A new customer walks in, places a small test order, and your sales rep bends over backward to make it perfect. Fast turnaround. Free delivery on a 2,000-pound order. Price matching against the lowest bid in the market. The customer is happy. Your margin on that order is negative $180.
That is fine if it is a strategic investment that leads to a $200,000-per-year account. It is a disaster if it sets expectations you cannot sustain. The difference between those outcomes is having an onboarding process versus winging it.
Before the First Order
Every new customer should go through a qualification step before your team starts quoting. This is not about being selective for the sake of it. It is about understanding what the customer needs so you can serve them profitably. Gather basic information: what materials they buy regularly, their typical order sizes and frequency, their delivery requirements, their payment terms expectations, and who their current supplier is.
Run a credit check before the first order ships, not after. A D&B report costs $30. A bad debt on a $15,000 order costs $15,000. The math is obvious, yet service centers routinely ship first orders on open terms to customers they know nothing about. Set new accounts to prepay or COD for the first 60 days. Customers who balk at that are often the ones who would have stiffed you.
Setting the Right Expectations
The onboarding conversation should cover lead times, minimum order quantities, delivery schedules, and pricing structure. Do this clearly and in writing. An email summarizing the terms you discussed takes five minutes and prevents months of arguments later.
Be specific about what you charge for. If you charge for cutting, for delivery under a certain weight, for expedited orders, or for after-hours pickups, say so upfront. Customers do not like surprises on invoices. They especially do not like surprises after they have already committed to using you for a project.
The First Three Orders
Assign your best people to the first three orders from a new customer. Not your cheapest people. Your best. The warehouse team that pulls the order accurately, the driver who shows up on time and communicates professionally, the person in the office who follows up proactively on MTRs and delivery confirmation.
Those first three interactions create the customer's mental model of your company. Everything after that is measured against it. If the first experience is excellent, they will forgive occasional hiccups later. If the first experience is sloppy, they will be looking for your replacement before the third order arrives.
The 30/60/90 Day Check-In
At 30 days, the sales rep should call (not email) to ask how things are going. Were deliveries on time? Was the material quality acceptable? Is the paperwork what they need? This call uncovers problems before they fester and shows the customer that you care about the relationship, not just the transaction.
At 60 days, review the account internally. What is the average order size? What is the margin? Is the customer ordering what they said they would during qualification? If a customer said they would buy 50,000 pounds a month and they have ordered 3,000 pounds total, that is a conversation worth having.
At 90 days, have a formal business review with the customer. Share what you have learned about their buying patterns and discuss how to serve them better. This is also when you convert them from COD to net-30 terms if their payment history supports it. And it is the right time to discuss any pricing adjustments, up or down, based on their actual volume versus what was initially quoted.
Structured onboarding costs almost nothing to implement. It just requires writing down what good looks like and making sure your team follows the steps. The payoff is faster time-to-profitability on new accounts and fewer customers who drain resources for years before someone finally notices they are money-losers.