10 Best Practices For Customer Onboarding

Abe Dearmer

Aug 10, 2020

∙

6 min read

CRM

If clients don't know how to use your services and platforms, how will they benefit from it? Keeping this in mind, customer onboarding is one of the most important services that companies need to offer their new clients. Without evolving with industry needs and following company best practices, you can't retain and find new customers. Take the phrase "customer is king" to a whole new level by providing the right onboarding processes and making their switch to your company much simpler.

Customer onboarding allows you to understand who you are offering your services to, adapt to their needs, and offer your services in a customised manner. This helps retain clients while making sure they are happy with the services provided to them!

Here are the 10 best practices for customer onboarding to ensure a successful switch and perfect usage of your systems.

Define "success" and build a strategy

For every company, reaching their ultimate goal is usually described as them being successful or not, so one of the best ways to initiate the onboarding process is to understand what their meaning of "success" is. At the beginning of the onboarding process, make sure to ask as many questions as you need to and understand your client in terms of what their end goals and achievements are.

It is extremely critical to be on the same page regarding these expectations as this allows you to set a target that is achievable and matches what your client is looking for. Make sure to not promise milestones that aren't possible at first, and only set real targets that you can reach every time!

Personalise the experience

Customise the user experience for your services to make sure they properly apply to each client you are serving individually. There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to marketing and selling your products and services, and customers now expect a personalised experience.

Make sure to continuously check-in with the client to see if everything is a good fit or if they need any additional help and support. General and technical check-ins, whether scheduled or not, can help continue growing your relationship with the client and manage expectations.

Team onboarding

Team onboarding doesn't just apply to the customer's team, but also your team. Make sure everyone is on the same page and understands the new client inside out. Provide every team member with information about the clients such as their immediate and long term needs, pain points for the business, company background, and help them understand the onboarding process you have planned for the customer. Doing an internal onboarding brief helps move the process along smoothly and reduces the chances for any hiccups.

Gather relevant information

Without knowing your client perfectly well, you wouldn't be able to help them solve their core problems and completely benefit from using your software or platform. Always gather data, whether it is website analytics, sales cycle length, buying tendencies, ranking in the overall market, and other such details.

By having these details at hand, you can instantly find out how and where you can enhance your services to help your client and completely provide them with the tools they need to succeed. This will also help you in providing services much past the onboarding process.

Always communicate

Good and consistent communication is the key to the success of any company and their client's relationship, no matter which industry it is. In order to keep a loyal customer, you must constantly stay in touch with your clients and let them know you are available to them. This should hold true even after the onboarding process is over because good communication leads to a strong relationship.

Assess needs continuously

Consistently assessing your client's needs is paramount to ensuring they adapt their goals to the current situation. Since the time of onboarding and using your services or products, there would have been a change in how their company is running, thus requiring you to adapt your strategy. By staying on top of these things and tackling them on time, you can easily provide your customers with updated needs and functionalities that they need to adapt for their growing business.

Follow up

No amount of stressing on the fact that following up is imperative is enough. Your responsibility with the customer doesn't end right after the sale is made - that's where it starts! It is important that you stay in touch and keep following up with clients much after beginning the onboarding process so that you can maintain a good relationship as well as get clients who are loyal to your company.

Be accessible and flexible

No business is static and is continuously growing as per the new situations, achievements, and environments it is put through. This is why it is of utmost importance that your services are extremely accessible and flexible. As companies grow, their long term and short terms goals are constantly changing, which is why you must make yourself flexible enough to fit these changing roles.

Apart from flexibility, you should also be accessible to your clients, whether for new employees or other required company changes. No matter if they need to add new tools, or want you to explain the platform's functionalities to the customers' partners, being accessible at these times can be very beneficial.

Build a relationship

Keep customers happy and engaged with your brand to maintain a healthy and fruitful relationship. Simple and honest communication leads to a lasting relationship with clients. Keep in mind, this is not just about a sale, but also building trust and adding value to your clients' lives. Make sure to follow up, comment on their posts and updates, send a message every once in a while, or check-in about the progress your system has helped them make in their everyday workings!

Happy customers are also more likely to refer or recommend your brand to their friends, family, and colleges, allowing you to get word of mouth marking, which is one of the strongest kinds!

Account upgrades

Repeat customers are always much more valuable than new ones as they purchase more products that too at no additional acquisition cost. Since they already trust your brand, they are more likely to invest in account upgrades as well as new services and products.

In the event of an upgrade or further purchases, make sure to take the client through the onboarding process again. Just because they've been through it once, doesn't mean they will know how to use every new functionality you add. Always assist your clients to ensure seamless integration of your systems.

With great customer onboarding processes, your company can avoid a high churn rate as following solid industry practices guarantees satisfied clients. Understand what onboarding means for your company and how much help you need to give your clients to get them up and running in no time. Continuously assess their needs and help evolve their business into one that is flourishing. Engage your customers and create an onboarding process that welcomes new clients with excitement and enthusiasm!

Michael King says...

"I can’t think of a time where a client has requested something that we weren’t able to do with FiveCRM. Unlike most systems, it has a lot of flexibility."

Managing Director, Senior Response

JANE HUSBANDS SAYS...

“Each client, and each of their campaigns, has its own unique specifications. We essentially needed to set up mini CRMs on one platform to meet those requirements.”