If you are trying to get new customers, the onboarding process is a key component. The idea that it’s important to make a good first impression with new customers is not a new one, but there are still many companies that are missing out on an opportunity to turn a first-time customer into a long-term, loyal client.
First impressions matter. The more prepared you can be when someone signs up for your product or service and gets started using it, the better off your business will be in the long run. This article will cover five steps for using customer success to create an effective onboarding process.
Make your mission clear
Make it clear what you want to achieve. This is the most basic step in any onboarding process, and can be accomplished when you can make it explicit when explaining your product or service. For example, if you’re selling software for managing project timelines, be specific about how much time and money your customers will save by using this software instead of creating their version from scratch.
Also, you can make it implicit through design decisions that affect how easy or difficult it is for users to accomplish tasks with your product. For example, if you use a lot of drop-down menus in an interface design because they’re familiar and comfortable, then users will understand them immediately—even if they weren’t part of the original plan for your app’s UI.
Set measurable goals for your onboarding
First, you need to set specific goals. Goals are what you are trying to achieve, but they need to be specific and measurable. You must set realistic and achievable goals, as well as ambitious ones.Next, decide who will work on the onboarding process and how they will do it. You may want a person or a team to take on this role—the choice is up to you. Make sure everyone is clear on their responsibilities before beginning the process of onboarding customers.
Finally, you’ll want to define what success looks like for your customer’s onboarding experience: Do they complete all steps? Do they reach every milestone? Or do they purchase products right away? Once again, this can be determined by either yourself or another person within your company (such as someone from sales).
Identify your key performance indicators (KPIs)
Once you have identified the strategic goals of your onboarding process, it’s time to focus on how you will measure success. Key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you determine how well your onboarding program is working. The most important thing about KPIs is that they should be specific to your business and measurable. At a minimum, every KPI should answer the questions like:
- How many users complete 90% of their training?
- What percentage of users complete at least 50% of their training?
- How many days does it take for a user to pass the test after completing their training?
One word of caution: don’t make your KPIs too ambitious or too generic. If they’re too ambitious and/or not achievable, you won’t be able to measure them effectively.
Get to know your audience
To get to know your audience, you need to understand their goals, challenges, and pain points. Knowing these things will help you better understand what they want from an onboarding process and ultimately drive customer success for them.
The following questions should be answered when getting to know your customer:
- Who is the ideal customer? (company size, location, etc)
- What are their goals?
- What are their challenges?
- What are their pain points?
Segment your customer base into groups and personas
To onboard toward customer success, you need to understand your customers. This means that you should be able to segment them into groups and personas.
Segmentation is the process of dividing a whole into smaller parts with similar characteristics. This can be done based on demographic data, behavior patterns, or other factors that are important for understanding your customers’ needs and preferences. In other words: Segmentation helps you figure out which of your customers have similar needs and interests so that these people can be grouped so they’re easier to serve or communicate with as a group.
