Onboarding is critical for customer satisfaction and retention in the B2B space, with 50% of businesses more likely to stay loyal to a company that familiarizes them with a product. Creating a customer success onboarding checklist, assembling the right CS team, and publishing content like video tutorials are just some ways to achieve your onboarding goals.
This customer onboarding checklist outlines several steps for introducing new customers to your business!
Understanding What Customer Onboarding Means
Customer onboarding is, perhaps, the most important aspect of the customer lifecycle. It helps businesses start using your product so they can get more value from it.
Understanding this process can make onboarding more successful and reduce customer churn, resulting in more revenue for your company over time, which is always a good thing. It can also improve loyalty. Sixty-six percent of customers say understanding how to use products and services is critical for winning their business.
Customer onboarding success involves several steps, such as:
- Sending welcome emails that introduce product benefits and features
- Hosting kick-off meetings that allow customers to ask questions about your product
- Sending customers questionnaires so you can understand what they think about your item
Each of these stages allows customers to get to know your offering, leading to better product adoption.
Planning Your Onboarding Strategy
Of course, the best onboarding programs require lots of research into your target audience. That helps you understand your customers, their needs, and how they plan to use your offering. One of the best ways to research your audience is to create personas — fictional profiles of different segments of your customer base, such as enterprises or small business customers. These provide incredibly valuable insights about the people who will purchase your product and benefit from its features.
In addition, you can research customer success stories in your industry and find out how your competitors onboard businesses. Also, learn best practices for customer onboarding in your sector and determine which KPIs and metrics are best for measuring success.
Define Clear Objectives
Creating goals for your customer onboarding strategy will lead to more successful results and help you support users as they familiarize themselves with your item. These objectives should be specific and measurable, though! For example, you can provide instructional manuals to customers that help them set up your product and later send questionnaires to measure their knowledge and understanding.
Objectives should be achievable. A goal like a 100% product adoption rate within 30 days of implementation might look good on paper. However, it's unlikely you will accomplish this, even if you have the world's best customer success team. Also, don't forget to align your onboarding goals with your overall business objectives.
Create a Detailed Onboarding Timeline
Breaking down the onboarding process into different stages will lead to better outcomes for customers. So outline task due dates and milestones for your CS team. That way, everyone knows what you expect of them and when they should complete different jobs.
You don't have to set your timeline in stone. Making it flexible will help team members take into account individual customer needs. After all, no two businesses are the same, and some might require more time to get to know your product because they have other things going on. Personalizing onboarding timelines for different companies can also be a good idea, even if it requires additional research.
Customer Onboarding Process Checklist: Build a Strong Team
Your CS team is fundamental for successful onboarding. So hire the most talented professionals who are capable of the job! That might include sales reps, onboarding specialists, and data analysts.
Once you've assembled a robust team, clearly define their roles and responsibilities. For example, data analysts might be responsible for collecting information about companies so onboarding specialists know how to engage with them. Collaboration is important between team members, so remove obstacles that prevent them from exchanging information, such as a lack of or outdated communication tools.
Create Effective Onboarding Content
The type of content you develop can result in more fruitful onboarding outcomes. So, create compelling welcome emails, instructional manuals, video tutorials, and other resources that inform and educate your audience.
You can tailor this content to solve particular customer pain points, such as not knowing how to use a complicated product feature. Infographics, for example, can guide users when learning about your offering. Multimedia, such as videos and interactive guides, can also prove effective. These content types increase engagement among your audience when getting to know your product.
Use the Latest Onboarding Technology
The right tools will make customer onboarding easier for product users and your CS team. These technologies include CRMs, learning management systems, and video conferencing tools that allow team members to communicate with customers. Customer onboarding software, however, is the most important technology you can invest in. It automates various onboarding processes as customers learn about and implement your product.
Make sure your chosen technologies align with your audience's preferences and needs. For example, live chat software is a great idea if customers need instant answers to questions about your product. Platforms like these can ensure a more seamless onboarding experience.
Collect Data
The next step in this SaaS customer onboarding checklist is collecting data from customers throughout the entire onboarding process, from implementation to renewals. That can help you track user progress, understand pain points, and meet onboarding milestones. The latest analytical tools will generate insights about your audience so you can make onboarding even more effective in the future.
Data collection is also useful for personalizing the onboarding experience. You can then tailor product solutions and recommendations for different customers and adjust the onboarding process based on their needs.
One of the best ways to collect data is by asking for customer feedback at different onboarding stages. For example, sending customer surveys after full product adoption can identify areas for improvement in your organization.
Onboarding New Customers Checklist Takeaway
A well-executed customer onboarding strategy helps users learn about your product and get more value from it, leading to higher rates of customer satisfaction. That can result in more loyalty and renewals and reduce customer churn. Just remember that creating a strategy for B2B onboarding isn't a one-time thing. You'll want to refine your workflows and processes as customer needs and preferences change over time. Follow the tips on the new customer onboarding checklist above for the best results!
OnRamp is the onboarding software that guides business customers at every step. It automates your onboarding strategy so users have better experiences when learning about your product. Get a demo now!
