Grow as a Customer Onboarding Specialist in Seven "Basic" Steps
Here's how to get better at SaaS onboarding
Without a doubt SaaS customers particularly benefit from Customer Onboarding Specialists, who are crucial to ensuring a seamless experience.
Onboarding is the first impression customers have with a product or service, and it sets the tone for their entire experience.
But how do we define this onboarding in simple terms?
Recall the first time you taught your parents how to navigate a messaging application. You showed them buttons/icons to perform tasks such as chatting, searching, or reacting to messages. Yes?
Again, how about those moments you walked your friends through a difficult stage in a video game?
Onboarding in the context of SaaS, refers to the process of getting users up and running with a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application by providing them with the necessary assistance and resources (Torii).
As a job role, Customer Onboarding Specialists can effectively train new and existing users on SaaS, however, it also exists as part of the key responsibilities of Customer Success professionals in many organizations, especially smaller ones.
To grow as a Customer Onboarding Specialist for SaaS, consider the following tips:
1. Develop a Deep Understanding of the Application: Familiarize yourself with the SaaS's features, benefits, and limitations to effectively communicate its value to customers. Have an ever-expansive capacity for learning. As an add-on, you need to know updates that are in the pipeline, as well as query parts of the application you are not clear on from the Product Development and Engineering teams.
2. Create Personalized Onboarding Plans: It starts with knowing exactly what the customer looks to achieve with your application. Tailor your approach to each customer's unique needs and goals, ensuring a relevant and engaging experience. Your readiness to train and answer questions has to be top-notch because certain customers may require multiple or extended sessions. Build up capacity and contingencies to avoid burnout.
3. Communicate Effectively: Clearly articulate complex information, and actively listen to customers' concerns and feedback. Cut the technical fluff, unless you are being asked and tutor using simpler terms.
4. Set Realistic Expectations: Manage customer expectations by outlining what they can achieve during user onboarding and what requires additional support or tweaks.
5. Collaborate with Cross-Functional Teams: Work closely with Customer Success Managers, Support Teams, and Product Development to ensure a cohesive customer experience. Easily associate with other teams to yield the best results.
6. Measure and Analyze Onboarding Metrics: I was speaking with a colleague the other day and she emphasized the importance of tracking each onboarding experience. I agree. A single question like "How Satisfied Are You With the Onboarding Session?" really goes a long way to make you better at the job. Again, track key performance indicators (KPIs) like customer satisfaction, time-to-value, and adoption rates to refine your onboarding process and gather feedback.
7. Have a Personal Account: As a SaaS Onboarding Specialist, how exactly do you understand the nooks and crannies of the Applications without having a personal account, huh? Tho not popularized opinion, I do believe that owning your account on the SaaS is the best hack for improving this skill. It could be a Demo or Live environment, just an interface where you can experience customer pain points and journeys with the SaaS.
Conclusively...
Thanks for taking the time to read this article. Customer Onboarding Specialists, Customer Success Managers, and Product Managers, drive success and also contribute to the growth of their organizations’ products, as well as user adoption when they excel at their roles.
Next time you are on the job, embrace these few steps and continue to seek feedback on how customers and colleagues perceive your sessions. Promise?
Kindly leave a comment.
Having a Good onboarding experience is essential as this set the right path and tone for the customers and goes a long way in the customer’s journey with the brand.