Key Takeaways
It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we do business, sparing no industry or sector.
As we adapt to the new business landscape, we are all learning how to operate in a rapidly digital world while maintaining business growth. Among the many areas seeing new process adoption is customer onboarding.
It is also one of the most challenging tasks at hand. Providing a stellar experience at every customer touchpoint is now a goal that every business aspires to achieve.
But as we bounce back from the disruption, will the post-pandemic landscape allow anything to get back to the way it is? According to some analysts, every process will experience a shift. And this shift will be aligned to the changing customer expectations.
Given the uncertainties surrounding us, users are looking at tools that can quickly and efficiently understand their needs and help them out. Your new user onboarding process must be intuitive and precise. If not, it won’t take them more than a few minutes to look for options elsewhere.
Similarly, a lot of users are looking for new platforms to achieve what once was being done offline. The result is an influx of new sign-ups for your product.
Unless you have a scalable user onboarding strategy that can retain this high influx, your team might face burnout due to the stress of handling the incoming customer traffic.
Fortunately, there are ways to navigate this challenging atmosphere and showcase your efficiency and commitment to customer care with an effective user onboarding strategy.
Here are five easy-to-implement tips that will help you to onboard and retain users at scale.
#1. Prepare Technologies
Your prospective customer will likely have a home office set up in today’s remote working scenario. This also means that you need to consider a variety of tech needs.
It is essential to prepare all user logins, company access, VPN needs, company software training, and security guidelines so your new user wastes no time in getting up and running.
Additionally, create an organizational chart with your entire team, including pictures, roles, and contact information. This will be helpful in scenarios where you have to virtually onboard your users.
#2. Highlight Your Product
With limited time, bandwidth, and mental space, new users want to get the relevant information about your product or service as quickly as possible. It is imperative that you show them how to perform key actions right away.
You can make use of in-app guides to highlight certain features that address the most asked questions. When your new users are armed with the right information in a time-efficient manner, it will prevent them from looking for similar solutions elsewhere.
#3. Take One Step at a Time
Pointing users to advanced features too early into the user onboarding journey might be counterproductive. They may find it daunting and complex.
An effective way forward is to understand your customer’s pain points and help them take “baby steps”.
Let them get acquainted one step before you continue to a more complex one. This will motivate them to stick around while empowering them to try more features.
#4. Make it Accessible
Your team might feel overwhelmed with the huge wave of emails, meetings, and support tickets. Not only will they face a bandwidth issue, but the added workload will also lead to lower productivity.
If your customer-facing team is stretched, it would be harder for you to keep your customers happy. Instead, allow your customers to help themselves.
When onboarding new customers, make use of simple bots that pop out relevant articles and support guides to assist them, so they don’t feel the need to reach out to your team for common queries.
#5. Simplify the Feedback Process
Feedback is an integral part of any user onboarding strategy. With everything going digital, it is relatively easy to create an online feedback framework.
These can be in the form of surveys or even one-to-one meetings. You can also create a digital feedback loop so your customers can check in whenever they want to.
Moving Ahead
The cost of not focusing on an effective user onboarding strategy can be detrimental to business growth.
A research by Deloitte highlights that at least 38% of customers drop out of the onboarding process, usually as a result of frustration.
Digital-savvy customers expect seamless, efficiently designed user onboarding journeys, and an omnichannel experience.
Many researchers believe that the new customer onboarding model will keep becoming highly automated with little human intervention.
The challenge is to find the right balance that helps in reducing the number of touchpoints, lowers frustrations, and increases process scalability.
