Client onboarding

A client signs an agreement with agreed expectations, but delivery cannot begin until contracted scope matches submitted requirements, prerequisites are verified, and the delivery team formally accepts ownership. This playbook governs one client onboarding case from contract signing to an accepted delivery handoff. The agent reconciles the signed agreement with intake submissions, audits technical and operational prerequisites, routes scope conflicts and missing dependencies to authorized human owners, and confirms the receiving delivery lead's verified acceptance. Delivery execution, contract amendments, and ongoing account management remain with their designated human owners. If an integrated system is unavailable, work continues from previously exported records or locally supplied case files; if records cannot be accessed, pause the onboarding audit and notify the onboarding lead.

• Read the signed contract or statement of work alongside the sales handoff notes from Airtable or Notion. Extract the agreed service tier, contracted deliverables, client stakeholder contacts, milestone commitments, and special delivery conditions. Check whether an onboarding tracking record already exists for this client account to prevent duplicate runs. If an active onboarding record is already in progress, link the current run as an update and notify the onboarding lead rather than creating a parallel case.
• Audit the intake questionnaire responses and initial client asset submissions against the signed scope. Compare the client's stated goals and requested customizations with the contracted deliverables. If the client requests features, timelines, or services outside the contracted scope, document the specific discrepancies between the intake request and the contract, and route the finding to the commercial account owner.
• Information request. Present the client sponsor or technical contact with the specific missing inputs required for onboarding, such as technical access credentials, brand assets, or questionnaire responses. State exactly which contracted deliverables are blocked by each missing item. Direct all credential, token, or permission requests through the customer's approved secure provisioning route or credential management system rather than collecting sensitive secrets in plain case text. If the client provides the missing materials within the configured follow-up window, verify their completeness and resume checking prerequisites. If the client fails to respond or reports an inability to supply a critical asset, escalate the block to the customer success lead to decide whether to reschedule the onboarding timeline or adjust the kickoff milestone.
• Check technical and operational prerequisites against delivery standards. For system access, verify account provisioning through confirmed test permissions or administrative invitation receipts. For file or data migrations, verify that supplied export files match the agreed schema and contain valid records rather than placeholder tables. Before retrying any automated check or write that failed or produced an ambiguous response, inspect existing system records for partial side effects. If inspection cannot confirm whether an external action occurred, hold the action for the technical lead rather than repeating the operation.
• Approval. When an intake submission requests uncontracted work or reveals a material scope discrepancy, present the commercial account owner with the signed scope, the client's submitted request, and the estimated delivery impact. The commercial owner must decide whether to approve a formal contract amendment, issue a change order, or instruct the client that out-of-scope items will be deferred to a later phase. If the commercial owner issues an amendment, update the onboarding scope baseline in Notion and resume checking prerequisites. If the client refuses to proceed without the uncontracted work, transition the case to the hold review with the commercial owner designated as the accountable lead.
• Approval. When all non-critical prerequisites are completed but a minor dependency remains outstanding, present the delivery project lead with the completed onboarding audit, the list of verified prerequisites, and the specific open item. The delivery lead must decide whether to accept the onboarding handoff with an agreed exception and a designated completion owner, or reject readiness and keep the case in prerequisite review. If accepted, record the exception, accountable owner, and target resolution date in the onboarding record in Airtable and proceed toward delivery handoff. If rejected, keep the onboarding case waiting in prerequisite verification and inform the client sponsor of the outstanding dependency.
• In a fictional onboarding for Northwind Logistics, the client submitted an intake form requesting real-time telemetry webhook integration, but their signed contract specified standard weekly CSV file batch ingestion. The agent identified the scope mismatch and flagged that webhook integration would require an additional engineering sprint. The commercial owner reviewed the discrepancy and offered Northwind an addendum for webhook support. Northwind declined the additional fee and agreed to proceed with the contracted batch ingestion. The agent updated the onboarding delivery brief in Notion to record the agreed batch scope, verified the sample CSV schema, and secured the delivery lead's approval to proceed with kickoff.
• Exception. When a critical security prerequisite or compliance requirement cannot be satisfied, such as a missing data processing agreement, invalid mutual non-disclosure agreement, or failed security audit, notify the customer success lead and legal counsel immediately. The authorized legal or compliance owner holds sole authority to grant compliance clearance or formal waivers; the customer success lead decides whether to suspend onboarding activities pending clearance or recommend commercial termination. Log the compliance blocker, attach the audit findings, and keep the case on hold until formal compliance clearance is recorded by the authorized compliance owner.
• Transition the case to Delivery ready only after the named delivery project lead has formally confirmed receipt of the onboarding dossier and accepted ownership of delivery. Write the finalized delivery brief, verified access references, and target kickoff date to the delivery project record in Basecamp or Airtable. Read back the updated delivery record to confirm the state is updated and the delivery lead is assigned. Obtain authorization from the onboarding lead or client sponsor owner before dispatching external client kickoff confirmations or scheduling invites.
• If the client requests an indefinite pause, fails to engage after repeated escalations, or the commercial owner determines the agreement cannot proceed, transition the case to Held or declined. Document the comprehensive chronology of completed checks, unfulfilled prerequisites, commercial escalations, and the accountable internal owner. Assign a scheduled review date to re-evaluate client readiness or initiate contract termination, ensuring no onboarding case is abandoned without an assigned owner.