Onboarding a new HR and payroll customer

Process

• Start with one clear goal before collecting anything.
• Use Buddee's own words from the brief as the starting point.

Data

Brief: "new customers operational faster, with less work for them and for us, and working independently afterwards without much explanation."

Process

• Translate the goal into one main metric.
• Add guardrails so the main metric does not improve at the cost of something else.

Data

Process

• Explain why this goal matters for Buddee now.
• Explain why not cutting support time, conversion or feature adoption on its own.

Data

Process

• Map every step from first contact to "operational": who, which tool, hand-offs, waiting time.
• Sources: call with Bas Jelle (customer success), the Valuecase portal, my own signup.

Data

Process

• Days from contract to go-live, and to the first correct payslip.
• Split by step to see where the waiting happens.
• Segment by data source: one existing system versus scattered data.

Data

Real: one week to 1.5 months for the customer, depending on how ready-to-use their data is.

Process

• Hours spent by Buddee (customer success, payroll) and by the customer.
• Where do the hours go: checking data, meetings, questions, payroll rebuild?

Data

Process

• Days from first contact or demo account to signing.
• What is already known at signing that could speed up onboarding?

Data

Process

• Share of customers reaching each step, and the time between steps.
• Find the biggest drop-offs and the longest waits.
• Ask Claude for indicators that correlate with reaching the goal.

Steps (from the Valuecase portal)

1. Portal opened
2. Contact details submitted
3. Template downloaded
4. Template uploaded
5. Template approved and imported
6. Implementation meeting held
7. Phase 2 complete (ready to invite)
8. Employees invited (go-live)
9. First correct payslip

Process

• Collect transcripts of implementation and payroll meetings.
• Let Claude cluster the questions and pain points, and count them.

Data

Process

• Questions from customers who are not yet fully onboarded, and in the first 90 days.
• Categorise by topic and by step in the flow.

Data

Process

• Short interviews with customer success and the payroll team.
• Done for this case: a call with Bas Jelle (customer success).

Key findings

• The real onboarding happens outside the product (portal, email, people).
• Biggest hurdles: employee data, then leave balances, then roles, permissions and workflows.
• Payroll is a separate track with its own specialist and a rebuild in Nmbrs.
• Customers choose Buddee for HR and payroll under one roof.
• His one wish: "fewer choices and more explanation in the system".

Process

• Go and look: create an account and experience the product as a new customer.
• Note friction as evidence, not as a list of fixes.

Observations

• Activation link does not log you in; it asks for a password that is only in the email.
• First screen is account settings, not a start screen.
• Welcome questions only cover leave, nothing on payroll.
• Features without guidance, e.g. a CSV import with no field list.

Process

• Write a goal briefing for Claude.
• Give it all inputs from blocks 04 to 12.
• Ask for patterns, root causes and indicators linked to the goal.

Output

Process

• Claude compiles common onboarding practices in HR and payroll software.
• Examples of how others do it, first without Buddee's context.

Output

Process

• Make every assumption explicit.
• For each: how I would test it, and with which data.

Output

Process

• Principles, not a full design.
• A simple flow from signing to first payslip to working independently.

Output

Process

• The trade-offs, with the reason for each.
• What I leave out, and why.

Output

Process

• Month 1: baseline and insight.
• Month 2: one or two experiments in the biggest segment.
• Month 3: measure against the baseline and decide.
• Small team, metrics and decision points.

Output

Process

• The brief asks for this: say briefly what AI was used for.

Output