Operating at a higher level—improving the onboarding process

Around this time last year we took stock of the number of sites we had slated to launch. We had a significant backlog of nearly 200 blogs, microsites and journals all waiting to get over the finish line. Some had been waiting years to launch.

While many had legitimate reasons to take as much time as they did, we had to evaluate our own processes and see where we could improve.

I was tasked with leading a charge against all the backlog sites by mid-December. At the time, I was launching every new site being sold while our Success team focussed on launching all the backlogged sites. It was rough, but we whittled the list down to a manageable number by Christmas.

In 2021, we’ve focused on revising the onboarding process. We now have a new workflow on Asana, resources for clients and a solid company-wide effort. We’ve also implemented various automations that make setting up a site much easier.

Each week we hold a meeting where we discuss each blog and what we need to do to address any concerns. We also check for any improvements to the onboarding process and make small tweaks as we go. We know the site status, what we are waiting on and what we owe to each client. 

All-in-all we improved the time to launch by over 350%. 

If a client knew exactly what they wanted, we could have a brand new Blog Plan blog set up in less than a week! A full microsite or journal would easily launch in under a month. I don’t believe there are many SaaS website builders that can claim such a fast launch time with the extra quality LexBlog provides.

I remember the days where I had 30+ on my plate to work on by myself. (I used to have each one listed on a 3×5 card taped to a whiteboard beside my desk.)

For now, I’ll continue to marvel at the current board sitting at a comfortable 26 projects split amongst the whole team.