The difference between a successful project and a mediocre one often lies in communication, which is considered the most important professional skill by 35% of project managers surveyed by KPMG. And yes: work or project intake process is all about communication. At the same time, the benefits it can bring you (if set properly) go far beyond pure communication.
No matter how good the finished product is — be it a logo design, SEO article, or an edited YouTube video — if it doesn’t meet all the requirements, or isn’t properly aligned with the brand’s message, it’s not going to wow anyone. The intake process is to clear up any ambiguities and align your expectations with those of your client.
And even if that may seem quite obvious speaking in theory, things get tricky in practice. While talking over ideas and discussing the client’s vision can be exciting, precision is often missing. Are we on the same page while mentioning “modern design”? Do we define “witty language” the same way? How do we understand “the professional look”?
Many misunderstandings that become clear when the project is well underway stem from unclear communication and vague guidelines, leading to frustration and wasted time. Below, we explain how can you avoid that fate and satisfy your clients from the get-go by implementing an intake process.
What Is An Intake Process?
An intake process is a form of collecting necessary information before the project starts to ensure everyone stays on the same page regarding the project’s scope and requirements.
Its key element is a questionnaire to be filled out by clients. The length of the form and its specific questions are entirely dependent on your business and services. Here is how it can look like:
*Free template available for free in Canva.
Usually, an intake process includes a client intake and project intake:
- A client intake refers tocollecting all the basic information about the client, their company, and brand. ICommon questions include personal and contact information, links to websites or social media handles, target audience, or brand core values.
- A project intake refers to collecting all the requirements for the upcoming project. Common questions include project objectives and goals, success criteria, timeline and deadlines, as well as tools and resources.
In a way, it’s very similar to the patient intake process in a hospital or in a medical facility. The patient typically provides personal details but often also describes their health condition and indicates the type of medical services he/she is interested in.
Pro-Tip: If you tend to work on one-off projects, your intake process can include both of these forms. But if your clients keep coming back or you work with them on a long-term basis, it’s best to separate these documents so that your clients don’t have to fill out the same information every time they request a new project.
Why Project Intake Process is Important? 6 Key Benefits
Does a project intake process seem like too much work for little gain? Let’s see what kind of benefits you can expect from such a system.
First good impression — clients want to place their trust in reliable and trustworthy professionals, who also look like they’re worth the money. Having a proper intake process flow set in place ensures you come across as an organized person for whom this isn’t the first rodeo.
One source of truth — let’s not kid ourselves; unless it’s written down, we won’t remember it. With client & project intakes, we ensure we have all the important information in one place with no chance of losing it. Otherwise, you’ll waste time hunting down data scattered across various emails threads, which doesn’t only lead to stress, but also paints us in a less than professional light.
Future reference — if you want to impress any returning clients, showing them that you remember their brand and past projects is a sure way of doing that. You can quickly pick up the conversation where you left it, and don’t have to ask the client to fill out the client intake form again; unless it’s really been a long time!
Smooth onboarding — if you’re part of a team, then the collected information isn’t just for you; it’s for everyone. In case of onboarding a new person to the project or filling in for a missing person enjoying their holidays, you have all the right information right at hand. But most importantly, it can save you some trouble when a person leaves the team entirely, taking away their entire knowledge with them.
Removing back-and-forth — “Hey, I just had one more thing to ask” is hardly professional and gives off amateur vibes. By asking all the right questions upfront, you significantly reduce the time spent on exchanging emails or messages. And it can make an especially huge difference with clients that are difficult to reach on a good day!
Finding out improvements & bottlenecks — last but not least, having an organized system helps you notice any patterns or issues that hold you back. It’s easy to spot any missing questions or angles you haven’t considered, and then apply it to all future clients for a much improved client experience.
How to Design an Effective Intake Process? 8 Steps to Take
You can create a simple process and simple intake form with basic tools or design a detailed intake roadmap including an advanced form (you can create it using interactive questionnaire tools, HoneyBook-style, or client portals like Zendo).
There isn’t a specific script for you to follow, which is good news and bad news as well…
You’re not limited by schemas that are not fit for your business. It’s, beyond doubt, a plus, but it comes at a price…
The price is all the creative and strategic job to be done on your end.
But so as not to discourage you, find below a short step-by-step guide highlighting what aspects you should consider while designing the intake process for your company.
1. Define Clear Objectives
Before creating forms or procedures, pinpoint what you need from an intake process. Is it to qualify leads, collect essential project details, or ensure a smooth transition between teams? Understanding your goal helps shape a structured workflow.
2. Identify Essential Information
What details do you absolutely need upfront? Avoid overwhelming clients with unnecessary questions. Keep it concise but comprehensive — think name, contact info, project scope, budget, and key expectations.
3. Choose the Right Tools
From Google Forms to dedicated intake software like Typeform, ClickUp or Zendo, selecting the right tool makes data collection quick and straightforward. Make sure to integrate with your existing CRM or project management system for better automation.
4. Create a User-Friendly Intake Form
A complex or time-consuming form can deter potential clients. Keep it:
- intuitive,
- mobile-friendly,
- and structured logically.
Use dropdowns, checkboxes, or multiple-choice options to make responses easier.
5. Set Up Automated Workflows
Reduce manual work by automating confirmations, follow-ups, and internal notifications. For instance, an automated email can confirm receipt of a submission, while your team gets notified to review the request.
💡 Freshwork’s report reveals that understanding a customer’s issue beforehand is a key expectation for 38% of customers. The information gathered during the intake stage can be helpful here and shed some light on the client’s question/request.
6. Establish a Review Process
Not every request will be the right fit. Define how you’ll evaluate submissions — who reviews them, what criteria determine qualification, and how quickly responses should be sent.
7. Communicate the Next Steps Clearly
Don’t leave clients wondering what happens next. Provide an immediate confirmation and an estimated timeline for follow-ups. Whether it’s an initial call, a proposal, or another stage, clarity prevents confusion.
8. Iterate and Improve
Monitor how well your intake process works. Are clients completing forms? Are they dropping off at certain points? Gather feedback and refine your approach to remove bottlenecks and enhance user experience.
Example of Effective Client Intake Process
To visualize how an effective client intake process flow could look like, we set up an example in Zendo, a Client Portal software for small to medium businesses.
Let’s say you run an agency offering logo creation & design services. Additionally:
- You cooperate with clients on an ongoing basis, so you like to have all the client information collected in one place.
- You also prefer to automatize as much of your work as possible to win more time for creative work.
- Finally, you’re frustrated with meetings and estimates that don’t lead to new deals.
What you can do is create an intake form where clients can provide all the details you need to decide whether to take on the project or not. No emails, meets, overmessaging! Here’s an exemplary form created with Zendo’s editor:
Typically, the first form includes not only project information, but also some essential onboarding stuff, a.k.a., personal data. Similar forms can be used to collect information on the future projects, but then the latter part is redundant, as you have your client’s personal information already collected.
In Zendo’s built-in form creator, you can decide who can start the client & project intake process; everyone who has the link or only the users who are registered on the platform. You can also decide if the form can be filled out just once or many times — the latter is, naturally, dedicated to project intakes, while the former is better for client intakes.
Once the architecture of your form is chosen, you can proceed to the questions themselves. The editor comes with various field forms, which include closed and open-ended questions, among others. Some other available options are:
- Pre-made client information fields like address, email, and phone,
- A dropdown for clients to select a single or multi options,
- Color picker, so that your client can select specific value from a color spectrum,
- Decorative functions, such as headings, gaps, or images.
On top of that, it’s up to you to decide which questions should be mandatory or whether they should have helpful tooltips, placeholder texts, or hint texts, as shown in the image below. Thanks to that, you can smoothly guide your new clients through the intake process, ensuring they never feel lost or confused about what you’re asking.
There’s also a treat for those who pay attention to the aesthetics. You can pick logo placement, change the button’s text and color, upload extra images, and even add a background photo. This enables you to adjust the form to your brand while keeping it modern and professional-looking.
And of course, Zendo allows you to decide what happens when your potential client is done filling out the form — you can set up a quick thank-you page or redirect them to another site entirely.
Result? A handful of essential information served on a silver platter — making it easy for you to decide if the project is a go or not.
You can also make the form a part of your client portal, which is a perfect place to update clients on the project status, send invoices, and more. Many of these tasks can be automated. That’s how a successful intake process works. Not too tricky, right?
5 Hints To Improve Intake Process
Improving the intake process is, in fact, a matter of form optimization combined with a few additional facilitations, making the project submission process or/and entire client onboarding smoother and more efficient. A few essential tips are pointed out below.
Automate the Process
Manual data entry adds only more work to the entire process. Automate as much as you can to save time and nerves — this is crucial for businesses constantly flooded with small project requests.
Test the Intake Forms
Try out all the buttons and links to see if they work as intended, then pay attention to the email messages that are sent with the form itself. Consider asking other people to test the form as well; the extra pair of eyes could spot mistakes you would have otherwise missed!
Include Conditional Logic
To make your intake process even more dynamic, add the if-then logic, which will hide or display new fields depending on the previous answer. This way the form won’t ever get too long, and you’ll be able to use one form for more scenarios.
Combine Process with Other Steps
If you include upfront payment, contracts, or need any other documents to be filled out, don’t delay and send them in one package with the intake form. Or you can consider sending a welcome package with your portfolio or general information about your business.
Use Form to Kickstart the Onboarding Process
If you use software like Zendo, you can end the form with an invitation to the platform, where clients can check out the status of their project, upload any additional files, talk directly to the team, and more.
Common Intake Missteps to Avoid
On the other hand, there are some common pitfalls that could doom the intake process. Beware of:
- Spelling mistakes and blurred images. Nothing will ruin your professional reputation as fast as grammar mistakes and low-quality photos. Make sure your images are optimized properly and use a grammar check tool to not miss any issues.
- Outdated information. Your business might change over time, reflected either in its visual side, terms and conditions, or project scopes. Once in a while, go through all your forms to see if all the information is up-to-date and correct, especially if you’re sharing there your own contact information or links to outside sites.
- Unclear questions. If you notice your clients giving you vague, unhelpful answers, the fault may lie with the questions — use simple and straightforward language and avoid double meanings.
- No variations. While it may seem tedious, creating one form per business scenario, client type, or project will be much more effective in the long run. Otherwise, your clients will have to slog through questions that aren’t relevant to their case.
Wrap-Up
As you see, a well-designed intake process with its heart in a form has the potential to become the backbone of successful projects. It can bridge the gap between client expectations and project execution. By integrating an efficient project management system or a feature-rich client portal, you can streamline the work intake process with ease.
And this is where theoretical part is end. To get some practice you can sign up to Zendo and use it to set up your own intake process. The platform allows you to create forms, establish client portals, manage projects and requests, build workflows, collect payments, communicate with clients and much more.
Ready to take a step ahead and surprise your clients with a new, more professional look of your business? Fingers crossed!
