How to Onboard Customers?

Well begun is half done, and the same is true for the relationship between enterprises and customers. For enterprises, only by providing a good onboarding guide for customers can they leave a good first impression on customers, help customers maximize the value of products or services, and ultimately improve customer satisfaction. So how should enterprises design the methods and processes of customer onboarding? How do companies in various industries practice it? In this article today, we will help you understand.

Customer Onboarding Definition and Importance

Definition of Customer Onboarding

What is Customer Onboarding? Customer Onboarding can also be interpreted as customer novice start-up or customer onboarding guidance. It means that companies use a set of processes and methods to help customers understand product functions, the value they can bring, and how to use them, so as to help customers maximize value creation in the process of using the product.

Importance of Customer Onboarding

Customer Onboarding is very important for companies to improve the life cycle value (LTV) of customers. In the customer life cycle journey, when Onboarding starts depends on the specific model and form of each company's products. For products in the Freemium model, Onboarding generally starts before the customer pays. For normal software and hardware product purchases, Onboarding generally occurs after payment. Here we discuss them separately.

For customers who have not signed a contract and paid, Onboarding is their first experience of the company's products or services, and their experience will affect their willingness to pay in the end. Therefore, companies need to help customers get started in a very short time and quickly show them value, otherwise customers will be lost. For example, for a free game with levels, if players cannot quickly understand the game mechanism and experience the fun in the first few levels, players may never open the game again, let alone pay for it.

For customers who have already paid, Onboarding can help them use the product better and lay the foundation for customer renewal and additional purchases. If the company does not do a good job of Onboarding, customers who purchase the product cannot use it correctly and cannot maximize its role. They are likely to lose confidence in the value that the product may generate and thus churn. For example, a corporate training management system (LMS) software company just signed a contract with a customer and completed Onboarding for its training department. However, other employees within the customer did not accept the novice start-up well, and the students who were supposed to take the class did not know how to use the system, resulting in a low completion rate. In this example, there was nothing wrong with the company's product. It was just because the customer Onboarding was not done well, the actual users of the customer did not understand how to use it and did not benefit from the product, which eventually led to the loss of the customer.

How to Be a Good Customer Onboarding

How can we do a good job of customer onboarding? Based on past practical experience, we have sorted out the following three steps for you.

Step 1 · Determine the core indicators of onboarding Enterprises need to clarify the "duration" and "goals" of successful customer onboarding, that is, what customers can do within a certain period of time.

"Duration" refers to how long you want customers to complete onboarding. In principle, the shorter the time, the better. For different types of products, this time is not the same. For example, for the game product in the previous example, if you can't show the fun of the game to players within 10 minutes, they will lose. For the LMS software we talked about before, because its system is more complex and involves more users, the duration of customer onboarding may be about one month.

"Goal" refers to what customers have done to represent that they have successfully completed the product's onboarding. For example, if your product is a video editing software, you can set the goal of completing customer onboarding to let customers edit a video by themselves. If you are a provider of sweeping robots, then the goal can be that customers can successfully use the robot to sweep the floor once.

Step 2 · Design the onboarding method and process In this step, you need to design a series of methods and processes around the time and goals just determined to help customers achieve their goals within a given time. The specific details of the onboarding method and process depend largely on the industry and specific form of the product. Therefore, in this paragraph, we will briefly list what kind of help the product and commercialization teams can provide respectively. In the third part of the article, we will give some examples from specific industries to help everyone understand in detail.

The product team can give customers certain guidance and help at the product design level, including:

● Product design optimization. Optimize the product interaction and interface design to meet the customer's usage habits and help customers quickly understand and get started;

● Product use guidance. When the customer uses the product for the first time, add prompts and/or guidance instructions to the product. For example, give customers a reminder of the steps to complete a task. Customers can complete the task and become familiar with the use of the product by following the instructions and clicking in sequence;

● Automatic adaptation to customer needs. You can let customers choose the purpose of use when they use the product for the first time, and automatically change the functional modules and data configuration displayed by the product according to the purpose; ● Provide detailed and easy-to-understand instructions. You can send customers a carefully designed product manual or user guide to help them quickly understand and use your product after reading.

The commercialization team can provide a series of help, including:

● Hold a customer launch meeting. Hold lectures or training sessions within the customer's company to inform internal users of the value of your product and conduct hands-on training; ● Provide hands-on guidance to customers. You can arrange several one-on-one guidance sessions for customers, observe their operations, and give corresponding suggestions and guidance; ● Answer questions at all times. You can open a channel for customers to feedback questions. If customers find any problems during the Onboarding process, they can contact you in time and get support and guidance.

Step 3 · Teams start to cooperate in execution After designing the method and process of customer Onboarding, the company should compile a specific customer Onboarding process table, listing in detail the specific task content, execution time, and executor of each step of the process. The process of customer onboarding involves all aspects of collaboration with customers, and requires the cooperation of different teams in the company, especially the customer success team, product team, sales team, and marketing team, to bring customers a better onboarding experience.

Ultimately, you need to determine whether the customer has completed the goal within the set time and continuously optimize and iterate the onboarding process. For those who have not completed the onboarding goal, you need to analyze the reasons in detail and find ways to remedy it.

Multi-industry practical exercises

The way and process that companies help customers with Onboarding depends largely on the specific form of the product and the industry it is in. Here, we will introduce the practical methods of three companies in different industries to help you understand this process.

Factory Management SaaS Company The factory management SaaS product helps corporate customers monitor the operation of different equipment in the factory, and needs to be connected with the data of the machine. It is a product that pays great attention to implementation and delivery. The company hopes that through Onboarding, it can help different roles within the customer to use it better, and ultimately improve the production efficiency of the entire factory, so that customers are willing to continue to renew.

Therefore, the company first clarified the duration of the customer's Onboarding and the goals that need to be achieved:

Duration: Because the system is relatively complex and there are many internal users involved in novice startup, the Onboarding duration is set at two months;
Goal: Because the user roles are different, the company designed different software operation assessment questions for different roles of customers. If 100% of factory managers and more than 90% of production line employees can pass their respective assessments after two months, the customer's Onboarding is considered to be successfully completed.

The company is mainly responsible for the customer's Onboarding by the customer success team. After the data connection between the product and the factory equipment is completed, the customer's Onboarding process begins. The process table is as follows:

Week 1: Customer external launch meeting, send product introduction and instructions to customers, and inform the next Onboarding process;
Week 2: Management use guidance training, conduct lectures for customer management, help them familiarize themselves with various management and usage specifications;
Weeks 3 and 4: Production line staff use guidance training, conduct lectures for production line staff, help them familiarize themselves with various usage specifications;
Weeks 5, 6, and 7: Verify the training results in actual operation. Customers will produce on the delivered system, and the company will send a team to observe and analyze the other party's actual operation and usage results, and continue to correct improper operations;
Week 8: Operation assessment, check whether the Onboarding goal has been achieved.

Knowledge community software company The company's product is a knowledge community, and individual users on the C-end will share and browse the content of articles and videos on its platform. The company hopes to help users quickly understand the gameplay and value of the product within a few minutes through Onboarding, improve 7-day retention, and ultimately make them willing to continue using, promote to others, and even purchase value-added services in the software.

Therefore, the company first clarified the duration of customer Onboarding and the goals that need to be achieved:

Duration: This type of product must attract customers within a few minutes, otherwise there will be a very high churn rate. Therefore, the company set a three-minute Onboarding duration;
Goal: The company requires users to complete a 5-step novice guide and successfully browse two posts within three minutes.

The Onboarding process is relatively short, and there will be no actual involvement of the commercialization team. The process design is mainly carried out at the product level. The Onboarding process begins when the user opens the knowledge community software for the first time. The process table is as follows:

0-30 seconds: Users will choose topics of interest to facilitate the software to recommend content later;
30-60 seconds: Users will enter a 5-step operation guidance process. The software will guide customers to click on the functions of browsing posts, searching content, creating content, posting to get cash rewards, and recommending friends to get cash rewards through prompts, helping users understand the main functions and usage of the product;
60-180 seconds: guide users to click on the top post in the recommendation list and read it.

Sweeping robot company The company provides sweeping robots to customers. The company hopes to help customers use the various functions of the sweeping robot correctly, reduce the return rate, accumulate word of mouth, and enable customers to promote through Onboarding.

Therefore, the company first clarified the duration of the customer's Onboarding and the goals to be achieved:

Duration: The company set the Onboarding duration for half an hour;
Goal: The company requires customers to successfully let the sweeping robot complete the operation of charging, sweeping, and returning to the charging station according to the instructions in the manual.

The Onboarding process begins after the customer receives and unpacks the sweeping robot. The company designed the following for customer onboarding:

Clear instructions: The company placed the product instructions in the most prominent position after unpacking the box, so that customers can see it easily. In addition, the instructions show a 6-step process of getting started, involving running the robot, adjusting the mode, automatic charging and other functions. Each step of the process is accompanied by a picture to facilitate customers to read and understand;
Detailed video tutorial: In addition to the paper instructions, the company also posted a QR code in a prominent position. Scan the QR code to see a detailed video tutorial on how to use the robot;
Real-time customer service support: The company also attached a service consultation phone number in a prominent position on the box, and any questions during use can be answered in real time;
Activities to encourage customers to get started: The company designed an activity. If customers can post a video of the sweeping robot running for more than 10 seconds on the community, they can get a 40 yuan cash rebate, encouraging customers to start using it immediately.