Customer Onboarding; The Talking Stage
Customer onboarding is a typical meet-cute story and your brand’s onboarding process could determine if it will be happily ever after or never after. The journey of a customer with your brand begins as they go through the onboarding process.
This is the process that literally informs the decision of the customer to choose your brand or not. It is therefore sad that the onboarding process of some brands is no different from that of a ‘danfo’ yellow bus conductor. While the process of customer onboarding can be challenging, it is very important as it leaves an impression of your brand on the customer and sets the tone of their relationship with your brand.
One term that is consistently associated with customer onboarding is churning or churn rate. Think of onboarding as the “talking stage” after which you decide to go on dates or churn.
Churn rate is also known as attrition rate and it is the rate at which customers stop using or doing business with a brand over a period of time. It is at the process of onboarding that most customers make the decision to churn or not to churn.
There is a mathematical formula to calculate churn but let me tone down my nerdiness a bit.
Why the need for customer onboarding?
One of the major reasons is to intimate your customer with your product and services thereby decreasing the churn rate. I am willing to bet that customers will continue with your brand if you are able to communicate the essence of the product and the value it offers them.
Customers are likely to churn for one or both reasons;
Products or services offered are not understood by customer(s)
Customers are not getting value.
One extra reason is also that while some people might gain value from it, they cannot afford it at the time.
The good news is that an efficient customer onboarding process can resolve the first two reasons. The goal is that customers are engaged and they use your product for as long as possible… possibly forever.
Customer onboarding; The strategy
Any strategy that increases your customer lifetime value (LTV), decreases churn, and converts customers to brand ambassadors is the best strategy.
It is important to note that customer onboarding is not a one-off process nor is it a stand-alone process. It is an ongoing process backed up by continuous implementations based on customer feedback. If the customer base of your brand has a high churning rate, then there is a need to reevaluate the approach to the customer’s onboarding strategies put in place.
Source: Customer success box
The onboarding process is pivotal for both the customer and your brand. It is a decision-making junction. The role of your brand is to provide a satisfactory journey and ultimately convert leads to customers, retain customers, and make ambassadors of customers.
While this is a demanding task, it is not impossible.
Wondering about the role of customer success in all this? Stay tuned 😎.
Cheers,
Kiki