HoneyBook’s CRM capabilities let you manage and nurture your relationships with leads and clients, at every touchpoint. The 8 steps below will help you get set up for success and streamline your process, improve the client experience, and save time along the way.
1. Customize your pipeline
What this is | How to get to it |
| From the navigation menu, select Projects |
Once you’ve gotten a handle on what the pipeline is, you can get started customizing it to fit your process. You'll want your pipeline to represent the back-end stages of your client projects, from inquiry to project closure. Just select Customize pipeline above your pipeline, from where you can add, move, rename, and delete any and all pipeline stages.
For enhanced control, you can also adjust pipeline automations: the settings that automatically move projects to new stages. Setting up pipeline automations lets projects move effortlessly through your pipeline, at the appropriate triggers–and saves you the manual work of tracking each and every project.
Plus, you can also create custom pipeline views, for more control over what projects you see. Learn more about how to customize your pipeline.
2. Add a client
What this is | How to get to it |
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Once you add a client to HoneyBook, you can create a client project and start communicating with them.
3. Create a project
What this is | How to get to it |
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From your homepage in the top-right corner, select + New > Project
Enter your project details: name, type, date, lead source, time zone, etc. Don't worry if you don't know them all of them yet, or if they change later.
Select Create project
Add a participant to the project. You'll be prompted to either create a new client, or select an existing one.
If creating a new client, enter their name, email address, and any other details
Participants are the contacts who will receive files and other communication sent within the project
Select Add
Your project is now active and you can get started creating and sending files, emailing the project participants, and more.
4. Explore the contact workspace
What this is | How to get to it |
| You can find contact workspaces from several places:
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When you add a new contact in HoneyBook, you also create a contact workspace for that lead or client. While projects help you keep job-specific details, files, and invoices organized, contact workspaces let you take a step back to view a client’s entire history. They help you manage the specific ongoing relationships that are crucial to many businesses. Learn more about contact workspaces.
5. Create a lead form
What this is | How to get to it |
| From your navigation menu, select Lead capture > Lead forms to view, manage, and create new lead forms
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Lead forms can be shared with anyone by public links and distributed over any channel you choose. This means:
You don’t need a project created before sharing a lead form link — a project will automatically be created when a lead or client submits the form, so you can follow up and manage the relationship
You don’t need to know a lead’s contact information ahead of time — you can use a lead form to capture that
Learn how to build, customize, and share a lead form.
6. Integrate your email
What this is | How to get to it |
HoneyBook supports integrations with all major email providers. Here’s what you can expect if you integrate your email with HoneyBook:
| Learn how to integrate your business email with HoneyBook
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Integrating your business email helps you streamline communications, and adds an additional branded touch to all of your email messages sent through HoneyBook. You can read more about how to communicate with clients through HoneyBook.
📚 Tip
If you prefer to not integrate your email, or don’t have one to add, you can use our sender, [email protected].
7. Set up automations
What this is | How to get to it |
Automations allow you to automate actions in your projects, sending out emails, creating internal tasks, moving pipeline stages, or sending certain files at the cadence of your choice | From your navigation menu, select Automations to view, manage, and create new automations
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Automations go hand-in-hand with managing client relationships, as they let you automate many of the steps key to nurturing relationships — and also give you time back to strengthen personal connections.
8. Preview the client experience
What this is | How to get to it |
The client experience is what your clients actually experience from their end as you communicate and share files with them | Read up on your clients' experience with the client portal |
It’s hard to manage client relationships without understanding the other side. From the first time you send an email or file through HoneyBook, clients have loginless access and can review details and take actions.
Whenever you draft up a smart file, you can always preview before sharing to get a peek into what your client will experience once you share the file. You can also send yourself a test of any file that you’re working on, to understand the full client experience from file receipt to completion. You’ll be able to look through each page to get the full feel, and even test out responding to questions, selecting services, and more. Since it’s a test smart file, nothing will be saved or changed.
Still have questions? Feel free to send us a message by clicking the Question Mark icon on any HoneyBook page. Our team is always happy to help!