How To Cut Customer Onboarding Time In Half

How To Cut Customer Onboarding Time In Half

June 5 2020

With startups facing revenue headwinds across the board, now is a critical time to reduce any points of friction that prevent customers from engaging with product. Jess Meschino, VP of Account Management at Workable, and Erica Ayotte, VP of Customer Success at Privy, gave their playbook for reducing customer onboarding time specifically and getting customers engaged right away.

Key Takeaways

Customers are looking for someone to connect with: What does normal look like? Are you seeing any trends across your entire customer base?
Take the opportunity to reflect: How can we provide thought leadership? What’s worked with our onboarding process in the past and what hasn’t? What are the key responsibilities our customers have?
Properly prepare the customer for the onboarding process. What data and tools do they need to gather prior to onboarding? Are they anticipating any roadbumps? Always smooth out the potential challenges ahead of time.
It’s important to share expectations prior to the onboarding process. Additionally, share what the full process will look like. Proper preparation is key!
Make sure that you are your customers agree on clear milestones with dates attached prior to starting the customer onboarding process. This will save you both regarding time, resources, and frustrations. Equally important: track this process with milestone setting an KPIs.
After the customer onboarding process, send an overview of what was accomplished. “This is where we started, this is the progress we’ve already made.” Keep it concise. Don’t exceed one page. Don’t overload with information.
Try assigning home work to customers between your customer onboarding calls. Detail 3 things (no more) that they should be working on until your next conversation. Additionally, send a follow-up email two weeks later to identify the steps have have actioned.

Thank you Jess & Erica for taking time out of your day to share your expertise with the greater Venture Lane community!