Customer onboarding can truly make or break your business. SaaS providers know this better than anyone, but the truth is that customer onboarding is essential for any business concerned with customer loyalty.
There are several approaches to customer onboarding: high, medium, low, and technical. Recent research suggests that technology solutions are preferred by customers – but all on time.
In this article, we’ll explore these 4 popular approaches to customer onboarding, along with the pros and cons of each. But first, here are three key facts about the importance of customer onboarding that you may not be aware of.
Why should I care about customer onboarding?
The question is: why not? We won’t look at all the benefits of customer onboarding for your business, but we will give you 3 universal truths that should:
1. Increase product adoption
Customer onboarding doesn’t start with purchase. It starts from the first time the potential customer learns about your brand – and educational content at this stage is powerful. Actually, consumers are 131% more likely to purchase of a brand immediately after consuming educational content at an early stage. Imagine the power he will have next.
Educating your customers about your product is essential to increasing product adoption and usage. As customers discover features and use cases (even ones they didn’t know about), they are better able to harness the value of your product and integrate it into their work or routine personal. When they use it, they love it. The more they use it, the more they love you!
2. Reduce operational costs
As customers become more knowledgeable, the number of incoming support tickets will decrease, as will individual calls. Customers will be able to turn to a centralized knowledge baseor they may not need it at all if they have completed training that you have prepared for them.
Over time and in a streamlined manner integration program in place, you will be able to scale your business without increasing the number of your customer support and CSM agents. This will free up resources for more strategic actions while enabling a high level of customer service.
3. Prevent customer churn
Customer onboarding further helps in establishing a connection with new customers and building loyalty among returning customers. This happens not only because customers feel valued, but also because they are able to integrate your product into their lives and benefit from it.
We cannot stress enough the importance of customer loyalty. If you didn’t already know, it costs 5 to 25 (!) times more to acquire a new customer than to preserve an existing one.
And now that we’ve made the case for customer education, let’s move on to the 4 common approaches to customer onboarding.
4 Popular Customer Onboarding Strategies
The following strategies are popular customer engagement models. Note that opting for one does not necessarily exclude the other.
1. High-touch customer integration
A highly personalized onboarding program (and overall customer service) is as personalized as possible. This involves one-on-one meetings with step-by-step product presentations and frequent check-ins from a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM). The goal of check-ins is to anticipate customer needs and prevent any issues before they arise, adding an extra layer of personalized support and attention.
On the other hand, high-touch integration also requires a lot of maintenance. This is why most companies offer this service to their higher-paying clients. Even so, you may not be able to keep pace with your business growth because it requires a lot of time and involvement from your customer success team, which cannot grow at the same rate.
Benefits
Highly personalized and engaging Drives product adoption and prevents customer churn Access to honest customer feedback helps uncover pain points faster Contributes to greater customer lifetime value
Disadvantages
Expensive Difficult to implement (conflicting time zones) Difficult to scale (resource heavy)
2. Mid-Touch Client Integration
Customer onboarding in the workplace involves face-to-face interactions, but at a lower level. A common example is a webinar where you provide product tours and step-by-step tutorials, except these webinars are open to your entire customer base and are not one-on-one. This approach requires the involvement of more team members, but at a lower scale and frequency.
For example, your customer support team can be there to answer technical questions about your product on-site while your CSMs or product team are presenting. Usually, a time slot is also allocated for FAQs where customers can ask follow-up questions. Your team can also send a follow-up email with product tips.
Benefits
Highly scalable Accessible to all customers Somewhat personalized Cost-effective
Disadvantages
Complex, resource-intensive implementation (with multiple teams involved)
3. Contactless Customer Onboarding
Contactless customer onboarding is primarily a self-service onboarding. This means you automate a large part of the customer onboarding process. With this approach, old and new users will find a knowledge base with customer support articles and videos describing key features and perhaps receive an occasional email with tips and advice or updates on new product features.
As the name suggests, there is not much personal contact. This approach is not ideal for creating true customer engagement since the customer barely interacts with anyone in the company.
Relying solely on a low level of contact does not constitute effective customer onboarding for very complex products or for customers who are not technology savvy. Still, it’s a decent solution for small businesses that can’t afford to deploy extensive customer training or offer personalized customer support.
Benefits
Economical Highly scalable Accessible to all customers
Disadvantages
Not effective for complex products or inexperienced users. Lack of personalization and therefore has less impact on customer satisfaction than other strategies
4. Tech-Touch Customer Onboarding
In the digital age, it’s no exaggeration to say that a successful customer onboarding experience must involve the use of technology, and that includes AI too. Customers expect to have access to resources that will allow them to resolve their problems on their own.
A Salesforce Research Survey Shows That 61% of customers prefer to use self-service for simple problems. And this percentage is even higher among younger generations – 68% for Millennials and 64% for Generation Z. (“Simple” is the key here – more complex problems require personalized assistance).
Tech-touch user onboarding involves a wide range of activities, some of which are also used in low- and medium-touch strategies:
Centralized knowledge base Email sequences In-app assistants Chatbots Content marketing (live webinars, on-demand videos, articles) Social customer service Customer training courses
Benefits
Modern approach Highly scalable Cost-effective Efficient and consistent user onboarding Nourishes customer relationships Accessible to all customers
Disadvantages
Is Tech-Touch Customer Onboarding the Best Choice?
In most cases, yes! A technology-driven user onboarding process does not mean fully automated and impersonal onboarding. This means using technology (besides your CRM to store customer data) to educate and connect with your customers.
Especially if you decide to go with a customer training programyou will be able to create your own community of brand advocates who can participate in discussions and share advice. And by providing training that introduces your product from A to Z, your customers will become proficient faster. If this sounds like a good idea to you, check out some of the best customer education platforms to centralize and evolve your customer training program.
A technical customer integration not only excludes access to CSMs; Rather, it provides instant, on-demand access to resources to everyone without distinguishing between low-level and high-level clients. Additionally, the ability to connect across multiple touchpoints increases customer engagement and brand loyalty.
A technology-driven customer onboarding strategy also allows customers to choose from multiple resources, creating a more personalized user experience for them. Despite the initial investment, in the long term, a technical approach is the most cost-effective and efficient solution because it reduces the number of support tickets and one-on-one consultations.
First impressions count
… but the second and the third too! If you want new customers to become “good customers,” your onboarding checklist should include more than a welcome email. From optimizing your sales process to increasing conversion rates to offering post-purchase support, a positive customer experience should involve multiple touchpoints.
The tech-touch model is the most cost-effective and effective customer success model for most businesses. It allows you to offer your customers relevant educational resources accessible from different sources, helping them use your product effectively.
LearnWorlds LMS is the ideal solution for your customer training program. Help your customers discover and use your product with engaging videos, microlearning content, and fun quizzes. Allow them to access training materials from anywhere via a branded mobile app. Boost your brand and even monetize your program with our white label platform and e-commerce features.
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Androniki Koumadoraki
Androniki is a content writer at LearnWorlds and shares instructional design and marketing tips. With solid experience in B2B writing and technical translation, she is passionate about learning and disseminating knowledge. She is also a budding yogi, an avid reader, and a talented transponder.
