A well-structured onboarding program is essential to keeping a shared kitchen operating smoothly. Onboarding Flows is an add-on feature from The Food Corridor that allows you build and automate your onboarding process so you can get your prospects converted to clients more quickly and accurately. Using Onboarding Flows can result in increased lead conversion, higher renter engagement, improved compliance, and strong member loyalty from day one.
Onboarding Flows lets you:
Ensure critical tasks are completed before approving prospects as clients in your kitchen
Create multiple checklists for different renter types such as food trucks, caterers, CPG, or non-profit community members
Integrate and centralize tools by linking directly to external applications like Google Forms, HelloSign, or Calendly
Track progress, send automated notifications, and approve tasks to move prospects to clients faster
From completing the kitchen application to scheduling a tour, learning policies, and signing the contract, Onboarding Flows assists prospects in becoming engaged and compliant long-term renters from the get go.
Getting Started
Opting-in to the Onboarding Flows Beta
To add Onboarding Flows to your current Food Corridor account, go to Kitchen Settings > Onboarding > Get Started. During ~2 months of Beta, the feature is free to use!
Creating a Checklist
Checklists are templates of onboarding steps for prospects. First determine the tasks involved in your current onboarding process. Because food trucks may have different requirements than your wholesale prospects, you may decide to create multiple checklists to serve different renter types. If you need ideas, check out our example checklist.
Once you have created a checklist, you can assign it to a prospect in their profile. The prospect will then be prompted to complete each step in the order specified in the checklist.
To create a new checklist, click + next on the default checklist. Once you have more than one checklist, click the down arrow next to the checklist title to toggle between lists and create additional lists.
Building a Checklist
To build a comprehensive and efficient task checklist for onboarding prospects in your kitchen, follow these steps:
Review the sample 3-task checklist provided as a starting point
To edit an existing task, click on the pencil icon
To add additional tasks, click + Add Task
For the action, choose from the drop-down list of suggested tasks, or add your own task
For the link, if applicable, enter the url of an external application you use, where the prospect should complete the task.
This "Link to Application" section allows you to directly connect external applications that support your onboarding process. This may be Google Forms or JotForm (to submit a kitchen application), Calendly (to book a tour), YouTube (to view your welcome video), Mailchimp (to sign up for your kitchen newsletter), or any other tool you use! This will centralize and coordinate all the steps in your onboarding process, making it more streamlined and efficient.
Food Corridor-related onboarding tasks will be linked automatically and appear in the task drop-down list, including adding a payment method in TFC, uploading required documents in TFC, and watching TFC tutorials. These tasks will help prospects quickly onboard to The Food Corridor platform.
If your prospects don't need to complete that task online, leave the link field blank.
If the link is specific to each client (such as HelloSign for signing a contract), you can customize that url per prospect after you assign their checklist. More on this below.
Enter a description or instructions for the task (this will be visible to the prospect)
Save the task
Repeat steps to add as many tasks as needed to the checklist
If you need to make changes to the checklist, such as editing or deleting a task, simply select the pencil (edit) or trashcan (delete) icon on the action line. You can also reorder the tasks as needed.
If you're creating multiple checklists per renter type, the duplicate option will help you get a jumpstart on the next checklist.
Viewing as a Prospect
Want to see how the checklist looks as a prospect? Click "View As Prospect" to see the checklist through their eyes. Here, you can test out your links by clicking on the task titles. To shift back to your view click "Return to Account."
Assigning a Checklist
Once your checklists are built with tasks and links, you can assign them to prospects. Once assigned, the prospect will automatically be prompted to submit the items on their onboarding checklist for your approval.
To assign a checklist to a prospect, click on Clients > Prospects Tab > Select Checklist > Select and Save. Your prospect is now ready to get started with the onboarding process!
You can also assign a checklist directly from their Prospects Profile > Onboarding tab.
If you have an active client that you would like to assign a checklist to, you can do this on mobile. To do this, go to Clients > Client Name > General > Onboarding > Assign a Checklist.
Once your checklists are assigned, you will be able to go in and edit task titles, links, and descriptions specific to individual clients, such as linking to their HelloSign contract or other specialized compliance items. To do this, go to your prospect's Onboarding tab and use the pencil icon to edit their personalized links or steps.
Managing your Flows
Once your prospect completes an action, they will mark it as "Completed". You will then receive a notification of the completed action to 'Review and Approve.' Click on 'Pending Approval' to mark the action as complete.
You can hover over any task to manually mark an item as "Completed".
The prospect will need to complete their tasks in order. However, if they've submitted a task to you, they can move onto the next one - they don't need to wait for you to approve that one first. This way, the prospect can move quickly through their steps and nobody is waiting on anybody else.
Both you and your prospect will be able to track onboarding progress. In addition to viewing the list of completed actions in the checklist, both you and your prospect will see a progress bar with percent completion of the actions. By tracking progress, both of you will have visibility into where the process of completion stands as they work through their assigned tasks.
Automatically Sending Notifications
To keep the onboarding process moving, automatic notifications will be sent to prospects when:
You've approved a task, with a prompt to complete the next task on their list
They haven't completed their most recent onboarding task for 2 days
They haven't completed any onboarding task for 7 or more days
To customize your notification settings, go to Kitchen Settings > General > Client Notifications, or click "Change Notification Settings".
In addition to you being notified any time a task is submitted by the prospect, you will also receive a notification anytime a Food Corridor task is automatically checked off, including when they add a payment method and adding all their required documents.
Completing Onboarding
While the goal is for the prospect is to complete all steps on their checklist before you approve them as a client, you can choose to approve them at any point. To do this, click "Approve Client". After you save the settings, the prospect will be moved from the Prospect tab to the Client tab. In their profile, the checklist will be moved from a standalone Onboarding tab to a more scaled down version in the General tab. This way, if there are still a few final items to check off, you can still do so. All the notifications will continue to send, and the client will still have access to their checklist to complete their final tasks.