It always excites me when I receive a welcome email from the Founder/CEO of a company whose services I’ve signed up to. Many apps provide welcome emails to new users, but it can be adapted in any type of business, not apps alone.

It is such an effective way to excite customers and provide next steps. That way, you start to lead customers through a seamless customer journey they will equally be excited to look forward to.

Now that you’ve made your customers feel at home, it is time to get them familiar with your services. This is where introductions and inductions make a huge difference. Consider mini tours, scheduled email introductions and other forms of customer engagement to help them become familiar with your platform or services. Start with a high level overview, then find opportunities later for in-depth tutorials and guidance.

Whether you’ve got an app, a software or a non-tech service, wizards and templates are a great way of speeding up setup. An accountant can use a budget template to help a new client create their initial budget. Apps can have presets that automatically configure systems and preferences for new users. Think of ways to speed up the initial setup with reusable wizards and templates so the customer’s setup tasks are fewer and faster.

Bombarding a new customer with all information on day 1 is a recipe for disaster. You will end up overwhelming them, they would forget most of what you said, and they will still contact you for support.

A better way is to break up and pace out your content and deliver them to new customers using two types of triggers.

1. User triggers - content released to a user when they take an action. Eg. Display an on-screen tip to a customer visiting a specific page for the first time
2. Time triggers - eg. Tutorial content sent to new users over the first 7 days of subscribing

Customers can’t be bothered with reading pages of text especially when videos can relay the message easier and better. This is why instructional videos are more powerful than text-based user guides.

Consider creating an archive of short videos and make them available to customers for reference. Eg. An accountant can create a short video clip showing a customer how to create a budget.

If all the previously mentioned activities are setup properly, you should find fewer customers needing your support during onboarding.

That said, let customers know how to reach you for assistance as this gives them the additional confidence, knowing that help is not far away.

Many businesses struggle to keep up with customer enquiries, complaints, feedback and special requests. It is impossible to respond and resolve issues within specific timescales and urgency if you rely on emails only.

This is why a CRM like MyCo is great, for capturing customers, automating customer communication and setting up a Service Center to capture customer requests. It also has a 14 day free trial you may want to check out.

And don’t assume it’s all working seamlessly once you launch your new customer onboarding process. Pay attention to customer behaviour, get customer feedback and continuously find ways to improve the process.

Why is the customer onboarding process so important? Very simple - to attract, convert and retain more paying customers. It will help you increase your customer lifetime value (CLV) so you can keep delivering paid services to your customers consistently and get paid continuously. This is how businesses win and retain their deserved marketshare.