Customer Onboarding: How To Guide For Ultimate Success

A few blogs back, we talked about why you should be onboarding your customers. If you didn’t see that blog, click here to learn more about what customer onboarding is and why it is so important. So, now we understand what it is and it’s important, let’s talk about how to do it effectively.

Define Expectations and Goals

Understanding what you want out of this process and having customers will determine your approach and efforts. Set clear goals and the expectations you have of customer onboarding. Seems strange to set out on a new endeavour without setting out a list of goals to achieve. How can you know if you are successful or measure how you are going without having goals in the first place?

It’s the same with any other process, event or overall business plan. You need goals or milestones to achieve in order to know you are successfully moving forward.

Remember to be realistic and set goals that suit your business and that can be achieved in the time frame you have set.

Business Goals

Create Customisable Experiences For Every Customer

Each customer is unique in who they are and what they want from businesses. Individualise your accounts and break down who each customer is and what they could potentially want from you in the future. This does not just include a sale, what value would they want from your brand? Break it down to make it easier for yourself to make each experience more customised.

Use tools like zapier to Automate and personalise the onboarding experience. Send your new clients a welcome email or text msg, use tools like Handwrytten to send personalised handwritten cards, or even use a tool like Gift Goose to send personalised gifts to your new client.

Make Sure Your Whole Team is on the Same Page

The keyword is "team" here. A team should be on the same page- always. That’s what separates a team from a group of individuals. You can have an entire business full of talented people but if they aren’t a cohesive team, how will anything get done effectively.

When it comes to customer onboarding, you should be focusing on having your team be on the same page to ensure that all customers are onboarded effectively.

Build a process to onboard new clients, check out our example of what HubSpot Onboarding looks like with DigiKat. Use tools like ASANA or Clickup to manage the customer onboarding process.

teamwork

Use Data to Measure Success

Remember how at the start we spoke about goals? Well, this is where that applies. Collect your data, figure out what has been working and what hasn’t. What is working to achieve your goals? What needs have you fulfilled for your customers?

By collecting actual data and results, you’re able to see the effectiveness of your onboarding process. It’ll help you going forward as well to know where to put your efforts and focus.

Relationship > Sale

Customer onboarding is absolutely about the relationship management with your customer over getting a sale. You want more than a sale from them, it's about a mutual partnership that can benefit you both. Interact with their social media to build this relationship. Like their posts and comment where necessary. By showing that you have an interest in what they are doing and the progress they are making, you will build a solid relationship that will last.

Remember that communication is a huge part of building this relationship and, overall, customer onboarding. If you aren’t consistent and approachable in your communication, the relationship will not be formed and your customer onboarding won’t happen.

Following these simple steps and remaining in communication throughout your customer onboarding will ensure absolute success. Customer onboarding is very important and should not be overlooked. Follow these five simple steps above and you will onboard your customers effectively. Remember you still may fall victim to customer churn, but your chances of keeping customers increase dramatically when proper onboarding practices are undertaken.