Client onboarding questionnaire: what to ask by service type

A client onboarding questionnaire is a short form you send after a client says yes and before the work starts. It should ask about goals, deadlines, who decides, what the client already has, and anything that could stop you from starting. Ten to fifteen questions is enough for most services. Add a few that are specific to your kind of work, and leave out anything you will not use in the first two weeks.

Send it after the yes, not before

The questionnaire is not the inquiry form. An inquiry form helps you decide whether to quote. The onboarding questionnaire helps you start. If you mix them, you scare off people who are only asking for a price, and you collect details for projects that never happen.

The best moment is right after the quote is accepted or the deposit is paid. The client is committed, a little excited, and still has the project in their head. Wait a week and the answers get vague. Send it the same day and most clients finish it within a day or two.

If you want a plain checklist for the whole first week, our client onboarding checklist covers what to do on your side. This post is about the form itself.

Ask fewer questions than you think

Every extra question costs you completed forms. Baymard's research on checkout forms is a useful comparison, because it measures the same thing: how many fields people will put up with. Its 2024 benchmark found the average checkout has 11.3 form fields, and that most sites need only about 8 (Baymard Institute). The same article reports that 17% of users have abandoned a checkout because of its complexity. A client who has already paid you is more patient than a stranger at a checkout, but the pattern holds: long forms get half-finished.

There is a legal reason to keep it short as well. Under the UK GDPR, personal data must be "adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary" for the purpose it is collected for (ICO). The EU GDPR sets out the same principle in Article 5 (GDPR text). If you cannot say what you will do with an answer, do not ask the question. This is general information, so check it with your lawyer if you handle personal data at scale.

A simple test for each question: if the client left it blank, would you be stuck? If yes, mark it required. If no, either make it optional or cut it.

The questions every service needs

These work for almost any service business. Adjust the wording to match how you talk to clients.

• Who is the main contact, and who signs off? Names, roles, best way to reach them. Projects stall when the person who answers email is not the person who approves.
• What is the goal in one sentence? "More bookings from the website" is better than "a nicer website".
• What does success look like, and how will you measure it? A number, a date, or a feeling the client can describe.
• What is the deadline, and why? A launch, an event, a season. A real reason tells you what can move and what cannot.
• What do you already have? Brand files, photos, logins, previous work, a style you like.
• What must we avoid? Competitors' looks, words the client dislikes, past bad experiences.
• Who else needs to see this before it goes out? A partner, a lawyer, a board. Better to hear it now than at the last review.
• How do you prefer to communicate? Email, a shared portal, phone, a weekly call. And which hours are fine.
• Billing details. Legal name, address, tax or registration number if they need it on the invoice, and who receives invoices.
• Anything we should know? One open question. It is where clients tell you the thing you did not think to ask.

Extra questions by service type

Add three to six of these to the core list, depending on what you sell.

Web and brand design

• Which pages or deliverables are in scope, and which are not?
• Who owns the domain, hosting and current website logins?
• Three websites or brands you like, and one thing you like about each.
• Who writes the copy, you or the client? What is the date it will be ready?

Photography and video

• Date, location and a backup option if the weather or venue changes.
• A must-have shot list and the names of anyone who must appear.
• Who handles permits, releases or venue approval?
• Where should the files go, and in what format (web, print, social)?

Consulting, coaching and agency work

• What have you already tried, and what happened?
• Who on your team will work with us, and how many hours a week can they give?
• Which tools and accounts do we need access to?
• What numbers can you share, and are there confidentiality limits?

Clinics, salons and trainers

• Anything we should know before the first session (allergies, injuries, preferences)?
• Who should we contact in an emergency?
• Consent for reminders by text or email, and the language you prefer.
• Cancellation rules confirmed.

Trades and renovation

• Access: parking, keys, working hours, pets, building rules.
• Who is on site during the work?
• Photos or measurements of the space.
• Any permits, landlord approvals or HOA rules?

Treat sensitive answers with care

Some questions look harmless and are not. Health information is a special category of personal data under the UK GDPR, along with data revealing race or ethnicity, political views, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic and biometric data, and data about sex life or sexual orientation (ICO). A trainer or clinic that asks about injuries is collecting health data, and the rules for it are stricter.

In practice: ask only what the service needs, say why you are asking, keep the answers where only the right people can see them, and do not paste them into an email thread. If you work in a regulated field, ask your regulator or lawyer what you must record and for how long.

Make it easy to finish

A form that is hard to fill in gets skipped. A few small habits help.

Put a short note at the top that says how long it takes and what happens next. The W3C accessibility guidance says to show which fields are required and optional in the label text itself, and warns that placeholder text is not a replacement for labels (W3C WAI). Group the questions under three or four headings. Use dropdowns and checkboxes for things with a fixed set of answers. Let the client attach files instead of describing them. Test the form on a phone, because that is where many clients will open it.

If you work with Arabic-speaking clients, offer the form in Arabic too. A client who understands every question gives better answers than one who guesses at a translation.

Finally, close the loop. Once the client submits, send a short confirmation that says what you will do next and by when. If an answer raises a problem, say so within a day. The questionnaire only builds trust if someone visibly reads it.

How Delivvo collects the answers before work starts

Delivvo keeps the questionnaire attached to the client and the project, so the answers are not lost in an inbox. It starts at the front door. Your inquiry form asks the few questions you need to decide whether to quote, and each inquiry lands as a card on the lead board with the answers visible. Nothing to copy across.

Once the client accepts your quote, Delivvo creates the client record and the project for you. The deeper questions then live in the client portal, which holds questionnaires alongside the files, the signed contract and the invoice. The client opens a link, signs in with a one-time code sent to their email, and sees what you need from them. There is no password to forget and no account to create.

You decide which questions to send. A web designer asks about the domain and brand files, a photographer about the shot list and venue.

Two things matter most for a small team. The answers sit on the project, so whoever picks up the work next week sees the same information you saw. And the client can see the questionnaire next to their deposit invoice and contract, which makes it feel like one onboarding step rather than three separate emails.

Clients pay you through your own payment gateway, and Delivvo takes 0% of the payment. See how inquiry forms feed the board, and how the client portal keeps the rest of the project in one place.

For the wider picture, see the lead board and the CRM for service businesses.

FAQ