Essential Steps to a Smooth and Effective Customer Onboarding

Most companies think they’ve won a customer when they sign the contract with them. But the truth is that when your customer chooses your solution that doesn’t mean that your work is done. In fact, it has only begun…

Customer onboarding is an essential part of the customer life cycle: a positive onboarding experience will reassure your customers that they’ve made the right decision in choosing your solution.  

Check out our five important steps to effective customer onboarding below and make sure your customers stay with your company for good!

Assess Your Client’s Assets and Set Goals

The first and most critical part of any successful customer onboarding process is to thoroughly study your client and assess their assets. As every client is different, it is of utmost importance to know their processes, their results so far and also their expectations after choosing your solution.

In our ever-competitive business environment, providing a software solution will not be enough to ensure your client’s success. As a reliable solution provider, to win over your clients you’ll also need to offer proactive consulting services.

As such, start the onboarding process by making a list of your positive and negative findings. Also, remember to come up with improvement solutions for the negative findings in order to position your company as an expert in the field.

Set Your Goals Together

A successful onboarding process starts with setting goals. During the assessment period, your task is to identify what the client is hoping to achieve by using your solution. The next step is to turn your assessment into clear goals.

Once you have an overall picture of your client’s results, daily operations and expectations for the future, it’s time to set your goals together with an action plan to move things forward.

Again, use your years of experience in the industry and try to provide your client with useful consultancy services. After all, their success is your success.

Effective Communication is Key

Reliable and consistent communication is what many companies fail to provide when onboarding their customers. In such cases, clients often feel abandoned and for good reason.

Start by sending out a welcome email, thank them for choosing your solution and let them know how excited you are to be working with them.

The next inevitable step in your customer onboarding process is to teach your customers how to use your solution. While many companies just simply create a tutorial, make sure you provide them with a guided walk through during an interactive onsite or online training session.

Last but not least, don’t forget to check on your customers every now and then. By doing this you can show your clients that you care about their progress, as well as also help them get the maximum out of your solution.

Customer onboarding can help you retain your customers in the long run by creating a seamless experience between every touchpoint. So don’t miss out on this great opportunity to grow your business!