7 Ways to Streamline Customer Onboarding Through Customer-Collaboration

Some may think the buyer journey ends once the customer signs the dotted line, but it is only just the beginning.

First impressions are everything, and in business, this is no different.

Onboarding is a critical piece of the customer's first impression and can change their perception of your entire business.

Client onboarding is the process of transitioning a new paying customer into a well-informed, engaged, happy customer. It's a process that requires customer collaboration and a mutual understanding of expectations.

With the rise of new technologies, demands are rising rapidly. 77% of B2B buyers say that technology has dramatically transformed their company's expectations of how companies should interact with them.

The main goal is to convert these new buyers into loyal, recurring customers. With this in mind, sales, onboarding, and product teams must collaborate internally and externally to provide a seamless onboarding experience.

It should not just be seen as another administrative task but as an opportunity to build the foundation of a long-term relationship with a client.

The experience you provide pays dividends. Data shows that highly engaged customers buy 90% more often, spend 60% more per transaction, and have three times the annual value for companies compared to others.

Delivering a seamless customer experience can drive meaningful growth for both your business and the customer - increasing revenue, shortening the client's time-to-value, customer lifetime value (CLV), and, ultimately, loyalty and retention.

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How do you streamline your customer onboarding process?

Customer onboarding can be overwhelming - especially if there are numerous new clients to juggle. 

Customer collaboration won't only create a happier customer but will improve the daily lives of your employees.

While it's a process that may look different for every customer based on their preferences and needs, there are several best practices that success teams should follow to provide a smooth onboarding experience. It requires input from both the software vendor and the client.

Here are some tips to get started:

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Understand the customer’s needs and align expectations and goals

Identifying the underlying needs, pain points, and objectives is essential in client onboarding. It begins in the sales process and must be seamlessly transitioned to client success teams.

Sales and onboarding teams should work with customers to identify objectives, key stakeholders, and the right solution that fits their needs. Sales teams managing all of this information in one client-facing platform can ensure that all parties are well-informed and experience a seamless handoff to the onboarding team.

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Involve all stakeholders when mapping out the onboarding journey

Mapping out the entire journey with all stakeholders will remove miscommunication and scope creep-inducing surprises. It gives a chance for everyone involved to share their objectives, requirements, availability, and desired outcomes.

Some examples of stakeholders to include are executives, managers, and front-line employees who will be using the product.

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Assign tasks and set up customer success metrics

The most successful onboarding processes use metrics early in the customer journey. This involves clearly assigning tasks to the customer and onboarding team so that everyone knows their responsibilities and how they'll be measured.

Defining success and working backward to reach goals like ROI, revenue generation, improving efficiencies, or customer satisfaction scores can create urgency to ensure everyone is committed to their deliverables.

Creating a clear path will help deliver a shortened Time to First Value (TTFV) or the time it takes for customer onboarding to produce real value.

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Personalize the end-to-end journey

With all of the information gathered throughout the sales process and the early stages of onboarding, your team will have all they need to tailor the customer experience.

Providing personalized experiences makes the customer feel valued. Research shows that personalization often drives a 10 to 15 percent revenue lift.

Tailoring the process to their unique goals, resources, and preferences helps improve satisfaction and foster loyalty.

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Centralize all customer data and documentation

With today's technology, data is as critical as ever. Success teams must have a centralized database to make customer information easily accessible. Information surrounding the customers' business information, preferences, and communication history should all be accessible in one place.

Keeping required documentation such as contracts, agreements, service records, and feedback in one place will make the life of customers easier when they need to access information quickly and efficiently.

Use a communication hub for sharing updates and feedback loops

An onboarding team should use a customer-collaboration platform that allows both sides to stay up-to-date on communication within one platform.

Giving all reps and customer stakeholders access to communication history information in one place helps reduce miscommunication, skipped steps, and customer frustration. It provides deeper visibility into the progress of the customer onboarding process.

A central location for ongoing feedback is required to track, iterate and improve the process as more clients are added to the process.

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Provide thorough training material and programs

Training should begin early and continue throughout the customer journey. The customer onboarding process should include thorough training programs that target customer-specific needs.

A combination of videos, detailed documentation, customer success stories, Q&A sessions, and live training can ensure each customer gets the most out of their product or service.

The less confusion and more clarity each customer has around the product, the better their experience overall. No questions should be left unanswered during customer onboarding.

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Let's recap

To recap, customer onboarding is a complex process that requires careful thought from both the customer and the vendor. However, by understanding client needs, involving stakeholders, assigning tasks and setting up success metrics, personalizing the journey, centralizing data and documentation, and utilizing a centralized communication hub, onboarding can become a seamless experience.

The Recapped customer collaboration platform for sales and client onboarding

With Recapped's customer-collaboration hub,  onboarding is made easy and effective. Our customer-collaboration platform ensures both parties are aligned, organized, and on the same page to get up and running seamlessly.

Are you ready to shorten your client's time-to-value, boost revenue and retention rates, and improve customer lifetime value? Get started with Recapped today, and schedule a free consultation: https://www.recapped.io/consultation

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