A positive customer onboarding process can instill confidence in your customers to stick with your brand. A negative experience, on the other hand, can quickly turn them away to your competition. Over 60% of consumers consider a company’s onboarding process in their purchasing decision, and close to 9 out of 10 (86%) say that for them, better onboarding content means higher loyalty.
It’s obvious the onboarding process plays a critical role in customer churn. How can you make sure your brand offers an onboarding experience that inspires customer loyalty and boosts satisfaction? From adding personal touches to collecting customer data and more, we’ll share how to start the customer journey off right.
Why Is Customer Onboarding Important?
New users are just getting started with your product or service. And a customer that fails to learn how to use your product or service is unlikely to stick with your brand for very long. A staggering 55% of consumers report returning a product because they didn’t fully understand how to use it.
It makes sense, then, that this part of the customer journey is key for cutting churn rates. Are you giving customers the right tools and resources? Is it easy to understand the value of your brand? This is your chance to give a great onboarding experience, which can lead to higher NPS scores, customer lifetime values and other key business metrics.
To take your customer onboarding strategy to the next level, follow these tips and tricks below for a first impression that lasts.
Add a Personal Touch
A good customer onboarding experience welcomes customers with a walk-through of their new product. An even better onboarding experience is personalized to your customers’ needs. This will help them feel as though they’ve been personally welcomed into the fold by your team, rather than an automated welcome email sent out en masse by a bot. Take a look at this personalized onboarding explanation from Chase as an example.
User onboarding can be overwhelming. Adding personal touches like these makes the experience easy to follow and understand. Plus, customers now know what resources and offers are available to them, such as their sign on bonus, auto-payment options and more.
Automate Processes With the Right Digital Tools
Customers deserve a comprehensive onboarding experience, but giving every individual the attention they need can be costly and time-consuming. With today’s digital tools, though, you can automate the process to cut down on costs and scale your onboarding efforts.
Here are some examples of automation you can leverage during this crucial touchpoint:
- In-app communications: Remind new customers to finish signing up with a timely, automated pop-up, or congratulate those who have completed milestones with an in-app notification.
- Transactional emails: Send customers emails with usernames, passwords and other account information automatically once an account has been created.
- Pre-fill forms: Automatically pre-fill forms with previously entered information.
- Collect feedback: Send NPS surveys once you’ve finished onboarding a new client.
Adding automation to key tasks like these creates a seamless experience for your new customers.
Make It Visual
Let’s face it: Onboarding can be lackluster. Tons of paperwork, forms to fill out and other protocols can make for an underwhelming experience.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Get creative with visuals to optimize the onboarding experience, as Allianz did below. From wind tunnels to flame effects and even a unicorn, this onboarding video is full of engaging visuals to wow and delight customers.
You can use visuals to better explain your products and services, too. Use screenshots, GIFs and even webinars to show how your product works.
Video works especially well here — 97% of consumers believe video is effective in welcoming and educating new customers. Product walkthroughs and step-by-step tutorials condense lengthy information into an easy to follow video that covers everything viewers need to know at a glance.
The mortgage industry is full of nuanced topics, such as escrow. Rather than try to explain this complex topic with tons of text, Mr. Cooper was able to educate and engage new customers with this explainer video — transforming a point of friction into an opportunity to boost satisfaction.
Gauge Customer Satisfaction With NPS Surveys
To get an idea of how happy your customer base is, send out NPS surveys. The NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a widely used metric that measures customer satisfaction by asking customers to rank their level of satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 10.
NPS surveys will help you identify pain points in your product, service or overall experience so that you can improve it for future customers. Imagine a customer lists slow response times as a reason for not recommending your service to others. You now know to focus your efforts on this area to boost customer retention.
Proactively Answer Questions
The onboarding experience is key for setting your customers up for success. But don’t just answer the questions they already have — think about issues they may run into later on in the customer journey. By proactively addressing potential points of friction before they arise, you can create a seamless experience straight from the start.
One way to implement this strategy is through self-service tools, like Interactive Videos, that let customers answer questions on their own time — and give customer success teams the bandwidth to answer more pressing issues. Try using online messenger apps like Slack or Facebook Messenger for 1:1 customer support whenever and wherever customers need it.
Tip: Continue the conversation even after your customers’ questions have been answered. Make sure your customer success team sends out a follow up email to customers who have run into problems to show you care.
Tips and Tricks for Successful Customer Onboarding
The customer onboarding experience is your chance to wow and delight customers as they use your products and services for the first time. Show them the value of your brand from the beginning — and you’re likely to create loyal customers that boost your bottom line.
Another way to make your customers feel valued? Show your customers the personal attention they’ll receive from your brand from the moment they become a member with a video made just for them. Compared to generic videos, Personalized Videos are 3.5x more likely to make customers trust a brand, according to our market study.
Ready to try it out for yourself? Schedule a 15-minute call with one of our team members.
