Customer onboarding is a process that entails more than just getting a client to know and understand your product offering, no matter your industry. It’s also about ensuring that you live up to the promise of what you said that product will deliver and that the client gets exactly what they signed up for. It’s a critical part of the buyer journey and if done right, increases customer retention and lifetime value. So not only do you have happy customers that keep coming back for more, you also have customers that will share their good experience with others. And word-of-mouth marketing can impact your bottom line significantly.
In fact, “83% of people of people polled in a study by Nielson said they trust the recommendations of friends and family, and a similar study done a few years earlier found that 92% of people trust recommendations from other people – even strangers. Overall, 20-50% of all purchases are influenced by word-of-mouth marketing” (Forbes).
So, what are best practices to ensure a successful customer onboarding process?
1. Use automated onboarding tools
Automation allows you to create a seamless customer onboarding journey that can be customised according to the needs of your customers. A smart CRM platform like Qobrix for instance, gives your sales team the ability to properly manage the sales process and provides the tools to help your salespeople support their clients after the sale is made. Your lead forms on your website can be integrated with Qobrix, to automatically create a new lead in your CRM System that will notify your salespeople immediately and will include the relevant contact details and enquiry message.
2. Keep organised
Automation makes the organisational component of the customer onboarding process far more efficient. This can be in terms of scheduling customer follow ups, monitoring enquiries generated by marketing campaigns, generating reports to respond to client queries, sending out newsletters or communicating company updates. Qobrix for example, allows you to categorise your leads by status, document the outcome of your last call, schedule your next follow-up date and increase your chances of bringing in that much needed sale.
3. Stay engaged
Customer onboarding is not one action, it’s a process comprised of several activities, one of which is consistent and meaningful customer engagement. CRM expert Paul Greenburg defines customer engagement as “the ongoing interactions between company and customer, offered by the company, chosen by the customer.” To engage successfully requires that you understand what your customer values and identify how your product can measure up. It also means establishing how your customer wants to interact with your business and knowing that ultimately, every customer just wants to be happy with the service they receive. Qobrix is an innovative, go-to platform for many organisations in terms of managing customer engagement effectively by providing the tools and technologies that support this crucial activity.
4. Offer a people centric service
Automation doesn’t mean you need to compromise on the emotive aspect of customer interaction in the onboarding process. Relationships need to be nurtured and this can only happen if you take a people-centric approach, one that is adapted to the different needs and objectives of each client – one that shows that you really do care. The age-old adage of “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” is particularly fitting here for people ultimately choose to do business with people they like, with someone who listens to them, someone who they feel they can trust to help them, someone that made them feel good – and not just another sale. As with every relationship though, communication is key. To what degree your business can help a customer achieve their goal means your salespeople need to know what is expected of them and this can only be identified through clear channels of communication and feedback between them and the client. This avoids unmet expectations and gives your sales team the ability to give the service that is required of them. Qobrix for example provides the tools that will enable your salespeople to enhance communication with your clients, set realistic expectations and solidify their trust to avoid churn.
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