HoneyBook’s CRM capabilities let you manage and nurture your relationships with leads and clients, at every touchpoint. The eight steps below will help you get set up for success–and streamline your process, improve the client experience, and save time along the way.
Customize your pipeline
What this is | How to get to it |
💡 Your project pipeline is a centralized place to track your lead and client projects by where they are in the booking process (their “stage”). It’s an organizational tool that’s visible only to you and other members of your team. | Click the Projects tab in your top navigation bar. |
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 click the Customize button 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.
Add a client
What this is | How to get to it |
💡 Clients are the people you work with.
If you have existing clients, you’ll want to add them to HoneyBook so you can get started nurturing those relationships further.
If your business is on the newer side, you can manually add leads as they come in, or capture them via contact form or lead form (more on that below!).
A name and email address is required for each client you enter. | Click the Contacts tab in your top navigation bar to access your full contacts list.
You can also search for specific contacts by typing their name in the search bar to the top left of your screen. |
Once you add a client to HoneyBook, you can create a client project and start communicating with them. There are a few different ways you can add clients–learn how here.
Create a project
What this is | How to get to it |
💡 In HoneyBook, a project represents an instance of a working relationship with a client. You might create a project for a brand redesign project with client A, and another project for wedding photography with client B.
Without a project, you cannot communicate with, or send files to, a client. Projects are the “hubs” that house all of the files, participants, communication and other details for a specific job. | Click the Projects tab in your top navigation bar to access your fill list of projects, organized by where they are in your process.
You can also search for specific projects by typing the project name in the search bar to the top left of your screen. |
To create a new project:
1. From your home page, hover over the + New button in the top right corner of the screen > select New Project from the menu.
2. Enter your project details: name, type, date, lead source, time zone, etc. Don't worry if you don't know them all yet, or if they change later.
3. Click Create Project.
4. 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.
📚 Tip
Participants are the contacts who will receive all files and other communication sent within the project.
5. Click Add.
Your project is now active and you can get started creating and sending files, emailing the project participants, and more.
Explore the client workspace
What this is | How to get to it |
💡 Client workspaces give you an overview of a specific lead or client's history with you. You can view all email communication, view client worth (all payments: completed, upcoming, and overdue), create and send files and emails for that contact, add new projects, and view other key details. | You can find client workspaces from several places: |
When you add a new contact in HoneyBook, you also create a client workspace for that lead or client.
While projects help you keep job-specific details, files, and invoices organized, client 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.
Create a lead form
What this is | How to get to it |
💡 Lead forms allow you to create a public, custom inquiry or booking experience for potential (or returning) clients. Lead forms let you improve your lead capture and qualification process—and you can even use them to instantly book services! | To view, manage, and create new lead forms, select Tools > Lead Forms.
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Lead forms can be shared with anyone via 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/client submits the form, so you can follow-up and manage the relationship
You don’t need to know a lead’s contact info ahead of time–you can use a lead form to capture that
📚 Tip
You can even connect lead forms to automations so that, once a lead form is submitted, you can automate next-step tasks in the project.
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:
| To integrate your business email with HoneyBook, navigate to Company Settings > Integrations.
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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.
To integrate your email address, follow the steps here. You can read more about all of the different ways to communicate with clients through HoneyBook here!
📚 Tip
If you prefer to not integrate your email, or don’t have one to add, you can use our sender ([email protected]).
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.
You can automatically assign automations to inquiries that come in via your contact forms and lead forms, and you can also manually assign automations on a project-by-project basis. | To view, manage, and create new automations, select Tools > Automations.
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Automations go hand-in-hand with managing client relationships, as they let you automate many of the steps that are key to nurturing relationships–and also give you time back to strengthen personal connections.
An example of an automation might be:
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. |
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 easily review details and take actions.
Whenever you draft up a smart file, you can always click Preview 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 receival to completion. You’ll be able to click 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!