Onboarding a client (for agencies)
A repeatable sequence for standing up a new client account — and the decisions to make once rather than per client.
Running ClearTalk for clients is a different job from running it for yourself. The work isn't harder; it's just that everything you do casually for one business becomes a process when you do it fifteen times. This is that process.
Decide these once, not per client
Before your second client, settle:
- What every client gets. A standard starting agent, a standard set of results, a standard reporting cadence. Bespoke everything doesn't scale, and clients rarely want it as much as you assume.
- Where numbers live. Running numbers on your own carrier account keeps them under your control and your margin visible — worth reading managed numbers or your own carrier account before you commit, because migrating clients later is real work.
- Your rates. You set what clients pay per minute and per message; the difference from your cost is your margin. Set this before you quote anyone.
- How results get back to the client. Almost always into their CRM — see the routing pattern below.
The onboarding sequence
Create the client
From your agency dashboard, create the client account. This is the container for their agents, numbers, contacts, and billing.
Sort out numbers and registrations early
Start this on day one, because it's the only step with a waiting period you can't compress. Business verification and texting registration take days, and nothing sends until they're approved. See getting approved to text and outbound deliverability.
Tell the client this at kickoff. "We're live in a week, and here's the part that takes days and needs your business details" avoids the most common agency-client friction there is.
Connect their CRM
Most agency clients live in GoHighLevel, which connects natively — contacts sync, and agents can book directly into their calendar. See the GoHighLevel guide.
Set their results
Rename the call results to their language before building anything else, since automation downstream keys off those names. Ten minutes now saves rework later.
Build the agent from your standard, then tailor
Start from your template, then change the parts that are genuinely theirs: the business name, the opening line, the objections their callers actually raise, and where transfers go. Get the instructions right — that's where the client's voice lives.
Test before you point real leads at it
If you build with pathways, write tests and mark the critical ones required to publish. For an agency this is worth more than for anyone else: it's how you change a client's pathway six months later without re-testing by hand, and how a junior team member ships safely. See testing your pathway.
Wire up the reporting they'll actually look at
Push call results into their CRM so the value shows up where they already work. A client who sees leads appearing in their own pipeline renews; one who has to log into another dashboard to find out how it's going does not.
Watch the first fifty calls
Read the transcripts yourself. Every client's real callers say something you didn't anticipate, and the first week is when fixing it is cheapest.
Routing each client's data to their own systems
You can add multiple destinations for outbound call data, each with its own address, its own event subscriptions, and optionally scoped to a single campaign. That's the mechanism for keeping clients separate: one destination per client CRM, scoped to that client's campaigns, so nobody's data lands in anybody else's system.
A second destination subscribed only to opt-outs is worth adding per client too — it keeps their do-not-contact list in sync automatically, which is exactly the kind of compliance detail clients don't ask about until something goes wrong. See the webhook reference.
What to standardise
Agencies that scale
- Same pathway skeleton, different words.
- Same results, renamed per industry.
- Same reporting rhythm, different numbers.
- Same onboarding checklist, every time.
Agencies that stall
- A bespoke build for every client.
- Different result names per account, so nothing is comparable.
- Reporting invented fresh each month.
- Everything living in the founder's head.
Set expectations at kickoff
Three things, said up front, prevent most first-month friction:
- Registration takes days. Nothing texts until it's approved.
- The first two weeks are tuning. Real callers reveal what needs fixing; that's the process working, not a fault.
- Answer rates depend on their list. A stale list underperforms no matter how good the agent is — list hygiene is a client responsibility worth naming early.