Onboarding a customer goes far beyond making a sale or signing a contract. After the sale, a vital stage begins to create and strengthen the relationship between the company and consumers: onboarding new customers.
Onboarding establishes a connection with customers from the beginning, ensuring each person understands and makes the most of the product or service purchased. However, many companies need help structuring this strategic process, which is fundamental to long-term success.
According to data from Invest, attracting new customers, gaining loyalty, and gaining recent sales is 5 to 25 times more expensive than maintaining and expanding a company's current customer base accounts. In this scenario, retaining consumers with efficient onboarding appears as a differentiator for organizations that want to win customers and build experiences to keep them satisfied and increasingly engaged with the brand.
In this article, we will show you the most significant issues companies face when onboarding customers, the advantages of having an automated process, and practical tips for structuring each step using technology.
What's customer onboarding?
Customer onboarding is the initial post-sales phase. It's developed to guide each customer, provide relevant information, and ensure they have everything they need to use the product or service the company offers.
In this integration with the product or service, the company carries out a series of actions to teach the new customer how to get the most out of the purchase. This can include training on the product or service, creating accounts, introducing available resources, and clarifying initial doubts.
The objective of the process is to strengthen the relationship between the organization and the customer, promoting a positive experience with the brand from the beginning and establishing a solid foundation for future sales.
Why is customer onboarding important?
- Onboarding creates the customer's first impression of the brand after making a purchase decision, helping build a lasting and trusting relationship.
- This process also facilitates the use of a product or service, letting people enjoy the resources and their benefits more quickly.
- It increases the likelihood that the customer will be more satisfied with the purchase and recommend your company to other people, helping reduce churn (cancellation rate).
- Customer onboarding reduces the need for intensive after-sales support, thus saving time and resources for the company.
- It also helps collect feedback for continuous improvements and necessary adjustments to customer service, ensuring the company meets customer expectations.
Customer onboarding difficulties for companies
Lack of structure and people: Many companies don’t onboard customers because they don’t have a clear frame, an action plan, or even people on teams prepared for this purpose.
Noise in communication: With onboarding, the lack of efficient communication can cause misunderstandings and even a bad customer experience.
Resource limitation: To carry out customer onboarding, the organization needs to invest time and resources to ensure people understand how to use a product or service, like offering one-on-one support, and creating specific documentation and detailed tutorials.
Problems with outdated tools: Using outdated software or incompatible systems hampers onboarding efficiency. It’s essential to use modern technologies to speed up the process.
Treating all customers the same: Customers need to be treated individually as each has different needs and experiences. This doesn’t usually happen in companies with a diverse customer base.
Benefits of structured customer onboarding
- Better customer satisfaction and loyalty;
- Long-term customer retention;
- Reduction in customer turnover rate;
- Alignment between customer expectations and company objectives;
- Increase in company revenue;
- Integrated communication and more transparency;
- Competitive advantage.
How technology helps in the customer onboarding process
- Tools like Qntrl help in process mapping and the customer onboarding flow, defining all stages of integration with more visibility and operational efficiency;
- Technology also makes it easier to automate repetitive tasks, such as automatically sending welcome emails and nurturing flows with relevant information to customers.
- Cloud-based technological tools allow customers to access relevant information, tutorials, explanatory videos, and data about purchased products and services, any time and place.
- With technology, it’s also possible to hold webinars and online training for real-time interactions.
- Chatbots for instant support help answer frequently asked questions throughout the onboarding process.
- Gamification elements can make the onboarding process more attractive to customers.
When integrating with other tools, such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management), the business can track the entire customer journey and make a more efficient transition from the sales team to the support team after integration.
Tips for creating a customer onboarding process
- Create an integration plan: A well-defined plan includes all the steps that teams must follow when guiding customers.
- Map each step of the process: In this action plan, be sure to map out all customer onboarding, from the first contact to the end of integration.
- Offer rich guidance materials: Have e-books, videos, interactive materials, and necessary documents about the product or service available for customers.
- Bet on a personalized approach: Each client is unique. You need to adapt each onboarding stage to meet their real needs and offer a customized experience.
- Have realistic goals: Align onboarding objectives with the company’s achievable goals.
By developing an effective onboarding process, your company will overcome difficulties and retain more customers, boosting long-term results. Remember, post-onboarding monitoring also ensures customers are closer and more engaged with the organization.
