How Beneficial Is The Client Onboarding Process

⏱ Reading Time: 9 minutes

There is no doubt that a good first impression is essential and the first three months of the onboarding process are crucial for you and your new client.

Clients are almost three times more likely to churn in their first ninety days. Even though your product is up to standard, your customers expect you to hold their hands throughout the onboarding process.

🚀Read The Ultimate Guide to Productivity🚀

The trick is to make sure that the customer experience is as satisfying as the products and fulfill all the promises you made during marketing. In short, remove any friction from the first touchpoint to post-purchase of the customer journey.

What Is the Client Onboarding Process?

Client onboarding is the process of receiving a new customer into your business. It entails signing up, product activation, and first use.

The process gives you a chance to start creating strong relationships and provide the client with the relevant information. It’s important to attend to all queries and highlight the strategy moving forward! The main objective of this process is to give value to your customer as soon as you can preferably, in their initial use.

In the end, you want the customer to know they are in the right place and that your products satisfy their needs!

Picture 1. It’s important to provide value to your customers

How Beneficial Is The Client Onboarding Process?

Do all businesses require a formal customer onboarding process?

A perfect first impression is the foundation of long-term business relationships. Your clients being your number one asset, nurturing these relationships is critical for the growth of your business. That’s why to gain their attention, sales, marketing, and many other teams make considerable efforts from the very beginning.

Moreover, as per factoHR’s research, salespeople require nearly 8 interactions to finalize a meeting with the prospect that helps to gain their trust in the product or services provided by the company. With so many attempts and concerns, no single organization will like to let their precious customers go. This is where the onboarding process comes in.

This process has never been easy but lets someone help you out!  Instead of hiring an expert to carry out the task, you can sign up for a Sender.net account to create sophisticated workflows that are triggered by certain events. For example, send automated emails after new customer registration! This saves time and gives the opportunity to onboard your clients at the highest level.

Onboarding Clients the Right Way 

• Increased number of clients – if you achieve customer satisfaction early enough and create strong relationships, you can upsell to your current clients and obtain referrals from them.
• Proper planning – one of the segments of the onboarding process is scheduling activities of the various stages.
• It involves what you’ll do, who will execute it, when it will be executed, and the role of your clients in the process. This results in an orderly work environment.
• Business scale-up – customer satisfaction leads to increased customer retention. Such customers will also give fantastic testimonials that can positively impact your business.
• Also, if the process is successful, you could automate and use it with other incoming clients more quickly and effectively, thus growing your business.
• High client retention rate – as mentioned earlier, clients are likely to convert in the first three months. Also, Invespcro research shows that retaining a customer is cheaper than gaining one. Therefore, keep your clients happy at all times and avoid their churning.
• High customer expectation – the first assurance you should give your clients is that they are in the right place and can expect the best from you. This makes them look forward to your service delivery.

Picture 2. If done the right way onboarding can result in new loyal customers

Essential Steps for New Client Onboarding Process

Let’s look at six ideal steps and examples for your clients’ onboarding process that can help you give your new clients a proper reception.

1. Sign Up Process    

One may tend to think that the onboarding begins after the sign-up process. But, on the contrary, this is the first step of the client onboarding process. According to a survey by Heap on 79 Saas companies, the average sign-up conversion rate was 36.2%. You should avoid asking for too much information at this initial stage as it can lead to a high drop-off rate.

Focus on the following key point in the setup stage:

• Make the sign-up process short and simple. Ask the essential questions only to make it easy for your new customers to sign up for your products. Shelf any other query for later.
• In case of multiple questions, put them on different pages. Detailed sign-up information results in an increased conversation rate. Nonetheless, split the related queries into several pages to avoid mind-numbing your first-time subscribers.
• Use familiar sign-up services. Google and social media sign-up services remove nearly all the friction involved in the sign-up process. Thus new clients can sign-up with ease with a single click leading to an upscale sign-up rate.

2. Welcome Clients!

In this stage, work towards directing the new client to your product use and obtaining value from it. 

First, send a welcome email congratulating your new client for a successful sign-up and thank them for singling you out of the highly competitive environment. Let them feel that you value their being on board! Secondly, avail the resources like related links and videos necessary for an excellent kick-off by your client. And finally, tack them back to the product they signed for using helpful resources such as CTAs and prominent links.

Picture 3. Thank your customers for singling you out!

3. First Login

After a client logs in for the first time, your first response should be sending them a greetings message. Even though the client may have some product briefs through product tours and demos, this stage is where they get the first real impression. Therefore, utilize the chance properly to take the client through the setup process step by step. This can be through a setup wizard or a guided tutorial.

At this stage, be keen on the following notes:

• Avoid a blank screen. Upon the first login, your new client should find a setup wizard or welcome pop-up. Then, get yourself a way of guiding your customer on how to use your product.
• Use a customer early win strategy. It might take quite some time for the new client to enjoy your product’s maximum benefits as it calls for engagement and continuing activity. Therefore you can keep them engaged by boosting their psychology with quick wins or small milestones. You can achieve this by slowly taking your customer through the steps necessary to complete critical tasks within the product.

4. Integrations, Innovations, And Data Outsourcing                      

In a case involving B2B products, onboarding goes beyond usual product use guidance.

This may necessitate integrations, set up outsourcing data from other sources, and invite their camp to try your product and reap its benefits. 

Key points to draw your attention to include:

• Process automation. Integration setup and data import can be challenging to handle. Automating such tasks remove the likelihood of barriers to the customer getting maximum value from your product.
• Make this step optional. As not all users will require this part of the onboarding process, don’t make it compulsory.
• Provide adequate support. If your onboarding service is a bit complicated, provide contact details for new clients to reach out for help.

5. Product Tour Guide

At this point, you should provide your customer with a product walkthrough.

In this case, help your new client understand their role in getting set up and carrying out crucial assignments within your product! The most straightforward way for your customers to familiarize themselves with the product is by using it.

Below are focus points on product walkthrough:

• Provide skip options. Make it possible to skip all or a fraction of the product walkthrough for new customers who are not new. These clients may have seen a friend use it or have used it from different avenues.
• Provide a skip comeback option. Some clients just don’t want to go through the product walkthrough during their first login. Instead, give them a chance to come back at their convenience or for refreshment purposes.
• Provide additional support accessibility. A walkthrough alone may not be enough for some clients to get started. Give contact details in the walkthrough for extra support to those in need.

Picture 4. Try to make it as easy as you can for your customers

6. Client Follow-up

The client onboarding process aims to keep the customer engaged; hence, the first login is not its dead end.

It’s essential to send your new customer’s follow-up emails after their first login. Such emails should entail pointers and tips to help your client use the product and inspire them to return.

In your follow-up emails, you should:

• Be brief and frequent. Sending short but detailed emails increases the client’s engagement with the content and your product too. This enables you to cover one feature per email and give the customer an easy understanding of your product.
• Include supportive resources and tips. For example, you can share links to your help center, guidelines on using specific features, or updates on your product. Let all your emails add value to your new customer and encourage them to come back.
• Include some social proof. Sharing testimonials and customer quotes is an excellent idea to boost your product’s credibility to new clients. This reminds them how valuable your product is, and they can’t help but come back over and over again.  

Do Your New Client Onboarding With Ease

Client onboarding should take place at the start of your engagement with a prospect. It’s the foundation of the business relationship journey you have just begun. This process is essential for the success of your business, and you should apply it to all customers whether they end up buying your product or not.

Also, you can automate the process and remain on top of your client’s journey. You can use tools such as sender.net to acquire beautiful templates for your email automation and follow-ups.  A successful onboarding increases customer retention rate and encourages referrals, resulting in upscale sales and profits!

Skirmantas Venckus is a writer by day and reader by night. He hates talking about himself in the third person. He is also the growth hacker at Sender.net – the email marketing provider that is focused on user-friendliness, affordability, and utility.