# 5 Key Automations Every Agency Needs to Scale > The five automations most agencies end up with are client onboarding, end of day team forms, feedback collection with an action plan, automated client reporting, and billing automations for payment alerts, failed payments and freelancer payroll. Start with onboarding, because it is the first impression a client has of you. Source: https://fluxomate.com/blog/5-key-automations-every-agency-needs-to-scale.html Published by Fluxomate (https://fluxomate.com/), 2024-11-08. Section: Full breakdowns. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqMAR9bOAI ## Key takeaways - Onboarding automation should cover both what the client sees and the tasks your team receives. - End of day forms give team leaders an overview and create accountability. - Collecting feedback is not enough. You need a system to act on it. - AI can summarise report data for the client and give your customer success manager action points. - Billing automations cover payment alerts, failed payments and freelancer payroll with a human approval step. ## 1. Client onboarding automation Onboarding comes in two types, client and employee. The same ideas apply to both, because first impressions matter for people joining your team just as they do for clients. Think of onboarding in three phases: what happens immediately after a client pays, what happens within 24 hours, and what happens in the first seven days. Automate all three to some degree, but the priority is the first phase. Immediately after payment, typical steps are contract creation, invoice creation, welcome emails, portal creation and task creation. Task creation is the one beginners often skip. Onboarding has a front end, which is what the client receives, and a back end, which is what the team receives. Tasks assigned to specific employees, such as contacting the client within five minutes, keep both sides smooth. 1. Trigger: a payment, a CRM update, or even a sales rep pressing a button. If the trigger is wrong, the rest of the automation will not work. 2. Create a Slack channel named after the company, in lowercase. 3. Invite the relevant team members, send a welcome message and pin it. 4. Create two Google Drive folders, one inside the other. The inner one is the shared folder for the client. 5. Update the CRM, creating the lead if it does not exist, and create tasks for employees. 6. Send an onboarding email, then a second email five minutes later with an update. ## 2. End of day forms Give each role its own form, for example appointment setters, closers and customer success managers, and prompt people to complete it at the end of the day. Answers go into a tracking sheet, which lets you track performance and show people their KPIs. It also creates accountability, since people behave differently when they are observed. A leaderboard ranking the top setters or closers can add motivation, and incentives can strengthen it. The automation is simple. Once a day it sends a Slack message reminding the team to complete the form. We added this step because without it people forget. When the form arrives, it adds a row to a Google Sheet. A daily automation then reads that day's rows, messages the team leaders and sends a summary to an executive. A customer success form might ask for hours worked, client meetings, tasks completed, issues resolved and feedback. You can use the same idea for clients who need to report metrics, or send yourself a form if you work alone. ## 3. Feedback collection and action plans Feedback has two parts: collecting it and implementing it. Some agencies collect feedback and then leave it sitting in a form or spreadsheet. If clients open up and nothing changes, they feel neglected, so build the system that acts on it. Collect on a cadence you choose, weekly or monthly for example. A call is better than a form, because a human can ask follow up questions and reach the real problem. A client who says messages could be longer may really mean they want more communication. 1. Thirty days after onboarding, start a loop with a reminder to the customer success manager to spend about 20 minutes on feedback in the next call, or send a form. 2. Store the answers somewhere, such as a Google Sheet. 3. Send the answers to an AI assistant that creates a summary and an action plan. In OpenAI, an assistant can refer to your own documents, which gives more accurate answers than a generic prompt. 4. Send the action plan to the customer success manager and create a record for them to implement it. 5. Have team managers hold the manager accountable for acting on it. ## 4. Client reporting with AI summaries Most agencies send some kind of report, weekly, monthly or quarterly, using a tool such as AgencyAnalytics. If you do not, choose software suited to your delivery. A lead generation agency can send lead numbers weekly. A content agency can send analytics. The basic automation creates a report once a week, takes a screenshot if there is no direct integration, emails it to the client and tells the customer success manager so they can follow up. To improve it, add AI. It analyses the data and does two things: it writes a short summary for the client with a personalised first line, and it sends actionable steps to the customer success manager. That makes the team proactive rather than reactive. A more advanced option is a separate AI agent per client, updated regularly with their data and meetings, so it knows their goals and performance. ## 5. Billing automations Billing is high leverage, especially for larger teams. There are three popular automations. - Payment alerts: each time a payment arrives in Stripe or another processor, post a message in a wins channel in Slack. It replicates the sales bell and helps motivate closers and customer success managers. - Failed payments: when a payment fails, find the client by email, update the project to a payment failed status, message the customer success manager to make contact, and email the client with steps to fix it. Many clients do not realise it has happened. You find out straight away, not months later. - Freelancer payroll: on a schedule, read a spreadsheet of people, find those on hourly rates, sum their time from your time tracking, calculate what you owe and pre approve the payment in a payment tool. Then email an admin who approves with one click. ## Why keep a human in the loop on payments? For payroll we do not send money automatically. Someone might enter the wrong time, or the automation might be set up wrongly. Overpaying causes follow up work, and underpaying hurts morale. At least at the start, keep an approval step. The video above walks through examples of each build. ## Questions people ask ### Which automation should an agency build first? Client onboarding. It is the first impression a client has, and the actions that matter most happen immediately after payment, such as creating contracts, folders, channels, CRM records and team tasks. ### What is an end of day form automation? It sends each team member a daily reminder to complete a role specific form. Answers go to a tracking sheet, and a daily summary goes to team leaders and executives, giving performance tracking and accountability. ### How can AI help with client reports? It can analyse the report data, write a short personalised summary for the client and produce action points for your customer success manager. ### Should I automate freelancer payments fully? We recommend an approval step. The automation calculates what is owed and pre approves the payment, then an admin approves it with one click, which catches wrong times or set up errors. Tools used: Make.com, Zapier, Slack, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Forms, Typeform, Stripe, OpenAI, AgencyAnalytics, Noloco Free templates for this guide: https://fluxomate.com/resources.html?r=5-key-automations-every-agency-needs-to-scale