Remote customer onboarding for fast-growing SaaS companies

Onboarding new customers is always a challenge. Each one has their own demands, making them more complex than some.

No two customer journeys are the same, which is why you need the best-of-breed technology to simplify and improve your digital customer onboarding process. 

The importance of customer onboarding

You know what they say: first impressions always last. 

During the first steps of the customer onboarding process flow, customers are enthusiastic about making the most of what you have to offer. This is your first chance to show them the ropes, build their confidence, and highlight the edge they gain from availing your products and services instead of a competitor’s. If you fail to do so, there’s the risk of your customer ghosting you, which could lead you to losing potential revenue. 

Understanding the importance of customer onboarding is vital to the success of any company. 

Viewing the digital customer onboarding process as a strategic procedure that directly influences customer success raises your chances for sustainable product implementation compared to organizations that dismiss onboarding as a through-train formality to kickstart the customer journey. 

To make remote customer onboarding successful, customers must feel they’re a priority for your business. Therefore, your business must be committed to your customer’s personal success with your product and services. 

In this post, we talk about how you can develop stronger remote customer onboarding. 

Your checklist for remote customer onboarding

Onboarding a customer successfully while mitigating risks is a tough balancing act. Unfortunately, businesses don’t commit to it enough and others over-invest themselves to draw as many customers as they can, which leaves them with big chunks of manual steps to accomplish. 

Follow these tips to optimize your digital customer onboarding process. 

1. Know your customer  

Begin with the basics. To kickstart your digital customer onboarding process, you need to acquire relevant information about your customer. This includes contact details and possible history to validate that they want to engage in good business with your company. 

It’s possible to accomplish this even from the comfort of your own home. FinancesOnline shares some examples of remote work software that can help you collect customer information without minimizing the importance of customer onboarding. 

Next, list their preferences, their reasons for buying your product, and their expectations upon purchase. You could include other techniques such as determining channel preferences, identifying household composition, engaging in social media, and conducting preliminary surveys to obtain your first insights. 

This information is integral to boosting customer experience and establishing your connection with your customer. Data from the most recent economic recession brought by COVID-19 shows that companies that focused on customer experience acquired thrice the shareholder returns as opposed to enterprises that did not. 

As much as possible, construct the most complete profile of your customer so you can provide optimum guidance during your digital customer onboarding process and beyond. 

2. Never neglect compliance 

Every company has different requirements for complying with laws and policies related to their industries or geographical locations, making compliance a very important matter to address when onboarding customers. 

For instance, fintech companies must adhere to local and international policies against money laundering and other financial crimes. Therefore, during the beginning of their digital customer onboarding process, they need to conduct thorough background checks on their customers, especially regarding their finances. It is also crucial for them to inform their customers about the consequences lest they breach these laws. 

3. Be 100% ready

The creation of products and services can cover huge server migrations and configured private cloud construction. Likewise, operations could cross from one department to another. Realistically speaking, it takes time before a product or service is ready to be on the market. That’s why you should never launch your project and begin your customer onboarding process flow unless your product and your team are 100% ready. 

To accelerate your journey towards remote customer onboarding, it’s important to establish clear and concise expectations. This also shows your customers that you take their faith in you seriously and becomes vital in delivering top-notch quality products and services.

4. Invest in groundbreaking technology 

A recent survey shows an increase in the number of businesses that are creating ways to amp up their customer experience. This includes enlisting the help of new tech to streamline their digital customer onboarding process. 77% of CEOs claimed their business will fundamentally alter how it interacts with its customers.

There are plenty of aspects and activities involved in introducing a customer to your product or service. You have app download, site sign-ups, surveys, free trials, and more. The bottomline is remote customer onboarding is not a random mesh of forms and ads thrown at your customers. It’s a carefully thought out methodology that aims to handhold your customer through their first steps with your product or service. Your end goal is to respond to their inquiries and supply a seamless transition into using your product. 

To achieve this, you might need software that understands the importance of customer onboarding just like we do at Rocketlane. We know that first impressions can make or break a business, so we do our best to point you towards the path of customer retention and success. 

5. Exchange ideas and learn from others

More and more businesses are beginning to invest in their digital customer onboarding process. In fact, there are even groups and virtual communities dedicated to this aspect of long-term customer success. 

Here at Rocketlane, we have a collaborative community for customer onboarding professionals and leaders. They work with every step of the customer onboarding process flow, such as onboarding, executing strategies, and handing over significant value to customers. 

Advantages of joining the Rocketlane customer onboarding group include passes to member-exclusive events that focus on improving your digital customer onboarding process, instant responses from peers to questions regarding customer onboarding issues, chances to contribute material that helps community members as well as opportunities for network expansion. 

More resources to help you up your remote customer onboarding game

As you embark on your own journey to improve your customer onboarding process flow, use these tips and tricks to help you achieve success.

For more resources beyond this guide, especially if you’ve witnessed a few failures in your customer onboarding operations, here are a few more that we think will be helpful:

1. Bridging the gaps emerging in a remote work environment
2. Rituals of Connection For A Fully Remote Team
3. How to Design Your Customer Onboarding Methodology
4. Creating an onboarding journey for your product? This checklist can help you nail it
5. Introducing The Customer Onboarding Maturity Model: An Easy Way To Measure & Up Your Onboarding Game