Author: Megha Poojari
There is no denying that 2021 has been the year of the enterprise SaaS industry. With more and more businesses looking for solutions to solve their problems, there has been no dearth of opportunities for the SaaS industry to grow and scale.
But is getting customers for your business enough for you to survive the competition?
Let us tell you, it’s not.
For any successful business, it is imperative that you focus on two important things:
- Quality of the product offerings
- Customer success
The quality of product offerings is an ongoing process that is majorly a part of the product roadmap.
But customer success and retention are the important elements of enterprise SaaS businesses. Companies are now focusing on providing excellent customer service and satisfaction to retain their existing customers.
Many B2B SaaS reports on customer churn statistics have shown that a customer’s decision to renew your services is taken during the onboarding process itself unless they get churned because of external factors.
Now, it becomes imperative for SaaS enterprises like yours to adopt a customer-centric framework for onboarding, which not only helps in the smooth onboarding of the client but also ensures that this onboarding leads to retention for your business.
What is customer onboarding?
HubSpot defines customer onboarding as
“The nurturing process that gets new users and customers acquainted and comfortable with your product.”
In simple terms, customer onboarding involves all the tasks and activities done to get the customer acquainted with your product.
It is the first time the customer will do their business with you and will have a tangible brush-off with your product.
This is the crucial stage in which the customer establishes their relationship with your product and brand, and thus it has to be one of the smoothest processes in the enterprise SaaS world.
However, given the importance of this step, not much attention has been paid to making the onboarding process a cakewalk.
Several enterprise SaaS companies have now started to realize the importance of customer onboarding and how it helps them reduce their churn rate.
Why Is Customer Onboarding Important?
It’s a known fact that first impressions always have a lasting impression. The same applies to the customer onboarding process as well.
Let’s look at some reasons why customer onboarding is important for any enterprise SaaS organization.
It makes the customer’s life easy.
Your customers need an onboarding process to understand the intricacies of the product you offer.
They have a problem, and your product is supposed to be a solution to it, not an added problem.
Right onboarding helps the customer understand the product features and processes well and also helps in building trust with your brand. It also sets the tone for your overall relationship with your customers.
Increase in referrals by your customer
If your customers like your product, it is likely that they will act as word-of-mouth marketing for it.
Referrals play a huge role in enterprise SaaS businesses. Hence, with the tone set with your existing customers, make sure that your organization is attracting more sales through your existing customers.
Higher Brand Recall with your customers
Once the initial onboarding process becomes successful with your customers, there’s a high chance they’ll come back to you when they are scaling.
With a positive onboarding experience, your customers get to know you well and trust you enough to stay with you for a long time, thus increasing your customer lifetime value and ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue).
Key Takeaways
- Customer onboarding is as good as creating the right first impression with your customers.
- With a majority of SaaS companies focusing their efforts towards customer success, it is imperative that customer onboarding is given utmost importance.
- A customer-centric onboarding experience leads to continued business growth and lower churn.
With a shift in enterprise business models from on-premise to a subscription-based model, the focus is now on customer-centricity. Thus, customer onboarding has become a key factor in measuring the success of enterprise SaaS businesses.
Looking for a one-stop solution for your customer onboarding and implementation needs? Visit our website & book a free demo.
