Customers can become frustrated and leave your services even in the first few moments and days of subscribing to your services. Many organisations have proved this including Business2Community.
Unfortunately, a lot of businesses lose prospects and paying customers for this reason. So let us explore a customer onboarding process that leads to life-long Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), rather than losing customers in the early days of subscribing.
Two top reasons customers disengage early from services include [1] difficulty in getting their expected value, or [2] failing to understand how to use your services. Regardless of what it is, a customer onboarding process can fix it, boosting your chances of winning and retaining your customers, especially in subscription-based services.
So how can we setup a seamless customer onboarding process that attracts, converts and retains paying, satisfied & loyal customers?
The Welcome Email
Welcoming a customer with excitement has many benefits. This is why many apps, web services and other free/paid subscription based services start their customer onboarding with a welcome email from the CEO/Founder, or a business leader. It is such a solid first impression and a great way of setting the tone and letting the customer know what to expect. It helps customers look forward to using your services right away, without needing to guess or look for assistance. The welcome email can include engaging content too such as a short video, images, a welcome message and a very clear call to action on what you want them to do next. Personalise the message if you can. If you have customers from various demographics, why don't’ you tailor your welcome email to make it even more effective? Email automation is so easy to setup, a number of CRM tools such as MyCo can help you automate welcome emails to your various customer groups.
The Induction
Induction is aimed at getting customers familiar with your services from day 1. It’s like a new employee resuming on their first day. They will need someone to show them around, introduce them to people and tell them more about their workplace etc. This is exactly the same for customers. Consider an induction plan and pace your content, using a method that works best for your customers. Here are some examples! For apps, a very short video can help. At MyCo, we send an email to new users of our CRM tool, everyday for 7 days, focussing on a tool within the software and telling users how to use it. For a coaching business, an introductory call may be sufficient. Find what works for your customers and set it up immediately. Don’t assume they know what to do, and how to do it. Leverage the opportunity for an induction.
The Initial Setup — Using Wizards & Templates
Have you ever tried setting up a new account/profile that needs a lot of time to complete the form? A lot of customers dread this long setup process. Whether it is a new social media app, a new banking software, an accounting service, a coaching program etc., it can take time to get fully setup. But you can speed up the experience using wizards and templates. Wizards are a quick way of anticipating customer preferences and asking them to complete the fewest tasks or provide basic information to become fully setup. We find this very beneficial for us in MyCo CRM, where we ask business users to choose the type of organisation they are during sign up. Choosing your type of business will automatically customise the experience tailored to their organisational needs. For non-tech businesses, templates can also work. For example, an accountant can create a budgeting template and send to a new client asking them to fill it in, without asking them to create a budget from nothing.
User-triggered Content
There is a very thin line between fully educating a customer on day 1 and bombarding them with too much information that overwhelms them. They simply will not remember everything. User-triggered content are delivered to users based on certain actions they have taken. For example, an app can provide a quick tip on email marketing when a new user tries composing their first message. An event planner can schedule an automated follow-up email to a client that has downloaded the event program template. At MyCo, we automatically send users their first end-of-week report when they record their first customer activity, to show them an example of what to expect. Think of the different actions your new customers may be taking for the first time, and consider what content you can provide to make their experience seamless.
Time-triggered Content
New customer moments can quickly turn into days and into weeks. During this time, you can engage to provide knowledge, guidance and support that may be required by the customer. Don’t assume all is going well. Some customers may just not reach out. Keep your new customers close. Scheduling time-triggered content on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis can help remind your customers you are there to help. This opportunity can also be used to remind them of where your reference guides are so they know where to look. The goal is customer satisfaction, and scheduling content aimed at supporting your customers in advance makes a huge difference.
Video Guides
Videos have proved more useful than pages of instructional content. With the aim of providing reference content that customers can access at their convenience, it is very important to provide materials in formats that can be consumed easily and quickly. This is what seamless onboarding process is about, making it easy and quick for customers to become familiar with your services. In the first few days, they may have questions. Be proactive to let them know where reference materials are, and use videos as a tactic for onboarding. This is mostly used by tech services these days, but can also be adopted by other types of businesses. e.g. An accountant can create video clips educating new clients how to create a personal budget in MS Excel. It is not limited only to apps and computer software.
And finally, reachable Customer Support
True customer support must be available, reachable, reliable and known to the customer. If they don’t know it exists, it doesn’t exist. And if you say it’s available, let is be clear WHEN it is available (e.g. weekdays only) and HOW to access support (e.g. chat, emails, service desk). Customer support should not be difficult for your new customers to reach especially in the first few days of engaging with your services. And if you’ve successfully setup the previously mentioned customer onboarding activities in this article, you should have very few customers needing additional support & assistance. In fact, customers get the additional confidence in using your services by knowing you’re easy to reach should they need you. Setting up a Service Desk to capture customer requests is simple. MyCo provides businesses with a Service Centre, a portal that helps them capture enquiries, feedback, complaints and special requests from their customers.
What next?
We’ve highlighted 7 customer onboarding activities you can implement in your business. The underlining message is to keep your new customers extremely close by welcoming them, anticipating their needs, providing the guidance they need and equip your team to provide the right support.
The benefits are very clear — customer retention, more sales, better customer reviews and referrals too. Every business wants this, and you can develop a customer onboarding process that is tailored to the needs of your customers and business activities.
A very good tool that helps achieve seamless onboarding is MyCo CRM, a business tool that helps you deliver excellent services to your customers. It will help you setup, schedule and automate the various communication for your customer groups.
MyCo also provides you a fully-setup Service Center to capture customer requests, enquiries and feedback. It is truly an all-in-one business solution that has the tools you need to onboard and retain your customers.
MyCo had recently partnered with AppSumo (#1 Software deals website for businesses) and integrated with popular business tools such as Stripe and Zoom. Feel free to check out the FREE trial on www.mycentreoffice.com
