Before getting started with this lesson, we recommend taking some time to:

Moving away from multiple systems when it comes to tracking ongoing client service needs, such as spreadsheets, to-do lists, CRM tasks, sticky notes, and calendar reminders will allow you to:

More often than not, we see client service teams rely on a growing collection of tools and habits to track and manage the follow-through of ongoing client service tasks. A mix of spreadsheet trackers, to-do lists, CRM tasks, sticky notes, and calendar reminders create multiple sources of truth for your team to stay on top of.

Staying on top of everything becomes more of an art than a science, and as things pick up, it becomes impossible to see an overview of what is being worked on, and what needs attention at a glance.

Despite creating flexibility for each team member to choose how they prefer to work, by and large, so many sources of truth do more harm than good:

Here at Hubly, we recommend taking a simple 3-step approach to planning key processes based on best practices that we’ve seen work time and time again for hundreds of users.

You can get started by selecting client service Workflow templates in Hubly:

In this case, each Workflow represents an individual request and is not usually related to another directly:

Clients can be added to any Workflow and make it easy for your team to see where everyone is at, identify bottlenecks, and spot what needs attention:

Long, run-on lists of lists of Tasks make it difficult to understand progress at a glance and often make those using these task lists feel micromanaged instead of empowered.

The best practice is to always keep things simple, we recommend keeping your Task lists concise and to the point.

Not only is it easier to get started this way, but you will also end up creating a Workflow that will actually be used to drive work and see next steps with ease.

Double-click on any templated Workflow to review its default list of Tasks:

You will see that Hubly templates are designed in such a way that makes it easy to bookmark the progress being made — allowing anyone on your team to see exactly where things left off, at a glance:

Start by reviewing this templated list of Tasks and adjusting it to work for your team. You can select the text of any Task to edit it:

You can re-order Tasks by using the grip lines along the left:

Tasks can be deleted through their in-line menu:

Select Add Task to create a new Task:

Tasks should help your team standardize the experience that you want your clients to receive, without micromanaging the person working through them.

We often see long Task lists (or sub Tasks) used to capture all of the nuances that ensure your I’s are dotted and T’s crossed. But checking off these steps every single time, for every single client quickly becomes time-consuming and clunky.

To avoid creating cluttered, long task lists, we recommend capturing additional details or instructions as Descriptions within those tasks:

Select the Task Details icon to add a description or select Edit Task Details to edit an existing description:

Descriptions can also be used to keep important “bookmarks" such as meeting scheduling links, data collection forms, or resources within reach:

Or to provide a template for structured notes to be recorded for consistency across team members:

Tip: Hubly is built to be flexible, and Task Descriptions are no different. These can be edited and customized for every Client that you add to this Workflow. We recommend setting up the Description field to outline all document types to be collected for the preparation of a tax return and paring that list down by whoever manages that Workflow for a client, allowing them to capture client-specific needs.

As your team grows, different responsibilities will be shared between team members — in Hubly we refer to these as User Roles.

Hubly makes it easy to pre-assign Tasks directly to specific Users, or to Roles that can be shared between multiple users:

Tasks that are assigned to Roles can be routed based on workload balancing rules (such as capacity, or round-robin) — configurable from the Settings page:

Users can also be pre-assigned to Roles for specific clients, forming that client’s Service Team. Service Teams can be reviewed and updated from the Client Card:

User Roles can be configured by using the Settings menu from the Service Team section on the Client Card:

From here you can configure User Roles for different specialized types of tasks to assign team members to:

Existing User assignments can also be synced in from the Roles assigned to contacts in your CRM:

Hubly makes it easier than ever before to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks without requiring time-consuming, manual review, prioritization, and delegation of work.

That’s why when planning your Workflow Tasks, we recommend always ensuring that every Task is pre-assigned and that a Reminder is set for follow-up Tasks and Tasks that pass the Workflow from one user to another:

You can assign Tasks to a user or Role by selecting the user icon to the left of a Task's name and selecting the desired user or Role name:

You can configure automatic Reminders to keep work flowing by clicking the bell icon to the right of a Task’s name:

Reminders can be set to come due relative to when a Client was added to the Workflow, or when the Task immediately before it was completed:

This way, when a Client is added to the Workflow, every Task will automatically be delegated to the right person on that client's team, and automatic reminders will be set as these Tasks are completed — ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks:

Tasks with Reminders will be summarized for every user in the HubFeed, making it easy to see a short list of Tasks that need their attention:

This makes it easy to see exactly who is working on every Client, and what needs to be prioritized at a glance:

Tip: Use the Filter menu to quickly filter your dashboard by assigned User or Role, and by status to create a focused view of urgent and upcoming to-dos.

For client service needs that lead into one or more subsequent Workflows, configuring a Next Workflow makes it easy to map out exactly where the client will need to be added to next:

Oftentimes, after a client meeting, there can be multiple Workflows that need to be launched in follow-up (these are typically your client service Workflows to handle the follow-through on action items and next steps).

The list of pre-configured Next Workflows can be customized for every Client, right from within the Client Card:

This means that Next Workflows can be used to personalize each Client’s journey, while also providing context for the rest of your team:

Tip: You can schedule a start date for any Next Workflow. Simply Add a Start Date and that Scheduled Workflow will continue to appear in that Client Card until they’re started automatically on the scheduled date.

Staying on top of ongoing client service needs can often involve many manual reminders and spreadsheets that are prone to mistakes and errors. Hubly can help you eliminate these by configuring Workflow Rules and connecting your account to Zapier.

We recommend using Streams to quickly and visually categorize all of your current clients as Active Clients:

Located in the client card, Streams make it quick and easy for everyone on your team to know exactly who they are working on and what's important to that contact at a glance:

We recommend using Tags to track other important information in a structured way.

Tags are excellent for tracking details such as preferred meeting frequency, needs (such as RMDs), accounts, custodians, and AUM brackets:

Add/Remove Stream or Tag Rule

The Add/Remove Stream or Tag Rule can be leveraged to automatically categorize (or de-categorize) contacts as they are moved through your service Workflows.

To start with a Rule already in a template, simply double-click on an existing Rule, or select the in-line menu to edit:

You can create a new rule by selecting “Add Rule”:

Simply configure this type of rule to add or remove a specific stream or tag when a client is moved through the Workflow:

Repeating Rule

We recommend utilizing the Repeating Rule to add clients to a client service Workflow during a specific time of year — these types of rules make it easy to implement an annual service calendar (conducting specific reviews for relevant clients during specific calendar months):

Tip: You can use Tag Groups to track specific client needs and create multiple Repeating Rules to add clients to Workflows accordingly.

Age-Based Rules

Although some client service work is triggered as a result of needs or life changes/milestones identified during client review meetings, many long-term service Workflows are triggered by the client's age.

We recommend setting up Age-Based Rules to add clients to a client service Workflow around a specific age:

Hubly Age-Based Rules can be leveraged to trigger:

Zapier

You can leverage Zapier to find contacts in Hubly and add them to a client service Workflow. Many firms utilize data collection forms to capture what information has changed and determine what actions need to be taken by the client service team.

Too much time is lost doing simplistic data rekey/update actions manually and with this type of automation, you can ensure that your Workflows don't wait on anyone to do these manual steps.

You can set up a Zap to look for new submissions on a form, find or create the client in Hubly, and assign them to a specific workflow in your Hub.

Tip: Depending on the information captured by that form, you may wish to add a Zapier filter step to ensure only specific form submission values allow this Zap to proceed.

For your first action step, select Hubly as the app and Find a Client as the action.

Use the Email Address submitted via the form in the triggering step to locate the corresponding contact record in Hubly:

Quick Tip: In this case, we assume that the contact record already exists. If that is not the case, you will want to select the "Create Hubly Client..." option.

Now that this Zap has located the contact record in Hubly, we’ll need to set up our second action event to start a specific client service Workflow for that client in Hubly. For this Zapier step, you will want to set up an Assign Client to Workflow action.

Configure this action by once again selecting your Hub and selecting the ID of the client that we found in the previous step under the Client field:

Now simply select the Hubly Workflow to add the client into:

Your Workflows will continue to evolve and change as you improve your processes, add additional services, and revise the composition of your software stack and team.

Investing the time to begin documenting and creating structure for your ongoing client service needs today will give you a starting point to iterate and improve upon in the future. Strong team habits built around clear, concise Workflows will make it easier to introduce new software, streamline bottlenecks, and grow your firm with confidence knowing that Client requests aren't slipping through the cracks.

Whether you’re working alone or with a team, consolidating your various trackers and spreadsheets into one single source of truth will give you visibility over all of the ongoing client service work that your team is juggling — making it easier to manage busy surge periods and spot items that are falling behind.

Pre-assignment and smart reminders on Tasks will help your team reduce the operational burden by automatically routing Tasks to the right team member for every type of client service request.

Short, well-planned Task lists will empower your team to work independently while helping ensure consistency and compliance to a common process — giving you the confidence to grow your business, expand your service offerings, and introduce new technology that will help your firm run even smoother and scale even further as it grows.

Most importantly, all of the work that you continue to do for every client throughout their journey with your firm will be available in one single source of truth, on their Hubly Client Card — making it simple to see exactly what has been done, by who, and when.

Now that you’ve built these Workflows, tested them, and applied the finishing touches by automating away repetitive time-consuming steps, it’s time to get your team in.

Getting a team to form new, collaborative habits all the whilst learning an entirely new piece of software will take time, collective effort, and persistence. Having everyone aligned on the goals that they’re working towards, and with a clear understanding of the challenges that they’re aligned to overcome is an important first step.

Prior to getting your team into Hubly, it’s important to facilitate an honest conversation around the challenges that they face with their existing work structures today and the goals that they are committed to working towards together. We’ve prepared this helpful facilitation guide: Creating Alignment Amongst Your Team.

We’ve also prepared a facilitation guide for when it’s time to get your team up and running with their new dashboard of client onboarding Workflows in Hubly: Getting Started Check-List For Teams.

We created a collection of useful Product Guides to let you explore Hubly and get familiar with all of the different ways that our product can make you more productive and simplify how you run your practice.

If you've checked out the Help Center and still need some guidance, you can use the in-app Live Chat to send us a message. You can also reach your Implementation Lead directly. We're here to help, just ask! 🙋‍♂️

We would love to learn more about your challenges and see if Hubly can help your firm grow. Schedule a free strategy call with us directly to get started!