Customer Onboarding Strategy

Many companies must find positioning their product or service easier for new customers. They must work on their customer onboarding process to define a good relationship.

The onboarding process is the most vital part of a customer journey. It can define the entire tone for the customer’s relationship with the product, service, and company.

A survey by Wyzowl says 86 per cent of consumers are likely to stay loyal to a company that prioritises the onboarding process. Happy customers can bring their friends and family members with referrals.

A poor onboarding experience can move customers to competitors. In contrast, a good one can lock them forever.

This blog will explore everything about customer onboarding processes. Readers will also learn about using customer onboard strategy software.

What is Customer Onboarding?

It is the process a new customer uses to use a product or service. Companies have to teach the value of their offerings to new customers. An ideal customer onboarding process comprises two critical milestones;

1. When customers sign up for a product or service.
2. When they experience their first success using the product or service.

Success could be different for each customer. It could be an increase in profit or a reduction in manual labour. People can have different definitions of success.

Businesses want to deliver value to their users as early as possible. This way, the customers will continue returning instead of drifting away.

An ideal onboarding process includes helpful guidance, step-by-step video tutorials, support, and celebrating customer’s success. It can also enhance the customer lifetime value (CTV) and reduce churn.

Here are a few facts that reflect the importance of a customer onboarding strategy;

1. Most companies earn their revenue from existing customers.
2. Satisfied customers can become the top referral sources for a business.
3. Better customer retention reduces acquisition costs and increases revenue.

A customer onboarding strategy is a complex process and requires multiple professionals. It must be independent of a single department or team member. Here’s how companies implement their customer onboarding process;

Customer Support 

These professionals are the first individuals to make contact with the customers. They can understand ongoing customer issues and needs. A support team often provides product walkthroughs for frequent problems in the customer onboarding process.

Technical Support 

This team works on providing advanced documentation, training, and knowledge base. They understand the ins and outs of the product. A technical team makes the entire process much smoother to improve customer relationships.

Sales and Account Management Department 

This department is responsible for helping customers in the early stages of their journey. They need to fulfil various customer requests to ensure a better experience.

Analysts 

This team reviews red flag metrics that could hamper the customer onboarding process. They evaluate the reasons behind the critical problem points. Efforts are necessary to make the entire process smoother.

Each company can have a different customer onboarding strategy. It highly depends on the customer base, business objectives, and the product. There could be differences between B2B and B2C environments as well.

Here’s how a general onboarding process works with client onboarding software;

The Pre-Onboarding Stage 

A sales team must set specific objectives and tasks for the process. They must know what exactly they will do in the customer onboarding process.

Discover the Customer Pain Points and Solutions 

The pre-onboarding stage starts with the pain points and fit of the consumer. Prospects must know how the product or service will resolve their issues. They must be a good fit and need the offering.

A lack of communication and transparency can ruin everything. Companies pay close attention to this stage of the client onboarding process.

What are the Long-Term Campaign Goals?

Professionals must discuss the big-picture ideas for the onboarding campaign. They must know what they are trying to achieve.

A mechanism must evaluate a customer journey’s goals, expectations, and ideal outcomes. Then, they must decide how to work together to achieve them.

Companies often create a road map for their customer onboarding strategy. It helps them achieve their objectives one step at a time.

Determine Mutual Deliverables 

A business must carefully draft the terms of the agreement. They must do this before preparing a proposal or service contract. The scope and deliverables must be realistically achievable. This process is necessary before the actual work begins to avoid complications.

Get Details of the Customer Onboarding Process 

An organisation must determine each customer’s point of contact, budget, and timeline. These details would be in streamlining collaboration for customer onboarding. Many companies must pay more attention to this and meet consumer expectations.

What to Do After a Customer Signs Up? 

So the customer is ready to use the product or service. They even made their first payment. A business should maintain the momentum of the sales process.

They must eliminate uncertainties even after acquiring the customer. A client onboarding process must prevent buyer’s remorse in any way possible. The buyer must have satisfaction after using the method.

Send a Welcome Kit 

Many companies love to send welcome kits to their customers. Sometimes, it could be a physical kit or a welcome email. Some marketers also use direct mail marketing to send welcome mail for better personal attention.

The goal behind this is simple;

1. Reinforce the message that the customer did right by choosing a specific company over others.
2. It must make customers feel like part of the family.
3. Define expectations for onboarding.

Schedule Discovery and Kick-off Calls 

A customer still needs personal attention after sending the welcome kit or email. A sales team executive can call and welcome them to the experience. They can also ask if they have any questions or concerns.

Professionals must take time to listen to each conversation with customers. It can redefine the customer onboarding experience and optimize processes.

These calls would formally introduce the client to the team. They will understand who will be handling/working with their account. It can also set the tone for the rest of the engagement.

Gather Information About Internal Processes 

A company must understand its client’s internal processes and preferences. Otherwise, it could be hard to manage successful relationships with the client. There will be more complex processes if a business doesn’t learn about its clients.

Understand the Client’s Definition of Success 

Each client can have different goals. Their approach could be distinctive while using the product or service.

A sales team must reevaluate their client’s goals before pitching relevant solutions. This step aligns the entire team to fulfil customer expectations.

Reevaluate The Deliverables 

A team must understand the client’s expectations to provide the best value. They need to reevaluate the agreed-upon deliverables. It helps ensure they are appropriate and achievable.

Examine the Value of the Offering

Customers can have remorse after buying a product or service. They will likely go away in the next billing cycle. Companies must acknowledge this and work to reinforce the value they are providing.

It could be anything from their team’s specialities or exclusive features of a product. The customer must have satisfaction after using the solution during the initial days.

Determine Communication Channels

The customers must know how a business will communicate with them. They must learn the frequency of updates, meetings, and other communications.

A sales team must ask the customer about their preferred communication channel. It would help in streamlining the customer onboarding process. For example, older adults prefer communication via direct mail.

Companies must fulfil their customer’ expectations for communication. They must contact them according to their preferences.

Post-Kick-Off Meeting 

Firms should ask for feedback after communicating with the customers. It helps them to reevaluate the progress in the customer onboarding journey. Every team can know what will be their upcoming roles and responsibilities.

Reevaluate the Client’s Definition of Success 

Account managers can help customers define their goals. It is necessary, especially when they lack visibility for a vision. The business can determine how it can deliver tangible results and deliverables.

Create an SLA 

A business contract determines a set of deliverables between one party and another. A service-level agreement is more specific than the initial proposal. It can adopt changing goals and requirements.

This agreement is a vital part of the customer onboarding process. Firms can choose from multiple SLA management tools available in the market.

Determine Short-Term Milestones 

Every business must focus on delivering short-term milestones. Smaller goals are easier to achieve and can immediately impact the customer.

Professionals can also tweak these milestones without hampering the entire customer onboarding.

First 60-90 Days 

At this point, the transition period is over. By now, the client understands the product or service. They will be expecting quick results from the solution.

Yet, companies can’t go lenient with client management. The account manager should still work on the following goals;

• They must discover methods to continue establishing trust.
• Inform the client about the completed tasks and milestones.
• Gather feedback to find issues before escalating into more significant problems.
• Create a health check report post-call to inform the team about customer sentiment.

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An onboarding specialist ensures a warm welcoming of customers to a business. They aim to streamline the customer onboarding process with the best experience possible.

A company prioritises its customer service by resolving their questions and concerns. This professional often has a deep understanding of the customers. They know the pain points and how to engage them as loyal customers.

Many firms hire an onboarding specialist to act as a bridge between multiple teams. They enable smooth communication between sales, management, marketing, and customers.

An absence of onboarding specialists can burden sales or management teams. They also have a considerable contribution to developing a customer onboarding strategy.

There could be multiple complexities with customer onboarding processes. Yet, top professionals know how to use the best practices to optimize their customer experience.

Here are some notable best practices;

Determine Who Will Handle the Client Onboarding Process 

A customer onboarding process includes various components. There are different responsibilities, such as;

• Drafting and designing the content.
• Organizing and running training sessions for customers.
• Managing smooth client relationships.

Smaller organizations usually assign a single person to handle every onboarding task. Yet, things are different with large enterprises. Their products and services require training. They often hire a large, dedicated team to help people with the customer onboarding process.

These companies must assign relevant responsibilities to each team. It ensures the smoothest customer experience and good relationships.

Evaluate the Program’s Goals 

Firms must define objectives to understand where to allocate resources and efforts. These goals must be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Many companies ruin the customer experience by ignoring these goals. They must be proactive to alleviate the pain points of customers. Then only they are going to admire the solution and remain loyal customers.

A team can get a clear direction by creating clear objectives.

Decide How the Onboarding Process Will Work 

Top professionals use three main customer onboarding processes. The ideal choice depends on their customers and the complexity of the solution.

Self-Service Model

This model helps customers to onboard themselves according to their convenience. It usually takes the least amount of time to complete this model.

Companies prefer this model for simple business-to-consumer (B2C) scenarios. It is a famous option for mobile applications and electronic devices.

The experience is very straightforward and requires less input from the consumers. For example, the professional social media app LinkedIn has a simple workflow. All features are self-explanatory for product tours.

High-Touch Model

This model is the most extensive service for customer onboarding. Companies deploy personalized strategies and dedicated customer representatives.

The model is famous for providing the most tailored experience to clients. Yet, it also requires the most resources.

Some SaaS companies like FullStory and VOXOX are using the high-touch model for their complex products. A business might need customer onboard strategy software to implement this model.

Low-Touch Model 

This model resides somewhere between self-service and high-touch. Companies use chat support and automated email campaigns for this model. Yet, they don’t need to hire dedicated teams for the customer onboarding process.

It could be an ideal option for medium-complex solutions—for example, Google Ads or web hosting.

Many firms prefer this model over the two for its perfect balance. It makes the client onboarding process smoother.

A business can also conduct a customer survey to find the most suitable model. It can help develop a sense of what type of onboarding they need.

Establish a Review System to Enhance Onboarding 

Successful organizations believe in opening transparent communication between teams. It helps in optimizing the customer onboarding process.

Professionals can monitor the onboarding program regularly. It helps in ensuring the fulfilment of clients’ needs and expectations. They can even make necessary changes.

A consistent feedback cycle is also necessary to improve the customer onboarding experience. Professionals must document every success and failure to review their processes.

Be Ready for Change 

A change in demand or expectations can happen at any time. Professionals mustn’t use the same onboarding flow for a long time.

The evolving customer requirements will make a company adapt accordingly. The processes must evolve with innovation in technologies and other aspects.

Rely on Technology to Streamline the Process 

Customer success teams can handle a limited number of users at the same time. It is vital to embrace technology to smoothen the client onboarding process.

For example, direct mail automation software can save time and effort for sales teams. It can automatically send new customers welcome letters or appreciation notes upon signup.

Shortly, firms will also see AI automation in the customer onboarding process.

Learn About the Audience and Personalise 

Each customer will have a unique set of needs and preferences. Businesses must pay attention to personalised customer onboarding.

This customisation will help in meeting their needs. Professionals can ensure a higher success rate with each onboarding session.

They can create user personas to learn about the problems customers want to solve. It will align their solution to fit better in their lives. Each individual can have a meaningful customer onboarding experience.

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There are times when professionals want to measure the success of their strategies. It requires them to gather multiple metrics to get a holistic picture. They can better understand customers’ feelings and behaviours.

Here is how top professionals measure strategies;

1. Time to first value
2. The rate of upgrades and conversions
3. Customer engagement

Time to First Value (TTFV)

It refers to the time from initial onboarding to first customer success. The time could be different for each customer. For example, increasing profits, decreasing churn rate, and other beneficial metrics.

Professionals must work to make this period as short as possible. Once an individual realises a product’s value, they are more likely to be a loyal customer.

Here’s a formula for calculating TTFV:

TTFV (Days) = Date of first customer success – Date of initial onboarding.

Rate of Upgrades and Conversions 

It refers to when a client invests more in product upgrades or becomes a paying customer after a free trial. This upgrade means higher customer retention and successful onboarding.

Professionals can calculate this metric in various ways. It depends on what action they are willing to focus on.

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is a type of upgrade. Companies can generate this revenue from existing customers.

Here’s a formula for calculating MRR:

MRR Rate (%): (Expansion MRR at the end of the month – Expansion MRR at the beginning of the month) ÷ Expansion MRR at the beginning of the month x 100

Customer Engagement 

This metric is necessary to evaluate when customers act towards the product’s core value. Professionals must define what customer engagement means for the product.

They will identify the most critical events and actions across a customer’s lifestyle. A customer engagement platform can help in tracking these events.

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Many professionals refer to automating critical communications to build stronger customer relationships.

PostGrid direct mail API is the ideal solution for sending triggered mail for a smooth customer onboarding process. Businesses can send personalized ‘welcome letters’ or ‘appreciation letters’ to new customers with PostGrid.

Top Features of PostGrid for Customer Onboarding

Triggered Mail 

Professionals can automatically launch triggered mail from their CRM. It streamlines the customer onboarding experience.

Incredible Personalization 

Companies can personalise their mail pieces with branding elements to stand out. They can even customise individual mailings with Variable Data Printing (VDP).

Smooth Integrations 

PostGrid can integrate with any existing software or over 1600 tools. There’s no need to write code to enable these integrations.

Regulatory Compliance 

PostGrid’s direct mail solutions comply with all legal frameworks and requirements. Our certifications include PCI DSS Level 1, ISAE 3402, SOC 2 – IRAP (Australia), ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and Privacy Act 1988.

Sign up now to streamline the customer onboarding process.