Why Customer Onboarding is of Critical Importance for Startups

Why-Customer-Onboarding-is-of-Critical-Importance-for-Startups

A sale is just the beginning. What can actually make or break a customer relationship or the future viability of your business is your onboarding process. Customer onboarding involves introducing new customers to your business and ensuring that their experiences and journey is as exceptional as possible. There is a need for companies to improve the customer experience from the moment a customer gets in touch first or expands a relationship.
A poor onboarding experience for your customers can damage your growth to a considerable degree. Particularly for startups, an effective customer onboarding could lead to huge success. As startups struggle to find customers in their initial phase, they can’t afford to loose even one due to poor quality of service.
Below are few ways to enhance your customer onboarding process and create long-lasting relationships with your customers-
Advocate Positive Experiences
Make sure that your customers have a positive experience with your product or service. Clearly communicate the features of your product making it easier for them to use it. Clarify all their questions and doubts and ensure that they have a smooth experience with your product or service. Ignoring this can create a negative impression about your company and your customer might want to explore an alternative.
Know your Customers Well
As startups are in a nascent stage and are in the process of creating a customer base by addressing their needs, it is really crucial to gather timely feedbacks from customers about their experiences. This will surely enable organizations to improve their services and make modifications in their product to better fit the needs of the customers. Measuring customer satisfaction and getting feedbacks will allow new businesses to have access to valuable insights into the products or services and make them more appealing to the customers.
Showcase Success Stories
Simply saying that your product or service is awesome is not going to solve your purpose. Customers want to know if your products are producing results. Inspire them by showcasing the success stories of other customers preferably of the same industry. So, sharing case studies, relevant customer testimonials and showing real-life examples are some of the effective methods to amplify your brand and let your product steal the show from its competitors.

Focus on Retention

Repeat customers are invaluable for any company. According to Gartner, 80% of a company’s future revenue can come from 20% of existing customers. Employ the vital customer onboarding techniques such as offering proactive support, conducting routine follow-ups, carrying out frequent need assessments and providing personalized experiences in order to improve customer retention. Delight your customers by reducing their effort, thus enhancing loyalty.
Research from the Harvard Business school found that a 5 % increase in customer retention leads to more than a 25% increase in profits.
Also, satisfied and loyal customers are definitely going to refer you to others. They act as influencers and maximize word-of-mouth marketing in your favour.
Though customer churn is inevitable for any company and therefore, one should never stop acquiring new customers. It is critical for startups in the early years to replace dissatisfied customers with new ones to sustain in the marketplace. However, in the longer run as the business and revenue grows, it will be nearly impossible to find new buyers to take the place of churned customers.
A viable customer onboarding tactics play a significant role in reducing customer attrition and make your business successful. It’s how you onboard your new customers that will determine whether you will be able to retain them or not. In order to achieve overall success for your business, focus on not just an astounding onboarding process but also create consistent customer experiences throughout their journey.

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