Customer onboarding is a term used to describe all of the activities relating to introducing a new customer to your company’s products or services. It is about teaching a new client how they can get the most of your offering.
This is an area whereby a lot of businesses need to improve. In fact, more than 90 percent of customers feel that the businesses they purchase from ‘could do better when it comes to onboarding new customers or users.
Furthermore, 86 percent of customers say they are more likely to remain loyal to a company that invests in onboarding content that educates and welcomes them after they have purchased.
With those compelling stats in mind, we are going to delve deeper into customer onboarding, revealing how you can nail this at your business.
What is customer onboarding?
Customer onboarding refers to the process of effectively and gradually showing the consumer everything your business has to offer.
Without effective onboarding, you will make a bad impression on your clients. This is one of the chief reasons why customers end up leaving and never coming back.
Attracting new clients and selling to them is at least five times more expensive than retaining and expanding the accounts of your existing customers. This shows why focusing on onboarding makes a lot of sense.
In fact, in some industries it is critical. Take SaaS as a prime example; SaaS businesses lose up to 75 percent of users within the first week, highlighting the sheer necessity of effective SaaS onboarding to lower this figure.
The importance of customer onboarding
The way you onboard new clients sets the tone for your ongoing relationship with them. It also turns new users into raving fans, reduces churn, and increases customer lifetime value (LTV).
With effective customer onboarding, you can expect:
- Customer retention to increase revenue and lower acquisition costs
- Happy customers to become your chief referral sources
- More revenue to be generated from your existing customers
What is the customer onboarding process?
The aim of customer onboarding is to enable new users to get acquainted with all of your product features. The user’s specific needs will dictate the flow of the onboarding process. For example, you cannot force a customer to watch your welcome video but it should be available for when they feel ready to watch it.
To give you a better understanding, we are going to look at a typical customer onboarding process:
1. Send a welcome email
Your first correspondence with your new consumer must be a positive one. Congratulate them on the purchase they have made. You should also thank them for selecting your business over the other options that were available to them.
2. Display a greeting message
A greeting message is not the same as a welcome email. A greeting message is an in-app or in-product welcome message, which will greet users when they first log in and encourage them to take the first step of setting up an account.
It is advisable to ask the user to only do one thing at this point, for example, turn on their email notifications or change their password. Including a show video to guide the user makes a lot of sense.
3. Set-up the product
Next, create a set-up wizard or guided tutorial to take consumers through the set-up process, step by step. This tutorial should be short but it should also be optional.
Guided set-up is most commonly required when there are numerous steps required to be taken in a certain order.
4. Empty states
When a consumer first enters the portal, there will be some features that do not have data. These empty states should be filled with actionable and educational content, explaining what every feature is, showing the value, and encouraging the customer to begin using it.
5. Other features to guide the customer
There are a number of other features that can come after this in order to guide the customer through the onboarding process. This includes feature call-outs, a knowledge base, an interactive walk-through, mini celebrations, and routine check-ins.
It is important that your new clients feel like you care about their progress. This is why check-ins are vital, so you can see how you can assist customers in getting greater value from your product.
How to nail customer onboarding
Now that you have a thorough understanding of what customer onboarding is, let’s take a look at the different ways you can nail customer onboarding below.
Understand your customer
There is only one place to begin, and this is by understanding your customer. You should know your buyer person inside out, which is going to naturally translate into knowing your customer.
You need to thoroughly understand every unique challenge, pain point, and obstacle that your consumer faces, as well as their ideal outcome and solution.
With this information, you will be able to adapt and tailor the onboarding process to suit their own experience and goals.
Make expectations clear
Before a customer buys your product, they should have a clear understanding of what to expect. The sales process should display the qualifying factors for using the item in question.
You should carry this practice into the onboarding process, as you reiterate the value that your product provides to your consumers and prepare them for possible sticky points or setbacks. This way, when they hit a snag, they will be more prepared for it and they will not give up as quickly.
Show the value of your product
Before your new customer can get excited about the product you have sold them, you need to re-emphasize the value it is going to give them specifically.
Give the customer-specific examples of how the item is going to address any pain points they have. It is vital to have a personal touch here.
Documentation, specialized training, or a kickoff call would be valuable at this point.
Stay in continual communication with the customer
This does not mean that you should become a pest! However, once you have sent an initial welcome message, keep using email throughout the onboarding process to remain in contact with the customer and to complement any guides or in-app tutorials.
At this point, email is likely to be your customer’s more frequented medium for communication. Once your product becomes indispensable to them, you can rely on them to sign in by themselves to view in-app notifications.
Celebrate small wins
Aside from the tips that we have mentioned so far, we also recommend that you celebrate every small win.
Acknowledging every milestone along the path to success (as defined by the customer) will encourage a continued relationship.
Be with your customers every step of the way
If your customers have trouble or get stuck, it is important to make sure that you are there and available to them so that they can get the help and assistance they require.
If possible, dedicate a number of success representatives or customer service professionals to new customers. It is going to improve their onboarding experience while enabling you to find out where your process is falling short.
Create customer-centric objectives
Your customer’s metrics and goals are going to be unique to their situation. You need to enable them to define success, and then assist them in creating measurable milestones that will allow them to get to where they want to be, with some benchmarks to hit along the way.
Make the experienced personalized for every customer
Every customer is going to have a unique set of concerns. The more you are able to tailor your solution to their needs, the easier it is going to be for you to achieve wins and loyal customers as a result.
Measure your success
Onboarding benefits your business and your customer, and so it is important to monitor your efforts so you can make improvements as and where needed.
Track key metrics, identify friction points, and gather customer feedback so you know what you are getting right and where improvements need to be made.
Break everything down
It also helps if you selectively and slowly disseminate information. Only ask a new user to complete one task at a time, and make sure that they have received clear instructions on how to do so.
Final words on customer onboarding and how to nail it
So there you have it: an insight into customer onboarding, why it is so important, and how to nail it at your business.
When you consider that effective onboarding and customer loyalty go hand-in-hand, it is not difficult to see why it is important to prioritize this area of your business. Use the tips that we have provided above to get it right.
