As the digital world rapidly adapts to the new realities we face, businesses are continually looking to optimize efficiencies and improve their customer experiences. One important aspect is the customer’s onboarding process. We can automate what we refer to as “customer onboarding”, which ultimately simplifies the onboarding processes while welcoming and educating new users about using your product or service, from day one. In the following article, we will discuss how you can improve your customer onboarding automation processes with Indite, onboarding software designed to keep the onboarding process simple, yet effective. 

Understanding Customer Onboarding Automation

Customer onboarding automation is precisely what it says: it uses technology to facilitate the onboarding process for new users in an automated manner. We implement pre-defined workflows and automated technology to guide customers through the first learning/ practicing phase of the use of your product or service. Customer onboarding software has the power of automatism through new workflows that can automate repetitive tasks, and provide a deliberate onboarding experience for your customers that actively encourages engagement and satisfaction.

Benefits of Automating Customer Onboarding

There are many benefits to automation of onboarding and they can make a major impact on your business: 

1. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction:  An automated onboarding system can deliver information that is timely and relevant, predict customer needs, and give support where needed. Knowing that the onboarding system is /will reduce their friction points, will improve satisfaction.
2. Increased Efficiency: Automating repetitive work (entering data, creating accounts, sending welcome emails, etc.) provides teams with more bandwidth for high-value interactions, which improved productivity.
3. Scalability: An automate onboarding process scales with a growing customer base effortlessly without degrading quality. For businesses with growth ambitions, this flexibility is important.
4. Improved Accuracy: An automated system reduces the risk of human error getting involved. It will ensure that customer data is captured and processed in the right way. It is important to relay trust, and regulatory compliance is not always reliant on human accuracy.

Key Steps to Automate Your Customer Onboarding Processes

If you want to automate your onboarding process successfully, here are a few steps you should take:

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Before jumping into automation, it is essential to clearly identify your goals for onboarding. Successful onboarding will look different for your customers and your business and you should think about what success looks like for you both. Your goals should be S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound). An example of some onboarding goals could be:

• Reducing the time to reach a first success milestone by a new customer.
• Lowering the number of support tickets submitted for assistance with initial setup.
• Improving customer success assessments during onboarding.

Step 2: Map the Customer Onboarding Workflow

In order to simulate the onboarding process effectively, you need to know how your customers onboard. Identify the steps a customer takes from sign-up or purchase to becoming an active user. Examples of touch points could be:

• How they signed up or purchased the service.
• Welcome email(s) or messages.
• First time they logged in and previewed the product.
• Set up or configuration.
• Customer support conversation(s).

Creating a workflow diagram will be a great way to visualize the onboarding process and identify the opportunities for automated onboarding.

Step 3: Identify Automation Opportunities

Once you have identified the customer journey, you will be able to see where in the onboarding you can automate onboarding. You should ask yourself the following questions:

• Are there any repetitive tasks that can be automated?
• Do you need to deliver a custom message based on the user doing something?
• Are you able to gather data to personalize the onboarding experience?
• Would you benefit from tracking onboarding progression for both you and the user?

Step 4: Choose the Right Onboarding Automation Tool

It’s important to choose the right software or tool to automate your onboarding process. Different customer onboarding software or tools can focus on different areas of onboarding, such as email automation, in-app guidance, or a knowledge base.  Indite is the all-in-one automation platform you’re looking for. Apart from that, if you are looking for other tools or automation software, you need to consider the following:

• The cost and your budget for the software.
• What features do they offer and how do they relate to your onboarding process?
• If they integrate with the rest of your technology stack.
• The data security and compliance needs of your organization.

Step 5: Create Automated Workflows

Now that you have onboarding automation software, you should start to think about how to build out your onboarding workflows. Imagine the process you want your users to go through and the automated steps, including data capture, in-app messages, tutorials, and emails. You must also define your triggers for each step to ensure their transition is seamless.

Step 6: Test Your Automation

The last step before rolling out your automated customer onboarding process is to test it thoroughly. Testing it internally with team members acting as customers can expose things that need to be fixed. Address:

• Are the automated triggers functioning? 
• Are missed messages timely and relevant to users?
• Is the information provided at each step useful and accurate? 
• Is the flow as fluid as possible?

Step 7: Measure Performance and Optimize

Now that you have rolled out your onboarding process, you will want to continue to monitor it based on the goals you defined in Step 1. Monitor onboarding metrics such as completion, time to value, and retention rates. Capture customer feedback to identify areas for improvement and adjust accordingly.

Essential Processes to Automate in Customer Onboarding

To maximize the effectiveness of your customer onboarding automation process, consider automating the following key areas:

1. Streamlined Sign-Up Process

Implementing Single Sign-On (SSO) can simplify the sign up process. Users can use their existing credentials from a trusted IDP and will face less friction as they’ll be able to get into your product without lots of work.

2. Automated Welcome Messages

Upon sign up, you should send an automated personalized welcome message. The welcome message will help set the tone for the user experience going forward, and you can use the welcome message to link to helpful content or outline next steps. 

3. In-App Guidance

You can use interactive walkthroughs and tool tips to help users understand key features or actions in your product. Providing in-context help through walkthroughs or tool tips will help users feel more comfortable and better engaged. 

4. Progress Tracking

Automating onboarding checklists can give users a sense of completion by allowing them to track their progress when onboarding. Creating a visual representation of what a user has completed will encourage moving through onboarding.   

5. Self-Service Resources

You should create a resource center in your product with help articles, videos, and a robust FAQ. Self-service resources give users the autonomy to answer their own questions, without relying on direct support. 

6. Feedback Mechanisms

You should build onboarding feedback loops into your onboarding process to hear from users about their onboarding experience. Feedback from users can be essential to improving onboarding and future users’ onboarding process. 

Real-World Examples of Successful Onboarding Automation

Many companies have introduced an automated onboarding process that is significantly improving user activation and customer satisfaction. Below are three great examples:; 

Example 1: Impala

Impala is a software platform that connects nonprofits with grantmakers. Their onboarding process was automated, and included an interactive walkthrough. This resulted in a 100% improvement in user activation rate for users who used the walkthrough versus those who did not. 

Example 2: Sked Social

Sked Social’s onboarding process has a checklist that that is designed to guide the user through essential setup steps. The checklist includes a progress bar, which depicts the user’s progress and encourages them to complete all the necessary actions. 

Example 3: Talana

Talana switched from personal/one-on-one training to an automated onboarding process that incorporated dynamic walkthroughs and in-app communication tools. Talana was able to scale their onboarding, while simultaneously keeping users engaged.

Conclusion

Using Indite to automate your customer onboarding process will significantly enhance the experience for new users and increase efficiency in operation. By following the steps listed and focusing on relevant areas in the process, it is possible to build an onboarding journey that leads to engagement and happiness. As you implement these attractive strategies, keep in mind that you should always look to evaluate and measure performance while trying to build more efficient processes. Harnessing the power of customer onboarding automation process will give your customer a more seamless and effective process and is one that can lay a great foundation for long-lasting relationships with your users.