Full guide: how to create a customer onboarding process

Every time customers have a hard time during or after making a purchase, it happens that they will immediately regret their decision. Once they have made the payment, they want to use the product and want to do it without having trouble. 

When this happens, you can expect one of these things to happen:

1. They will send a harsh review describing their experience to everyone on the internet
2. They will request a refund.

There are also other problems that customers face. Sometimes, they don't understand how to use the product or can understand its value. Having a great customer onboarding process can eliminate all of these problems.

What is customer onboarding?

Customer onboarding is the process where your new customers are nurtured to become familiar with your product. A great customer onboarding experience can deliver a positive customer experience. It should be full of tutorials that will help the customer to go through the product with ease, guidance, chat and call support, etc.

You've created a fantastic product that your customers love. Take into account that they have trusted your sales copy and believe that it will perform according to their expectations. You must ensure that they get the best bang for their buck by ensuring that they can use your product to its fullest.

Importance of customer onboarding

When you approach a new customer, you are about to forge a relationship with them. If you can get it right, then you're not only delighting a customer, you're also opening up your business to potential word-of-mouth marketing and an increase in customer lifetime value. There have been countless reports on how much cheaper it is to keep an existing customer compared to getting a new customer. Having a proper customer onboarding process is also critical to achieving a higher customer retention plan.

20 steps to follow for your client onboarding process

1. Email as a tool

Send your customers a series of emails that tell them the steps they need to take to start using the product. Emails are a great way to inform customers about the benefits and features of a product. The first contact after a customer purchases is a 'Welcome Email'. Research has said that welcome emails have four times the higher open rate compared to other emails. Use this medium to educate the customer more about the product.

You can also use emails to educate your customers about the different parts of the product. All this information does not have to arrive in a single day. You can send emails to your customers in the form of drops so that they do not get tired of the amount of information they receive.

2. Video as an onboarding tool

One of the biggest advantages of videos is that they will never be boring. Even if you try to make it boring, there is some kind of liveliness inherent to the platform. With videos, you can use attention-grabbing images to say something important to your user. Do you know that people like to watch videos, especially when they want to learn something about a product? They prefer to see it on video than to read articles. Video creates more excitement among its users.

3. Show value

Before your customer starts using the product, educate them about the benefits associated with using it so they are more excited to try it. Tell them how your company will solve each of their pain points. The more specific this is, the better chance they will have a happy onboarding experience. Create a document that is specific to the customer's expectations of the product. Re-emphasize its advantages and the benefits your customer gets from it. Focus only on that part and voila.

4. Avoid information overload

If you provide them with too much information that confuses them, then you are also to blame. You should not give your customers reading material that will take them a day to complete. You should reduce this material by making it as concise as possible. Don't post content that goes into too much detail. The customer doesn't care. All they want to know is how you are going to help them.

5. Product walkthrough

Your customer will likely know what the product does, but won't be familiar with its finer details. This is an important step in the customer onboarding process because the main goal is to reduce as much friction as possible when onboarding a customer.

This is what you can do:

• Call your customers and walk them through the product.
• Create a series of videos where you help them understand the advantages of your product with a voiceover.
• Product tour video
• Create a training module that your customers can learn from every time they want to do something specific

6. Make them use your product

As simple as this may seem, it has a great influence on the psyche of customers. Most of the apps that people download these days are not used because they didn't take any action or felt compelled to do so. Once someone starts using it, they will feel comfortable doing it again. Getting a customer to make the first move is where it all lies.

The goal of an effective onboarding process is to get the user through the first transaction as soon as possible. The longer it takes, the greater the chance that people will leave.

7. Be always available

One thing that will impress your customers is to be available to them at all times. When customers review your product during the onboarding process, make sure someone is available to them. Not only will this make the onboarding process easier, but it will also be memorable for the client. They will keep you in mind for a long time, even increase their loyalty, since they see that you have their best interests in mind.

8. Create a knowledge base

Make sure that when customers are about to be approached, there are already plenty of knowledge bases available for them to read. The knowledge base you create should be in such a simplified language that anyone can understand on the first read. Having a resource section is great for customers as they can not only discuss frequently asked questions but also become part of forums where customers actively participate. Another thing that is great tool that can be used as part of the knowledge base is Chatbots. When customers interact with a chatbot, they will feel like they are part of the conversation. It is also personalized to a point where the customer feels like they are a real person on the other side.

9. Celebrate small victories

Every time your customer finishes doing something on your website or app, celebrate. Get them excited about doing everything from filling in their details to completing a transaction. Once they are familiar with the product, your goal should be to get them to use it over and over again. When the customer feels that they have invested in a product that satisfies them, they will also go above and beyond what you expect of them.

10. Talk to your customers

While automation is one of the best things that could have happened to businesses around the world, there's no denying the fact that customer interaction with a real agent will always be central to business communication. Your customers need personal attention, it is something that the most outstanding artificial intelligence in the world has not been able to offer, at least not at the time of writing this article.

When customers check out for software, they would like to talk to someone who will help them use the product as much as possible. There is only so much that the software can achieve. When you talk to your customers, you'll be able to better understand their issues, increase retention rate, and reduce churn once you use the insights you gain from customer conversations.

11. Have specific onboarding KPIs

We recommend having KPIs specifically for customer onboarding so you can see if you're improving or not. Write down the various metrics you can use during the customer onboarding process. For example, you can measure areas during the customer onboarding process, such as how easy the process is, how quickly the customer got to know the next steps, the effectiveness of the survey, etc. Even engagement can be measured as a KPI. Understanding customer goals will help you when you want to measure KPIs during the client onboarding process.

12. Use different types of content

If you want your customer onboarding process to be a complete success, you need to diversify the type of content you publish for your customers. You need to think in terms of limits, strategy, and what will work best. While having a video tutorial is fine, some customers want textual help on how to do this instead of watching a full video. Even audio content is not far away as many people are listening.

13. Keep collecting feedback

One of the greatest joys of running a business today is that you can get immediate feedback from your customers. It's as simple as using a tool like SurveySparrow to ask your customers questions. With this form, you can get feedback from your customers about what they think of the product. It will also help you understand the problem areas affecting your business and how you could improve them. Collect as much feedback as possible about the onboarding process. Use analytics to track, measure, and keep improving.

14. Create a relationship with your customers

It's not easy to get your customers to trust you, but it's not hard either. You have to be the one to trust. Build on this by being transparent about everything you do. If you need loyal fans, you must not only create something that people love but also be someone that people appreciate. You can always win the hearts of your customers with ads, but you can also create a brand that they love by showing customers that you care about them first. If you can take your onboarding process to a whole new level, you will be able to create an open, honest, and respectful relationship with clients.

15. Double check your onboarding process

It is normal for companies to stop following the basic principles. When you are creating a new process, make sure to check if everything works correctly. Make sure everyone interested goes through the onboarding process. Everyone should check for glitches, copy copies, check button locations, formatting, quality, etc.

Once you've finished verifying the initial part, test the process with the help of other employees. Use people from different departments so you can get multiple perspectives. It is also recommended to have beta-testers, experts, old clients, etc. to be part of this process. If something goes wrong during the customer onboarding process, it reflects poorly on the business.

16. Personalize the experience

The first thing you need to do is make sure that the customer has a personalized experience when interacting with your company. You should not take a one-size-fits-all presentation. Rather, be directed specifically at them so that they benefit widely from it. Use marketing automation technology to learn more about users so you can create an ultra-personalized onboarding experience.

17. Make it unique for your weak spots

Here's what you can do to improve your customer experience. Some of them have extremely specific goals to buy their product. They don't have to spend a lot of time on the onboarding process if you can make it specific to their needs. Give them enough instructions so that they follow what is most necessary to satisfy their needs.

Remember that customers don't have a lot of time going through their lengthy onboarding process. Keep it as simple as possible. Don't be that company that takes a long time for the demo itself. Everyone hates that kind of company.

18. Have your customers take tests

As you go through the onboarding process, make sure your customers try out any of the features or click on something. You need to make sure they are using the app during the onboarding process. Offer your customers incentives to take tests. The incentive could be in the form of an additional discount, free consultation, training, etc. With this action, you would not only have made them use your product, but you will be able to understand their motivations to use it based on the incentives they choose.

19. Impress them

If there is something you should know as a company, it is that at no time should you try to stop pleasing your customers. They are always looking for something new and you should always give them a positive experience. They were looking for something spectacular when they signed up for your product. Create an experience where your customers will continue to be excited about what you bring to the table.

20. End with a CTA

When the onboarding process is complete, it's imperative that you allow your customers to contact you, either immediately or later, with the help of a Call to Action button. You can take this opportunity to find out if they have gone through the entire customer onboarding process. You need to know if they benefited from it. Otherwise, you need to find out what the problem areas are. At this point, you need to pay personal attention because your process didn't work.

Conclusion

The customer onboarding process is about ensuring that your customers can understand the implications of using the product and how it would affect your business. Your customers are more likely to use your product if they benefit from it.

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If you're new to creating a customer onboarding process, the 20 pointers above will help you write a solid one. The above tips can be used by any type of business that is looking to increase retention rate and reduce churn by having a solid customer onboarding process.