Is your churn rate too high? Are your team members investing too much time to welcome new clients? Is information getting lost in the process? Are you looking for ways to collaborate with customers better?
No matter the reason. If you landed here you are probably looking for ways to improve your customer onboarding experience. And you should!
In past articles we’ve talked about customer onboarding and why it’s so important.
As a refresher:
“The client onboarding process is the group of tasks undertaken in order to welcome new clients into your business.
It includes addressing their questions and concerns. Ensuring they understand the services available to them and guiding them while they learn to use your product/service”.
IMPORTANT TO NOTE:
» The onboarding of a new customer is not only the knowledge sharing process. But also the exchange of relevant information such as who to reach to, how, for which topics or even payment information.
Though sometimes underestimated, the customer onboarding process is of great importance.
This one helps increase retention rates and customer engagement, so as to form the bases for long term relationships and improve app experience.
What is a Customer Onboarding Software?
“Customer onboarding software is a solution that helps streamline the client or user onboarding process”.
It helps you put up in place a more efficient and effective process, employing faster and simpler working methods. It also helps you to standardize your process with automated onboarding software tools.
Depending on the industry, there are different steps, requirements, and functionalities to take into account.
In B2B industries, for example, the onboarding process may include a large number of active users. While the B2C may include only one.
In the same way, the first one may require a more complex or structured process management while the second one a more linear simple one.
Different needs will present different requirements, therefore different key features and product adoption.
As far as customer onboarding portal is concerned, there are a few platforms paving the way into onboarding software in 2023. They offer similar foundations, with small differences between all, creating more personalized processes.
5 Solutions to automate Customer Onboarding
1- Virtus Flow
It’s a no-code workflow automation solutions that allows you to automate any business process, including the customer onboarding.
If needed (for example in the case of companies onboarding large number of clients) you can create your own customer onboarding portal.
Features include:
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- Rule-based online form creation
- Task automation and management
- Document creation, delivery and storage
- Automated workflows
- Collaboration tools
- Automatic audit trails
- Client portal
- Automatic emails and notifications
- eSignatures
- Templates
- API and custom integrations
- Video tutorials
It’s ideal for companies looking to automate not only the customer onboarding flows, but multiple interconnected processes. As well as companies looking to offer a great digital customer service experience.
How to automate your Client Onboarding with Virtus Flow
Once you have your process mapped, the automation part is extremely simple and fast.
This is how to map your process.
You can follow this “Guide to automate your processes“
However, this is a quick overview:
Step 1 – Mapping.
Create your basis, all of your steps. This is the main outline of your process, what you hope to accomplish, and any specific steps that are necessary to the process.
Step 2 – Information.
Add the information that you will be requesting, what the user will need to continue the process, and all forms, formulas, and sections needed.
Step 3 – Automation.
Now you put all the steps together. Simply input the already created information into the process as you mapped it and link the steps by dragging one to the next. Here is also where you can easily create rules, if needed, to control the path.
We share how one of our customers automated his Purchase Requisition process in as little as 10 minutes below. You can follow the same steps to automate the client onboarding and connected workflows.
» Visit our Process Library and use Workflow Templates for FREE!
Automate your Customer Onboarding in minutes!
2- Clustdoc
It’s a saas company that helps users to build and run industry specific client onboarding workflows. It offers a process library where you can choose from according to industry. It simplifies the process of collecting and managing forms, documents, eSignatures and payment as part of the customer onboarding process.
Features include:
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- Document collection
- Digital form builder
- Online payment
- eSignature
- Checklists
- API integration
3- Rocketlane
It’s a “project management” oriented client onboarding tool. It helps organizations to collaborate with customers and provide visibility into goals, plans, and statuses while keeping the project on track. It allows you to create customer project templates to reuse later.
Features include:
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- Live collaboration
- Real time conversations
- Customer portal
- Reporting
- Reminders
- Status Updates
- Onboarding Templates
4- ChurnZero
It helps users to automate common onboarding tasks and encourages customers to embrace your product. It helps you to track the customer journey in the onboarding process and manage onboarding related tasks.
Features include:
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- Requirements gathering
- Technical implementation
- Configuration
- Customer engagement
- Training
- Setting timelines
- Tracking progress
5- Arrows
This solution specializes entirely on customer onboarding. It allows users to create custom onboarding plans, assign tasks, create and send reminders and track progress.
Features include:
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- Personalization
- Task management
- Automatic reminders
- Status updates
- Third party integrations
- Account updates
- Collaboration
Why should you use Client Onboarding Software?
Customer education, proper product experience and usage of a customer onboarding tool leads to customer retention. And a client onboarding software helps you to put in place that frictionless onboarding process, reducing churn.
All this while keeping customers and your product teams aligned and on track!
PLEASE NOTE: You will still need to design and apply good onboarding practices to your process. The client onboarding software will be the tool that facilitates execution.
Features you want in a Customer Onboarding Platform
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- Ability to guide the user step by step
- Delivery of automatic notifications
- Automatic triggering of events
- Task automation
- Ability to share training materials such as guided tours
- Possibility to track communication exchanges
- Quick way to reach and collaborate with the account manager
- Document generation, delivery and storage
- Status sharing
Many digital adoption platforms offer step by step instructions on how to use their products such as an inline manual, how to find help when they need it, and how to track their progress.
Some platforms will also provide guided product tours when required. This can be particularly helpful for SaaS companies that work with large number of users and need to increase user adoption.
If you still need some persuasion here are some important numbers.
Customer Onboarding Statistics
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Learn how to automate data gathering, delivery and storage with dynamic forms!
Onboarding Software vs Business Process Automation Software
The onboarding of a new customer is just the tip of the iceberg. As you know there are many more processes involved requiring high touch: agreement management, purchase orders, purchase fulfillment and tracking, payment requests, bank information requests, etc.
In order to provide a truly frictionless user experience you need to automate and integrate all those processes as well.
This is why we recommend looking for ways to automate not only the customer onboarding, but all customer related processes. Integrating them under one single umbrella.
And this is where BPA Software comes in.
What is Business Process Automation Software?
BPA Software is a type of technology that automates and streamlines various business processes, tasks, and workflows to improve efficiency, reduce human errors, and increase productivity.
It replaces manual and repetitive tasks with automated processes, allowing employees to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.
Some key features and capabilities of these tools include:
-
- Workflow Automation: it enables the creation of workflows that automate the movement of data and tasks from one step to another based on predefined rules and conditions.
- Task Management: It helps in assigning and managing tasks, setting deadlines, and tracking progress throughout the process.
- Integration: This solution can integrate with other business applications, databases, and systems to exchange data seamlessly.
- Rules Engine: BPA software often includes a rules engine that allows users to define business rules and conditions to control the flow of the automated processes.
- Data Capture and Processing: It can automatically capture and process data from various sources, such as emails, forms, documents, or websites.
- User Segments: Users can enable segmentation to separate and organize based on specific criteria.
- Reporting and Analytics: It may provide insights into process performance, bottlenecks, and other relevant metrics to facilitate continuous improvement.
- Notifications and Alerts: Users can receive notifications and alerts at critical points in the automated process, ensuring timely actions and responses.
- Security and Compliance: These tools typically offers security measures to protect sensitive data and adhere to industry regulations and compliance standards.
Business Process Automation Software can be applied across various industries and departments, such as finance, HR, customer service, marketing, etc.
It is particularly beneficial for repetitive tasks and processes that follow well-defined rules and workflows.
Organizations can achieve higher efficiency, cost savings, and improved customer service, ultimately leading to a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
However, it’s important to choose the right BPA solution that aligns with the specific needs and goals of the business.
Something worth mentioning
Automating these processes helps to streamline the customer onboarding experience through digital adoption. However, customer experience involves more than that.
Customers need to know that they still have access to a real team member, even if using helpful management software. So, make sure to keep the personal touch every time possible.
The Bottom Line
In 2023, you will not get far without the right customer onboarding experience. Your new (and current) customers must feel that they matter. And they must know that their onboarding content was made just for them. They want to feel valued, and not just like another fish in the pond.
Each client’s initial knowledge base will be different. Their goals will be different. And their overall product usage will be different. These platforms take all of that into consideration by offering specialized onboarding tools for each new client.
When done correctly, these features and benefits lead to increased customer retention and success. A customer success team should be in place to help with any question or assistance needed. From user adoption to product adoption and everything in between.
Automating your Customer Onboarding is easy, budget friendly and can be done in days, not months.
