Client Onboarding Portal

A financial services company needed material to accompany the new client from the moment of signing the contract to the first effective use of the platform. The existing process was fragmented: separate emails, PDF documents sent one by one, without a clear order. New clients lost information, and the support team received the same questions dozens of times.

We were asked to build a text that would become the backbone of an onboarding portal. Not a technical manual, but a guide to explain the essential steps, prevent confusion, and reduce the time to the first useful action.

The Approach

We started with a series of short interviews with three members of the support team and two clients who had recently gone through the process. We identified five critical moments where users got stuck or asked for help. Based on this information, we structured the text into five sections, each corresponding to a screen in the portal.

The tone chosen was neutral, but not impersonal. We avoided corporate jargon and used short sentences, with verbs in the imperative only where the action was mandatory. Each section ended with a sentence summarizing the next step, so the user would not be left hanging.

The Execution

The final text was approximately 1,800 words, distributed across five screens. We added a few concrete examples of form completion and a checklist that the client could print. The material was integrated directly into the portal interface, not as a separate document. We worked together with a UI designer so that the text fit the available space without being truncated.

In parallel, we rewrote two of the automated emails that announced the portal's existence to new clients, ensuring the tone was consistent from the first contact.

The Result

Three months after implementation, the support team reported a 40% decrease in questions related to the first steps on the platform. The average time to a new client's first action dropped from six days to two and a half days. The portal became the reference point for any subsequent discussion with the client.

The client later requested the extension of the same format for two additional modules, and the original material was translated and adapted for a partner team in another country.