Building Better Customer Onboarding in B2B; What Helps and How Leading Brands Do It

Staff WritersOnboarding & TrainingSales & MarketingSales Engagement

By STS Staff Writer On Dec 4, 2023

Now that your sales team has managed to convert a new lead into a paying customer, so what should be your next step? You must focus on the next stage of the B2B customer journey, which is often touted as the make-or-break situation, i.e., customer onboarding. Every modern business is focused on driving growth, but in this pursuit, you cannot lose sight of the customers. All your efforts will add up to nought if the customer chooses a competitor instead of you. Read on to learn more about the steps involved in building better customer onboarding processes and how some of the leading brands worldwide do it.

How to build better customer onboarding experiences?

There are some standard steps involved in customer onboarding in B2B markets, i.e.,

Sending a welcome email.
Help with the first login.
Assist with product setup.
Integration of related tools and data.
Demonstration and walkthroughs.
Regular check-ins.

But merely completing these steps would not yield the desired results. You need to optimize your customer onboarding experience. Here are some tips that can help you with the process.

Stick with the Basics: You know everything about your product and how it can help your customers. But it is vital to remember that your customers are entirely new to this product. Hence, your focus should be on simplifying your products and services. You must ensure that there is no overkill of data that might not make any sense to them. The setup of your product should involve a few simple steps which cover all the crucial facets of the customer business. This strategy would certainly improve the success rate of your onboarding process and also set the tone for the customer success journey.

Develop a well-defined onboarding process: Your focus must be on ensuring a consistent flow to the onboarding process. While you might need to improvise during the actual process, it is vital to have a proper script in place. This would ensure that the customers will get a systematic walkthrough of your product. Based on the specific needs of the customers, you ought to start with the basics and then proceed further. With a well-defined onboarding process, you will be in a better position to explain how your product would solve the customers’ problems and why they must stick with your product.

Create Customized Experiences: While you must have a detailed onboarding process in place, make sure that the flow is not too rigid, or else the results could be disastrous. Every customer is different, and you cannot have the same process in place for everyone. Some customers might start using your product right away, while others might take a few weeks to become accustomed to it. Hence, your focus must be on creating positive customer experiences by offering relevant and customized information during the onboarding process.

Validate Their Decision: If your onboarding process can make your customers understand that your product is the best solution for their problem, they will stick with your company for a long. Make sure that you do not simply introduce the product but explain in detail its standout features. This strategy will allow the customers to experience that “AHA” moment wherein they realize the superiority of your product. The best way to ensure this is to unify your customer onboarding and customer success teams. This strategy will help you avoid any communication gaps and ensure a unified approach towards customer satisfaction.

How Do Leading Brands Do It?

Here are some examples of customer onboarding strategies used by leading brands that have helped them establish their presence prominently in the market.

Netflix

For any OTT platform to be successful, it is crucial to ensure that only minimal details are needed by the users to learn how it works. The layout should be easy to explore and simple to understand. There should be no strange results from normal actions like tapping on an icon. Another challenge is getting users who are willing to pay. Netflix addressed the problem by offering a one-month free trial for every customer. Moreover, the company ensured a simple layout that was easy to explore on all sorts of devices. As a result, the brand today enjoys millions of paying customers globally.

Slack

It is vital to ensure that you do not need to show the user what steps to take while onboarding them through app guides in product experience. You need to make them do it. Slack has mastered this strategy, wherein it delivers a seamless customer onboarding experience. The Slackbot offers all the details that users need regarding using the platform. It further helps them take desired actions while interacting.

It is vital to understand that customer onboarding is not just about giving the customers a walkthrough of the product. It is, in fact, the best chance for you to make a first impression. Hence, you ought to allocate adequate time and resources to building better B2B customer onboarding experiences.