CUSTOMER ONBOARDING
CUSTOMER ONBOARDING FOR ENTERPRISE
You are never too big to improve your process
More than half of all enterprise companies surveyed want to improve their onboarding process, with every company believing that in doing so would result in the biggest impact on the performance of Customer Onboarding. Enterprise companies are wary of what customer success means to their partner ecosystems and as the volumes and diversity of Customer Onboarding projects increases, companies are looking for ways to use technology to enable a human touch at a greater scale.
MATURITY
SCORE
1
5
5
100% of Enterprise organizations have a Customer Success Department
74% have a dedicated Customer Onboarding team
82% of Enterprise organisations rate their onboarding approach as a key driver of value
KATIE
GOUYETTE.
HEAD OF GLOBAL CUSTOMER ONBOARDING
GOCARDLESS
We have some great success stories with customers who have increased their usage of GoCardless once they have been onboarded because they are so happy with the product and the way it fits the business.”
PEOPLE
WHO TOOK PART
Over the last two years there has been a demonstrable rise in seniority in the Customer Success department. In 2020, near 50% of respondents sat at the VP or CXO levels compared to 34% in 2019 and 18% in 2018.
As customers consistently demand outcomes and value, Customer Success is rising in importance, with a corresponding seat at the table.
SAM
SMITH.
SENIOR CUSTOMER SUCCESS SPECIALIST LINODE
The more I talked to other people in customer success, the more I feel like everybody does it differently depending on their company. There's so many factors, like how big your customers are and what stage the company is at.”
PROCESS
IMPACT
IMPACT OF CUSTOMER ONBOARDING
Customer Onboarding has a significant influence on the Customer Lifecycle with retention acknowledged as the area of greatest impact.
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Customer Retention
2
Customer Health
3
Customer Satisfaction e.g. NPS
4
Lifetime Value
5
Up-Sell
Customer Retention
Customer Health
Customer Satisfaction
Lifetime Value
Up-Sell
PRECURSIVE VIEW
CO has an impact on the whole customer lifecycle, especially in SaaS “land and expand” models where Onboarding needs to be repeated across a business to grow an account. Customer Retention and Health are closely linked impacts which all segments agree on.
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Wrong product fit
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Lack of engagement
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Poor onboarding
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Change of management
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Not enough support
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Reduction in budgets
PRECURSIVE VIEW
Every company in the survey stated that product fit has a direct impact on churn. Customer acquisition frequently includes closing deals whereby the customer isn't a great fit for your product.
Many of things that influence churn are outside of your control but customer onboarding is an area where you have a significant role in controlling the outcomes.
When you consider that the uncontrollable factors will likely persist and that unfortunately mis-selling may also continue in pockets, then your ability to onboard customers effectively carries an outsized importance.
WHAT DRIVES CHURN?
MELISSA JURKOIC.
CHIEF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE OFFICER ADDAPPTATION
As you expand you still want every customer to feel like they're your only customer.”
FUTURE
THE PRECURSIVE VIEW
Value Milestones
Focus your onboarding milestones on the outcomes that your customers achieve from using your product, then capture the value that is driven from these outcomes over time. Avoid vendor-centric metrics for tracking when you have completed onboarding.
Hiring
Reflect the maturing of the CO function as well as the rise in its importance by hiring those experienced in capacity planning and resource management. These should be core competencies for the Director of Onboarding and the Customer Success Operations roles.
High Velocity Services
Align onboarding and services teams around a shared mission to drive more value, more quickly for customers. Traditional professional services is changing with a new form of “onboarding services” emerging that is capable of rapid deployments.
Automate to be Human
Use technology to automate onboarding admin tasks that suck up your team’s time, reinvest that time in collaborating with the customer. Capture insights on which repeatable processes help to improve time-to-value and increase customer satisfaction.
Increase Customer Engagement
Charging for onboarding will drive more engagement with senior stakeholders. Customers will take the onboarding process more seriously when if they are paying for it, which helps to improve your delivery of outcomes, increasing expansion and reducing churn.
Monetize Customer Onboarding
Think about how your onboarding experience can provide customers with a level of value that they would gladly pay for. For most technology businesses, onboarding is a cost of sale item that will impact gross margins if not monetized.
PS CONTENT BY PS LEADERS.
THE PSA PLATFORM THAT DELIVERS.
BY PRODUCTS.
