Arrows is the tool for onboarding, sales, and success teams to close revenue faster, and create happy customers.

The mutual action plans you create in Arrows become the customer-facing extension to your process, keeping customers in the loop as to what is next.

And since Arrows integrates with HubSpot directly, you and your teams get to manage the process without leaving your CRM or creating further data silos.

With that data living inside HubSpot, and you can leverage the native reports, dashboards, and workflow automations to evaluate, optimize, AND scale that process.

Your process likely has many moving parts as a prospect goes from demo to closed won to onboarding and beyond.

All those handoffs, tools, and playbooks are important for your internal processes, however, your customers don’t need to know the entire story behind the scenes.

Arrows plans are intended to ensure customers only focus on what is expected of them and what’s next.

Plan templates are the foundation. You can create multiple templates to encompass the steps and tasks for each phase of the journey or for different customer segments.

Break your process into different phases (like getting started, kickoff, account setup, etc.) and then add the individual tasks for each relevant phase (like schedule a kickoff call, set your user permissions, etc.)

Once you have your process replicated inside of a plan template, you can quickly create plans for individual customers based on that template. In fact, you can automate the whole process right from HubSpot.

If you need to customize that plan, you can add or remove tasks on a specific customer’s plan without needing to change your main template.

If you find yourself constantly adding an additional step for customers, then add that step into the main plan template and save yourself that manual step in the future.

Repeat, repeat, and repeat, and you’re scaling the process while optimizing it.

Here’s an example of a plan created for a customer (Pasquesi Partners). The first few tasks are completed and next up is “Create your team accounts”

Clicking into any task expands the details and gives your customers an opportunity to complete the task, reschedule the due date, reassign it to another individual, or add a comment.

In addition to communicating clear next steps for customers, you can also drive action by using plans to:

• share files
• collect form submissions
• accept file uploads
• engage with comments
• set due dates for tasks
• set target dates for plan completion
• assign tasks to the respective person needed (example: a technical person to install a snippet vs. someone from legal to sign a contract)
• embed 3rd party tools (Calendly, Google Drive, YouTube, etc.) in a shared experience
• automate reminder notifications to customers for next steps
• or direct them to any link or URL (like in the example above for the “Settings page”)

Spoiler alert, there is no such thing.

Every process is different and every customer has a unique learning style. Your goal is not to spend months crafting the “perfect template” that covers every single step, help center article, and resource you’e ever created.

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From the Template page inside of Arrows, you can easily edit existing plan templates or create new ones!

Don’t overthink this. Progress is better than perfection and you’ll forever be optimizing this process. Start with the most urgent phases and tasks, and build from there.

Some pro-tips:

Although every process is different, some critical tasks to include are ones where you might need to:

• request information from a customer to move to the next step (upload files, documents, form submissions, etc.)
• ask a customer to take an action to proceed (book a meeting, update a setting, pay an invoice, etc.)
• assign “homework” for things that need accomplishing between check in calls AFTER you have taught them how to do it (example - show them how to upload one row of data and then have them do the rest on their own)
• share pertinent information your customer must read or see to progress (download files, articles, etc.)
• instructions for administrative settings that are critical for product usage (user permissions, profile authentications, etc.)
• anything in your process that MUST be completed now in order to go forward (save the advanced stuff for later!)

Once you have these tasks in your Arrows plan templates, you can make create and share plans with customers in seconds!

You’ll work in the Arrows app to create (or edit) plan templates (and eventually setup data connections to sync information between Arrows and HubSpot).

Besides that, the authentication of Arrows and HubSpot lets you run your entire process without leaving HubSpot!

Using HubSpot Deal or Ticket pipelines to manage onboarding

Deals and tickets tie to pipelines, pipelines tie to onboarding….

Onboarding is the epitome of a process that should have a clear outcome and measure of success.

Pipelines in HubSpot (or any CRM) are designed specifically for the purpose of moving a customer through a series of steps to reach a defined outcome.

The reason?

Pipeline movements will always be timestamped making reporting much easier and you’ll have a visual way to see the progression of companies through onboarding and quickly identify bottlenecks.

Click here - for detailed instructions from HubSpot for creating new pipelines, we recommend setting one up for your onboarding flow separately from your sales (the same can be done if you’re using the Ticket object instead of Deals)

Below is an example of a Deal pipeline used for onboarding. This is a great way to give everyone at your company visibility into where customers are in your onboarding journey.

This image is the “board” view for the pipeline:

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Changing from the board view to the list view gives you the opportunity add even more details, save views, and further manage your customers going through onboarding:

Once you’ve setup these pipelines, you create new deals for each customer going through your onboarding process and the magic really starts…

The Arrows card

Now that your pipelines are setup, the Arrows card will appear inside of your HubSpot Deal and Ticket objects.

It can be found in the bottom of right sidebar and you can drag it towards the top for easier access.

This card is used to create a plan for a customer without leaving HubSpot. When you click Create plan, you’ll be given the option to

1. select the plan template you’d like to use
2. adjust the plan coordinator (note: this is the main contact on your side and is prefilled based on the deal or ticket owner)
3. adjust the plan start and stop dates (note: these can be preset in the template)
4. and adjust the plan point person (note: this is the main contact on your customer’s side and is prefilled based on the deal or ticket contact)

Here is an example of it inside of a deal:

Once you create a plan for a customer, this card becomes your command center for understanding what your customers are doing on their end.

As your customers complete tasks, you see those details directly on the card inside of the Deal or Ticket.

In addition to this overview, the card also lets you:

1. view the entire plan
2. update the status of the plan
3. share the plan with other participants
4. and, delete the plan

Here is an example of an Arrows card with a plan in progress:

Now that you’ve created a plan template, setup your pipelines, and created your first plan using the Arrows card inside of HubSpot, all that is left is to share it with a customer!

Sharing a plan is incredibly simple.

At the top of each plan, you’ll find a Share button along with indicators for the participants collaborating on a plan (whether that’s from your team, your customer’s team, or anyone else you invite to the plan!)

The main point-person is automatically assigned according to the contact on your deal or ticket.

To add others, all you need to do is type in their name and email when you expand the share button and we’ll email them instructions to access the plan.

Your participants do not need to setup an account or create a password; we use a “Magic Link” to securely grant them access to the plan and keep them logged in as long as they are in the same browser.

Once you’ve added participants on the customer side (your team will automatically appear) - you can assign individual tasks to individual participants (again, your side or theirs!)

As you add participants, you can also control the level of visibility into the plan you’d like for them to have.

If you open the participant panel from the plan overview, you can update those notification settings accordingly (we send email reminders to keep progress moving forward so you don’t have to!).

By design, the plan coordinator (your side) and the plan point person (your customer’s side) are set to receive all notifications (weekly plan digest email, due date reminders, and comment notifications).

You can also turn off or limit notifications for specific participants accordingly!

Once you share the plan, we’ll send them an invite and they’ll land right on your welcome page after they confirm their email.

And that’s it! Just like that, you’ve sent your first plan and your customers are on their way to know what’s expected next of them.