An average customer would generally go through four distinct stages before they make a purchase. While most companies only focused on the steps that lead to the purchase more and more company owners are starting to realize that after purchase service is also an essential part of the customers’ journey.
One of the most effective ways in which you can satisfy your new customers is by Customer Onboarding. Recent research has shown that by providing just a short tutorial to your customers, you can reduce churn by almost 6%.
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What is customer Onboarding?
Customer Onboarding is an umbrella term that refers to the entire process users go through starting from when they are customers for your product or service and goes way beyond it. It includes various interactions and engagements with your brand. It is used mainly to enhance your users’ experience and in turn influence the relationship that the customer has with the brand and the products.
What is expected from Onboarding?
A few factors should determine your onboarding strategy. Firstly, your industry plays a significant role in the kind of trainings you give your customers. For anything technologically related you can merely attach a how-to guide to your product. Some companies have also started including CDs that include detailed videos showing the use of the products.
However, in this case, the guide is not customized to the customers’ specific needs. Your business should be able to find a way in which they could personalize the tutorials for the specific needs of the customers. Some industries can benefit from online tutorials however this is not as scalable when it comes to other industries and markets. This causes an issue when it comes to the overall customer experience.
Benefits of successful customer Onboardings
Customer service is at the heart of customer Onboarding. However, a successful process of customer Onboarding goes a long way beyond pleasing your customers.
Here are some key benefits of having a strategic Onboarding process.
Revenue: When a customer is onboarded correctly your customers will stick to you as long as they are given the same quality product. They will keep doing business with you, and that will result in higher revenues for your company. With a better lead generating and Onboarding process you can ensure that more leads are closed. You can decrease your overall customer acquisition costs by providing better content and smart engagement.
Recurring business: Once you have been able to acquire a customer there can be a significant loss to loss recurring revenue. A customer that goes through stable Onboarding processes can have a higher lifetime value as it saves you a lot of customer acquisition costs. These customers can be a valuable resource for your company in the long run.
Word of mouth: The more successful your customers are with the products and services that your company provides the more they are likely to talk about it to others in their social circle. It is found that almost 92% of purchases are done on the basis of good peer reviews. This shows that word of mouth and referrals can bring a lot of revenue for your business.
Reducing the load of customer service
Apart from making your customers’ happy Onboarding also reduces the overhead costs related to customer service. The better you educate your customers, the less likely they will be to come across any issues with the product or service.
Impact of Customer Onboarding on Customer satisfaction
There are a few different ways in which you can measure the effect of customer Onboarding on CSAT. A known effective and reliable way of doing this is by using the Net Protector Score (NPS). This is a 10 point scale that measures customer satisfaction in terms of Onboarding. It was found that with even a single digit improvement in the NPS reading the customer revenue increases by almost three percent. In simple terms, it means that onboarding helps improve customer satisfaction that can ultimately result in higher revenue for the company.
Conversely, it is also true that poor Onboarding can result in lower customer satisfaction rates that can ultimately cause increased churn and lower the company’s overall revenue. For a business, it is increasingly important to ensure that their customers are correctly onboarded, so they need to create an onboarding structure that gives your customer the power and the right tools that they need to deliver effective lessons whenever required.
Who is responsible for customer Onboarding
The marketing team is responsible for creating content and publishing it across the right platforms. Customer service is required to give their insights about the problems and questions that are common among customers.
Technical support provides the required documents, knowledge-base, and trainings that are needed to make the customers’ self-service journey easier.
The sales, account management, and analysis teams of the company also play essential roles in the smooth customer Onboarding process.
With customer Onboarding, you will not only be able to build a company that has happy customers, but you can rest assured that your customers will stand by you and support your company thus increasing the revenue of the company and helping it grow.
