How it works
Audit. Implementation. Monthly retainer.
The same workflow, end-to-end, in writing.
The Northbench journey runs the same way for every client: a paid audit returns a written brief, the follow-on work is a fixed-fee implementation with a 30-day paid pilot, and the retainer is measured end-to-end against the same four metrics every month. The sections below walk each step — what we build, what you receive, what we need from you — and close with the audit CTA.
01 · Paid workflow audit
Two weeks. One workflow in your vertical. A written brief.
$250 deposit, fully refundable against an implementation within sixty days. Two weeks. One chosen workflow in your vertical, written up as four artifacts: a process map, an automation spec, a time/cost estimate, and a Northbench retainer quote pinned to that workflow. No portal, no login — kickoff call, then the brief lands by email.
What you receive
- 01
Audit findings doc
The four-artifact bundle described above — process map, automation spec, time/cost estimate, retainer quote. Yours to keep, yours to act on.
- 02
Implementation checklist
The same self-scoring checklist shipped on /workflow-audit-checklist, handed over live in the kickoff reply. Use it to score the next workflow you bring us, too.
- 03
Plan-and-next-sync kickoff card
The prep package laid out plain: tools, recordings, three named contacts, one bottleneck example, team roster. No portal, no upload step.
- 04
Two-week calendar marker
Deposit-to-deliverable dates pinned in plain English against the kickoff date, so the review slot is on the calendar before the deposit clears.
What we need from you
A kickoff call. The prep package. One bottleneck example.
Three things, no further input until the brief lands.
- A 30-minute kickoff call — A real human on the calendar — no asynchronous intake form, no Loom review queue. The recording becomes one of the prep-package artifacts.
- The prep package, in your own words — Tools, three named contacts inside your organization, one bottleneck example you can walk us through, and a team roster for the workflow we are mapping.
- No further access until the brief lands — You do not need to provision a sandbox, share a CRM login, or open an API key during the audit. That gate opens at the implementation brief, not before.
02 · Fixed-fee implementation
Built against the audit spec. Day-one kill switch. A 30-day paid pilot.
Fixed fee, per-workflow. We build against the audit’s automation spec, ship the kill switch and the named revert steps on day one, then run a 30-day paid pilot against the same four metrics the monthly report will track. The consequential outbound list (customer, vendor, money-path, irreversible) is in writing before the first pilot day; changing it is a written change order, not a silent override.
What you receive
- 01
The working workflow + kill switch + named revert steps
The workflow live in your environment on pilot day one. The kill switch is one named toggle; the revert steps are spelled out in plain English per integration.
- 02
The consequential review queue, in writing
Customer, vendor, money-path, irreversible — the four categories spelled out and written into the implementation brief. The reviewer is named by role and email.
- 03
Pilot brief — same pause conditions that gate the retainer
Error-rate ceilings, median-response regression thresholds, and the pilot-week pause rules — the same thresholds the retainer will be measured against after day thirty.
- 04
Day-thirty go/no-go decision page
A one-page decision document signed by both sides, naming which of the four gate metrics passed and which missed, and what happens next if any missed.
What “fixed fee” actually covers
A narrow scope, written down, with named out-of-pilot items.
The fee is for the workflow, not the wishlist around it.
- One workflow, end-to-end against the audit spec — Build, kill switch, revert steps, named reviewer for the four consequential categories — all in the fixed fee. The pilot brief is in the fixed fee too.
- 30 paid pilot days at the same fixed rate — The pilot is paid time on the operator’s side, not a free trial. Days with a pause event restart, but they are still on the meter — same rate, same scope.
- Explicitly out of pilot: scope creep, second workflow, new tool stack — A second workflow is a separate audit + implementation, priced the same way. A new tool mid-pilot is a written change order, not a quiet expansion of scope.
- Quarterly revert rehearsal is included, not extra — Rehearsed against a throwaway environment every quarter for the life of the implementation — the steps have to work when it matters, not just on paper.
03 · Monthly retainer
Same workflow. Same four metrics. Measured every month.
Same workflow, same four metrics, every month. Response time, completion rate, hours saved, error rate — measured end-to-end against your inbox, CRM, or queue, not against the agent, not against the demo. The first-of-the-month report names what ran, what changed, and any incident that fired the kill switch. A Northbench operator reads every message in the four consequential categories before it leaves. Cumulative totals sit in the same one-page PDF; the trend matters more than any single month.
What you receive
- 01
Monthly outcome report PDF
A single page: the four named metrics for the month, the audit-trail appendix listing every consequential message sent, and the named root cause for any pause event that fired.
- 02
Since-onboarding running totals card
Hours saved against the pre-pilot baseline (rolling), error-rate trend, response-time trend — the trend across months matters more than any single monthly figure.
- 03
Plan-and-next-sync card
The next sync date, the named reviewer in your organization, and any pending change orders — landed on the first of the month along with the outcome report.
- 04
Incident summary, when applicable
The root-cause page that appears in every monthly report, even when everything else is green. Pause latency, revert latency, the change shipped to keep it from recurring.
What “measured monthly” actually means
Same four metrics. Same four names. Same four definitions.
No rename between pilot and retainer. No moving target.
- Response time — end-to-end, against the queue — Minutes from intake to first reply on a typical case. Measured against your inbox, CRM, or queue — never against the agent, never against the demo.
- Completion rate — share that finished without a human rerun — Trend matters more than the absolute figure. The first month is the baseline, not the goal — up-and-to-the-right is what we report against.
- Hours saved — against the pre-pilot baseline — Hours your team would have spent on the same workload without the workflow, minus the time they still spend on it. Counted from pilot day one, never against an aspirational number.
- Error rate — every correctable item — Wrong field, wrong recipient, wrong amount, wrong state. An error routes back through the human-review queue and shows up by name in the same month it happened.
Since-onboarding running totals
The trend across months, in the same one-page PDF every month.
Cumulative totals live in the same monthly report — base-lined against the audit brief, not against an aspirational number. The trend across months is the number we care about; any single monthly figure is the datapoint, not the headline.
Hours saved
Rolling total since onboarding, measured against the pre-pilot baseline recorded in your audit brief — never against a fully-automated number.
Response-time delta
Months where the median landed at or under the baseline in the audit brief, with no named pause event in the back half. Trend over absolute.
Error rate trend
Trend line from onboarding through the most-recent month. Up-and-to-the-right is the goal; flat or up against the ceiling is named in the same report.
Pilot → retainer switch
Day-thirty written go/no-go. The switch is the date the retainer cadence starts; cumulative totals above start from there, not from the audit deposit.
Next step
See the workflow written up for the vertical you bring us.
Two weeks. A written brief on one chosen workflow in your vertical: what to automate, what to leave alone, and what it should cost monthly. $250 deposit, fully refundable against an implementation within sixty days.