5 Ways To Better Onboard New Customers

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A new customer is a wonderful thing for a business. They represent future income and much more. If your business treats them well from the start with the onboarding process, the reputation of your business as one that values their customers and offers excellent service is something that they will likely tell those close to them about. By using effective and better onboarding strategies for your new customers, you can get the most value from each one.

The Setup Guide Is Your First Contact

All businesses need to communicate to their customers how they go about using their products, offerings or services. This is the setup guide. It’s a quick and easy reference for your customers on how exactly they should go about using your product. It might take the form of a video that you upload to YouTube, it might be a PDF manual if your product is technical or needs detailed instructions, or a simple quick start guide if it’s less complex.

If your customer sets off on their journey with your product or service on the right step, feeling confident, and doesn’t struggle to get going with it, you’re likely to be favored by them for future business. Enabling this ease of start is incredibly important.

The Welcome Email

When your customer first signs up to your newsletter or creates a user account on your website or e-commerce store, always send them a welcome email. The welcome email is a very useful tool with incredibly high click through rates, in excess of 80% according to some studies. This means that the message you choose to put into your welcome email has a great chance of being read and as such should offer real value to your protentional customer.

For this reason, your call to action should be a strong one right off the bat. Consider adding value to this email by including a voucher or discount code if it suits your business type. A free month’s service or an added benefit to the service might also do well.

Follow Up with Your New Customer Soon

We might not all appreciate a cold call when it comes from someone trying to sell you something out of the gate, but there is absolutely room for a follow up when a new customer signs up or shows interest in your product or offer. This might take the form of an email thanking them for their interest and a call to action to contact you should they need further assistance or a phone call to offer them more information or help.

Naturally, the type of contact and the urgency of this contact depends on what it is that you’re selling or providing. If you’re a web hosting company, and you’re asked for a quote on services that don’t result in a sale, a quick call to the user to find out if you can customize an offering for them, or to explain your package options, might prove fruitful. Avoid at all costs if possible, however, a cold sounding sales call.

Personalize Your Communication to Your Customer

The worst thing you can do when interacting with a new customer, particularly one that comes from a digital sign up process, is to send them or interact with them as a generic person. Customizing and creating communication that makes your customers feel valued and not just a number is imperative. The basic level of customization of your communication is to refer to them not only as a person rather than a faceless business but to address them by name and have a sense of what it is they have come to your business for.

Depending on your level of access to data about the customer, your customized communication could be quite comprehensive. If your business is an online store and you can see the product history of the products they most often look at, you might be able to offer them specials on that product type, or more information specific to their needs. Use whatever data you have about your customers to better communicate with them on a personal level.

Milestones and Check-Ins

Particular to websites and online services, one of the best ways to assist a new customer with their onboarding process is to create a step-by-step guide on what they should be doing and what still needs to be done to complete their onboarding. Often, you’ll see this present itself as a percentage of completion with steps on how to complete, each representing a milestone of progress. Guide users through this guide, and check in with them often to ensure they are making progress.

Does your business currently have a solid onboarding strategy for new customers, and if not, why not? Using these onboarding tips as a base for your strategy could mean an effective and fruitful relationship with your new customers.

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