How to Automate Onboarding Without Losing Personal Touch

By
Elen Udovichenko
January 22, 2025
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Onboarding is arguably the most critical phase in a customer’s journey. Get it right, and you accelerate time-to-value, build trust, and lay the foundation for long-term success. Get it wrong, and you risk losing customers before they even see the real value of your product.

But here’s the challenge:

  • Scaling onboarding efficiently requires automation to reduce manual work.
  • Delivering a great experience requires personalization to keep customers engaged.
  • Too much automation, and onboarding feels cold and robotic.
  • Too much manual effort, and your team is overwhelmed, slowing down growth.

💡 So how do you strike the right balance?

In this guide, we’ll break down how to automate onboarding without losing the human touch — leveraging smart workflows, self-serve content, and well-placed human interactions to scale efficiently without sacrificing customer experience.

What you'll learn:

  • Which onboarding tasks you should (and shouldn’t) automate
  • How to create an onboarding process that feels personal—even when automated
  • Tools and strategies to make onboarding faster, smoother, and more engaging

Let’s dive in.

Why automate onboarding in the first place?

Customer onboarding is often where the first real impression of your product is made. But if your process is slow, confusing, or inconsistent, customers won’t wait around to figure things out — they’ll churn before they even get started.

That’s why automating onboarding isn’t just about convenience — it’s about delivering a faster, more scalable, and consistent experience that gets customers to value as quickly as possible.

The challenges of manual, high-touch onboarding

Relying on a fully manual onboarding process leads to inefficiencies that slow down growth. Here’s what happens when teams try to do everything by hand:

1️⃣ Inconsistent customer experience

Without a standardized process, each customer’s journey depends on the individual CSM or rep handling their onboarding. Some get detailed walkthroughs, while others are left navigating on their own. This inconsistency can lead to confusion, disengagement, and even churn.

2️⃣ Slow time-to-value

Manual processes force customers to move at the pace of your team rather than their own. Scheduling kickoff calls, sending follow-ups, and answering repetitive questions all create bottlenecks that delay adoption and slow down revenue impact.

3️⃣ Heavy workload for CS & sales teams

Onboarding requires multiple touchpoints, and without automation, teams spend too much time on repetitive tasks like scheduling, sending check-ins, and manually tracking progress. This takes valuable time away from strategic, high-impact customer conversations.

4️⃣ Lack of visibility into customer progress

When onboarding happens manually, tracking where customers get stuck becomes difficult. Without clear insights, teams are reactive rather than proactive, often stepping in too late when disengagement has already set in.

The case for onboarding automation

Automation solves these challenges by removing inefficiencies while maintaining a personal touch where it matters most. Instead of replacing human interaction, automation frees up your team to focus on moments that require expertise and relationship-building.

By streamlining repetitive tasks, ensuring consistency, and allowing customers to move at their own pace, automated onboarding creates a smoother, more scalable experience — one that gets customers to value faster without losing the human connection.

But not everything should be automated. The key is knowing which parts of onboarding benefit from automation and which require a human touch.

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Blending automation with a human touch

The key to efficient onboarding isn’t just automation—it’s knowing when to automate and when to keep things personal. A fully automated process might be fast, but it can feel impersonal and leave customers feeling unsupported. On the other hand, a fully manual process is slow, inconsistent, and difficult to scale. The sweet spot lies in strategic automation that removes friction without sacrificing the human element.

What to automate?

✅ Resource & information sharing

Customers need access to product guides, FAQs, and best practices from day one. Instead of manually sending these out, use automated workflows to deliver the right content at the right time — whether through emails, in-app messages, or Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs) like Flowla.

✅ Scheduling & meeting coordination

Back-and-forth emails to book onboarding sessions waste time. Instead, use automated scheduling tools that let customers pick a time that works for them. This keeps the process seamless while ensuring that human interactions happen when they’re most valuable.

✅ Progress tracking & nudges

Customers move through onboarding at different speeds, and without visibility, it's easy for them to stall. Automated tracking lets you see where each customer is in the process and trigger reminders or next-step prompts to keep them engaged.

✅ Basic check-ins & follow-ups

Instead of manually checking in at every stage, use automated messages to keep the conversation going. For example, a simple “How’s everything going?” email after a key milestone can prompt engagement while keeping things efficient.

✅ Data collection & feedback

Gathering insights on onboarding effectiveness is crucial, but sending individual surveys isn’t scalable. Automate feedback collection at key moments — like after the first session or upon product activation — to continuously improve the process.

What to personalize?

🤝 Kickoff & strategy calls

While automation can handle call scheduling, the actual kickoff session should be a real conversation. This is where you build rapport, understand customer goals, and align on expectations — something a pre-recorded video can’t replace.

🤝 Complex questions & troubleshooting

Automation can’t anticipate every customer’s unique challenges. When customers hit roadblocks, a human touch is essential to provide tailored solutions, clarify doubts, and reinforce confidence in your product.

🤝 High-value customer engagements

For larger customers or those with more complex use cases, automation should support the journey, not replace it. Personalized outreach, strategic advice, and proactive relationship-building should always involve real people.

🤝 Moments that matter

Some interactions shape the entire customer relationship — like celebrating a key milestone, addressing concerns before renewal, or stepping in when engagement drops. These are moments where personal outreach makes a lasting impact.

Finding the right balance

Automation should enhance the onboarding experience, not make it robotic. The best approach is to use automation as a foundation while ensuring that human interaction is present at key moments.

With the right mix, you create an onboarding process that is scalable, efficient, and engaging — one that guides customers to success faster without making them feel like just another name in the system.

Building an automated onboarding process, step-by-step

Building an efficient onboarding process that feels personal can be a challenge, but with the right strategies and tools like Flowla, it's possible to scale onboarding while delivering a tailored experience. In this guide, we'll walk you through the steps to automate onboarding in a way that still feels individualized.

Step 1: Segment customers for personalized journeys

Not all customers require the same level of attention during onboarding. To ensure your process feels personalized but efficient, it’s essential to segment your customers. For example, you can easily categorize customers based on key attributes, such as their industry, use case, or company size. Based on that, you can pick the suitable approach to their onboarding:

  • Self-serve users can benefit from a fully automated onboarding flow where they can explore the product at their own pace using interactive guides and checklists in their Flowla Digital Sales Room.
  • Mid-touch users might need a combination of automated tasks (like email reminders and product walkthroughs) and periodic check-ins by a CSM. These customers can be tracked in Flowla and assigned periodic review sessions based on engagement.

Enterprise customers require a high-touch approach — 1:1 calls, workshops, and tailored content that Flowla can help organize through its centralized onboarding hub.

breakdown of onboarding types by customer segment

💡 Actionable tip: Use Flowla's CRM integrations to automatically assign customers to the appropriate onboarding track based on data like company size, industry, or specific product needs. This way, each customer gets a personalized journey from day one.

Step 2: Automate workflows with smart triggers

The secret to making automation feel personal is using customer behavior as triggers. Flowla allows you to automate communication based on the user’s actions (or inactions). This enables you to follow up when necessary without overwhelming customers with irrelevant messages.

Here’s an example of how to automate a personalized journey:

  • Welcome email (Day 1) – Triggered automatically once the status in CRM changes; featuring Flowla’s DSR, personalized with the customer’s name, industry, and product goals.
  • Product setup reminder (Day 2) – If the user hasn't completed key actions, send an automated reminder email with step-by-step guides and a link to their personalized onboarding hub.
  • Inactivity trigger (Day 5) – If a customer hasn’t engaged, trigger an email with a personal message from their assigned CSM, offering support or guidance.
  • Personal check-in (Day 7) – If the user has yet to log in, assign the CSM a task to personally reach out and check-in.
  • Milestone achievement (Day 14) – Automatically congratulate the user and provide the next steps based on their progress, enhancing the sense of accomplishment.
sample onboarding automation flow

💡 Actionable tip: Use Flowla Autopilot to ensure you’re sending timely, personalized communication based on real-time user behavior. This minimizes manual work and ensures customers always receive the right message at the right time.

Step 3: Personalize communication at scale

Even though you’re automating, the communication must still feel personal. With Flowla, you can scale your personalized onboarding communications without losing that essential personal touch.

Here’s how you can do it:

  • Dynamic content: In Flowla’s DSR, merge tags allow you to address customers by name, industry, or use case within emails and content.
  • Pre-recorded video messages: You can record personalized messages for your users, making them feel special, and Flowla can deliver them at scale through centralized content management.
  • Auto-generated next steps: Based on a customer’s product usage, you can set up Flowla to send targeted next steps or action items. For example, “We noticed you haven’t explored Feature X yet, which can help you with [specific challenge]. Here’s a guide to get started.

💡 Actionable tip: Use Flowla to automatically serve dynamic, personalized resources to your customers, such as walkthroughs and help content, based on their usage and needs.

Step 4: Create a self-serve, centralized onboarding hub

Customers want everything in one place. Instead of having them search through emails or various platforms for information, create a centralized onboarding hub within Flowla’s DSR.

This centralized hub can include:

  • Personalized onboarding roadmap: A timeline or checklist that outlines exactly what the customer should do at each stage, based on their product usage and onboarding track.
  • Interactive setup guides: Embedded directly within the DSR, customers can complete their onboarding tasks without leaving the platform.
  • Product walkthroughs: Pre-recorded videos or in-app tutorials that guide users step-by-step.
  • FAQs and troubleshooting docs: Hosted in one easy-to-find section within the DSR.

💡 Actionable tip: Use Flowla to host all your onboarding content in one personalized Digital Sales Room, ensuring customers can access everything they need without having to search through multiple emails or systems.

Step 5: Add human touchpoints at key moments

While Flowla’s automation helps you scale, human interactions are still critical. Strategic human touchpoints at key moments in the onboarding journey ensure customers feel heard and supported, which is key for retention.

Some key moments for human touchpoints include:

  • Kickoff call (Week 1): A personalized call to set expectations and discuss success metrics.
  • Check-in call (Week 3-4): A touchpoint to assess progress and answer any questions based on user activity in Flowla’s DSR.
  • 30- or 60-day review: Celebrate wins and discuss future expansion or potential challenges.

💡 Actionable tip: Use Flowla’s mutual action plans to organize and document human touchpoints, ensuring you stay on top of engagement milestones while maintaining a smooth, coordinated process for both your team and your customers.

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Tools that help automate onboarding without losing personalization

To create an efficient yet personalized experience, leveraging the right onboarding tools is key. These platforms allow you to automate various aspects of onboarding while ensuring customers feel engaged and supported every step of the way:

✅ Flowla – Digital Sales Rooms for centralized, interactive onboarding
✅ HubSpot / Customer.io – Email & workflow automation
✅ Vidyard / Loom – Personalized video walkthroughs
✅ UserGuiding / Userpilot – In-app guidance & onboarding flows
✅ ChurnZero / Gainsight – Customer success tracking & automation

Common pitfalls of automated onboarding & how to avoid them

Automating onboarding can save time and effort, but it’s important not to go overboard. If you automate everything, you risk losing the personal touch your customers need. Here are the most common mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Too many automated emails

When you first automate onboarding, it’s tempting to send lots of emails to guide customers through the process. But bombarding them with too many emails can feel overwhelming and impersonal. Customers may stop paying attention to your messages or, worse, unsubscribe.

How to avoid this:

Instead of sending constant emails, focus on the most important moments. Personalize the messages based on what the customer has done or not done. If they engage with a step, give them more to keep them moving. If they’re not progressing, send a helpful reminder or check-in. Keep things relevant and timely.

2. No human check-ins

Automation is great for getting things started, but customers still need human support along the way. Without check-ins, they might feel like they’re on their own, especially if they have questions or run into issues.

How to avoid this:

After the first automated steps, schedule regular check-ins with a real person. These could be quick calls or emails where you ask about their progress, offer help, and answer questions. This adds a personal touch and keeps the customer engaged, showing them that you're invested in their success.

3. Rigid workflows

Not all customers are the same. If you force every customer through the exact same onboarding flow, some may feel frustrated or left behind. On the other hand, some might finish too quickly and not get enough value out of the process.

How to avoid this:

Set up onboarding that adapts to your customers’ actions. If they’re moving through quickly and engaging, move them to more advanced content. If they’re struggling or falling behind, provide extra support. The key is to make the experience feel personalized to their needs.

Conclusion: Automate smartly, engage efficiently

Automating your onboarding can save time and boost efficiency, but it's all about finding the right balance. Too much automation can make customers feel neglected or overwhelmed. Too little, and you’re wasting time on tasks that could be handled automatically. The trick is to use automation for the repetitive stuff while keeping personal touchpoints where they really count.

When you personalize the journey, keep things flexible, and add human check-ins at the right moments, you can create an onboarding process that’s faster, smoother, and more effective. In the end, automation isn’t just about speeding things up — it’s about creating a better experience that leads to happier customers.

Want to make onboarding easier and more engaging for your customers? Try Flowla and see how we can help you create a seamless, personalized experience that accelerates time to value and drives long-term success.

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