Day 0): Account confirmation, login credentials, key contact information, and a link to your order portal or catalog.
• Getting started guide (Day 1): Step-by-step instructions for placing their first order, including screenshots of your ordering portal and any specific formatting requirements for POs.
• Product highlights (Day 3): Showcase your best-selling products or services relevant to their industry. Include quick-order links.
• Check-in (Day 7): Automated email from their account manager asking if they have any questions or need help placing their first order.

Step 5: Build the Onboarding Dashboard and Alerts

Track every onboarding in progress with an automated dashboard. Use Airtable or Google Sheets as the backend, populated by Make.com:

• Customer name, submission date, and current onboarding stage.
• Checklist status: form complete, CRM created, accounting setup, documents collected, agreement signed, welcome sent.
• Days since submission (flag any onboarding taking longer than your SLA).
• Blockers: what is preventing completion (awaiting signature, credit check pending, missing tax cert).

Configure Slack alerts for any onboarding that exceeds your SLA (e.g., 48 hours for standard customers, 24 hours for enterprise accounts). This ensures no new customer falls through the cracks.

Results to Expect

Companies that automate customer onboarding consistently achieve:

• 75-90% reduction in onboarding time from weeks to hours or a single business day.
• Zero missed setup steps thanks to automated checklists and sequential task execution.
• Higher first-order conversion: Customers who are onboarded quickly are 3x more likely to place their first order within the first week.
• Consistent experience: Every customer gets the same professional onboarding regardless of which team member initiates it.

Pair your onboarding automation with email-to-order processing so new customers can start placing orders immediately. Take our readiness quiz to see where your onboarding process stands today.