Part of the appeal of IKEA furniture is that it’s relatively easy to assemble. Their pictures-only instructions make it straightforward for anyone of any language or skill level to put together a Billy bookcase. If that’s still too complicated, IKEA offers an assembly service as well.
According to a study by Salesforce, 70 percent of customers said the ability to understand how to use a product or service is very important to earning their business. A recently purchased platform or software is like an unassembled bookcase for new customers. And without the right onboarding program, it’s hard for customers to get much use out of the pieces. They also have different levels of capability: Some can do it themselves, while others need more guidance.
At LA-based electronic health record (EHR) platform SimplePractice, customer onboarding lead Mike Schafer said consistent communications with customers keeps them engaged and in need of less customer support.
“For us, the most critical part of building an onboarding program is creating a sense of partnership and community between the customer and our team,” Schafer said.
If onboarding can answer a question before it’s asked, that shows the business and the customer they are on the same brainwave.
But that alignment is hard won. Nicole Garcia, the director of customer success at InStride, said onboarding is part of a conversation that starts long before the contract is signed, and goes a long way to show the edtech company's commitment to their partners' and their employees' success.
"By moving up our onboarding timeline before a contract is signed, we can better align on our corporate partners’ expectations," Garcia said.
Since there is no sales team at electronic health record platform SimplePractice, onboarding success is essential to retaining customers. Customer Onboarding Lead Mike Schafer said the company’s virtual product tours allow customers to thoroughly understand key features and keep support requests down.
What actions have you found to be most critical when building and implementing an effective and engaging customer onboarding program?
Our customers are private practice owners who have dedicated their careers to helping others. Each of them has a unique way of managing their practice, and that’s a core component of both our product and our onboarding approach. Our platform is designed so customers have complete flexibility in how they operate, which creates a unique onboarding challenge.
Since SimplePractice doesn’t have a sales team, the first interaction a potential customer has with our product is when they sign up for a free trial, which is where the onboarding program kicks off. For us, the most critical part of onboarding is creating a sense of partnership and community between the customer and our team. That means helping our customers be successful during their free trial with an email series, in-product tutorials, a dedicated one-on-one video onboarding call and daily in-person classes and Q&A sessions.
Our platform is designed so customers have complete flexibility in how they operate, which creates a unique onboarding challenge.”
What has been the impact of improvements you’ve made to your customer onboarding?
One of the major improvements was launching detailed in-product tours once trials have started. These product tours provide walkthroughs of key features without directing our customers to read a help center article or watch a video. We’re always iterating on these walkthroughs by monitoring how engaged our customers are. We’ve seen an immediate reduction in incoming support requests from brand new customers.
In addition to in-product tutorials, we also have multiple email lifecycle series for our customers based on their specialty, experience level with EHRs and their practice size. By customizing these lifecycle journeys, we can match their onboarding experience to their practice. We’re always iterating, testing different email copy and adding new emails based on what our customer success team sees via incoming support requests.
How do you leverage the onboarding process to generate excitement about your brand and prevent apathy among your customers?
Our customers go into private practice to help those in need. At that moment, they become entrepreneurs. To fully empower our customers to be successful, we share business-building resources with them that aren’t covered in their traditional education. These resources help our customers see that SimplePractice is not only a software platform, but a community of individuals here to support them during their entire private practice journey.
As the director of customer success at edtech company InStride, Nicole Garcia said it’s hard to work with a customer if they don’t know what their goals are. To determine success, goals are decided collaboratively before a contract is signed. Throughout onboarding, Garcia revisits those goals with the customer and adjusts and updates progress accordingly.
What actions have you found to be most critical when building and implementing an effective and engaging customer onboarding program?
When developing a strategic education program, aligning on success goals is critical. Our onboarding team starts engaging with our corporate partners long before a contract is signed. First, we align with our partners on what success looks like and how it supports larger company goals and key objectives. Then, we have a kick-off meeting with all stakeholders, including the executive sponsor, to reiterate program goals before going through deliverables, timelines and work required from both teams to ensure a successful onboarding.
Timely, transparent communication is also key. We constantly revisit the initial expectations and our progress through weekly check-ins with our partners. These are documented and shared with our partners to ensure there is no misalignment at any point. When challenges arise or the scope needs to change, we always make sure to inform our partners as soon as possible with all relevant information so they have full awareness throughout the process.
Rigorous project management is the final critical element. We have people and systems in place to ensure all onboarding steps are clearly documented and tracked. We also have weekly cross-functional meetings to quickly address any issues that may come up.
What has been the impact of improvements you’ve made to your customer onboarding?
By moving up our onboarding timeline before a contract is signed, we can better align on our corporate partners’ expectations. This small step has also gone a long way in showing our commitment to making our partners and their employees successful, and in some cases, has helped accelerate employees’ educational journeys.
We make interactions as collaborative as possible so that we are working together to make their programs successful.”
How do you leverage the onboarding process to generate excitement about your brand and prevent apathy among your customers?
Aligning on success across multiple stakeholders is incredibly important for generating excitement and engagement. We constantly remind our corporate partners and our own team what our collective goals are.
We also try to make the interactions as collaborative as possible so that we are working together to make their programs successful. We also think of our account managers as strategic partners who go above and beyond to bring teams together, work toward shared goals and celebrate shared success.
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