Welcome packet: what to send a new client in week one

A welcome packet is the small document you send a client just after they say yes: who they will be working with, what happens next, how to reach you, how billing works, and what you need from them. It exists because a new client has roughly a dozen practical questions they are slightly too polite to ask, and answering them unprompted is the cheapest professionalism available.

It is not a brochure. The client already bought. Everything about the tone should be operational — this is how we will work together — rather than promotional.

What goes in a welcome packet

• A short welcome that names their main contact, with a photograph if you have one and a direct way to reach them.
• What happens next, with dates: kick-off, first delivery, first review.
• What you need from them, in one list, with a deadline and the reason for each item.
• How you work: meeting rhythm, where questions go, expected response times, and what counts as urgent.
• Who does what on both sides — a four-line table beats two paragraphs.
• Billing: what is invoiced when, payment terms, who to send the invoice to, and how to query it.
• Practical policies people actually hit: how changes to scope are handled, notice periods, holiday cover.
• A one-line summary of what you agreed, in plain language, so the scope is visible to everyone on their side rather than living in the contract.

Keep it to about six pages and lead with what happens next. The most common failure is a welcome packet that opens with the company's history and reaches the meeting schedule on page nine — by which point the client has skimmed to the end looking for the date of the kick-off.

Making it and keeping it current

1. Write it once as a master document, with the client-specific parts clearly marked so nobody has to hunt for them.
2. Personalise only what matters: their name, their contact, their dates, their scope line. Resist rewriting the rest each time.
3. Send it as a PDF so the layout survives, and attach it to the welcome message rather than putting it behind a link nobody clicks.
4. Include the intake list in the packet and as a form, so the client can read it in context and complete it in one place.
5. Ask for a reply confirming the dates. A packet that generates no response has probably not been read.
6. Review it every quarter against the questions clients actually asked. Each repeated question is a section you should have written.
7. Version it, so you know which packet a client received when a policy changes.

One packet, adapted where it matters

Firms that do this well keep a single master packet and two or three variants — by service line, or by client size — rather than a new document per client. The reason is maintenance: five variants get updated when payment terms change, forty personalised copies do not, and eighteen months later half your clients hold a packet that describes a process you no longer follow.

In Ettex, the master lives in Ettex Docs — templates and outlines, threaded comments with @mentions when someone spots a stale policy, and version history so you can tell which version a client received in March. Export it to PDF for sending; if you need form fields the client can complete on screen, Ettex PDF creates and detects fillable fields and can merge the packet with an agreement into one file. The intake list works as a form in Ettex Forms, where submissions land timestamped in one inbox with file uploads for logos or data, and anything needing signature — the engagement letter that usually travels with the packet — goes through Ettex Signature.

What is not there: Ettex has no client-portal product where a new client logs in to see their own onboarding, no automated sending of the packet when a deal closes, and no design templates for the packet itself. You write the document, export it, and send it. For most small firms that is the whole job — but if you want the client watching a progress bar, that is a different product.

Signs your packet is not working

• Clients ask, in week two, a question the packet answers on page four — usually because the answer was buried.
• It opens with your story rather than with their next step.
• The intake list has no deadline, so it returns eventually rather than promptly.
• It names a contact who left, or a payment term you changed last year.
• It is a long email instead of a document, so nobody can find it again when they need the billing detail.
• Every client gets a hand-built version, which means none of them get an updated one.

A welcome packet is six pages that prevent a month of small emails. Lead with what happens next, ask for everything once, keep one master, and send it the day they sign.