state of january 2019 customer onboarding 2019 · customer satisfaction tops the list of benefits...
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www.regalix.com
January 2019
State of Customer Onboarding 2019
2
Introduction
When customers don’t understand the full functionality of your product and are unable to derive enough value from it, they tend to churn. Customer onboarding can help resolve this problem.
Not only does customer onboarding help the customer adapt to your product to meet their requirement, but it also sets the tone for the relationship that you will have with the customer in the future. Given this, it’s easy to understand why good customer onboarding practices are necessary for any business.
With the rise of the subscription economy and more and more businesses turning to SaaS as a delivery model, managing churn and garnering customer satisfaction are pivotal to the growth and sustainability of a business. Customer onboarding is an important step in ensuring this. In this study, we surveyed senior executives responsible for customer onboarding in mid- to large-sized companies to understand the practices followed by them and the challenges faced by them in implementing those practices.
Read on to know what we found.
3State of Customer Onboarding 2019
Industry break up
Revenue break up
Level break up
Employee break up
Customer size break up
Computer Software
Information Technology and Services
Internet
Others
Marketing and Advertising
Telecommunication
Hospital & Health Care
55%
19%
9%
7%
6%
2%
2%
> $1B
$500M - 1B
$250 - 500M
$100 - 250M
$50 - 100M
< $50M
> 10,000
5,001-10,000
1,001-5,000
501-1,000
201-500
< 200
C-Suite
Vice Presidents
Directors
Managers
22%
3%
3%
6%
27%
9%
20%
1%
12%
12%
16%
29%
21%
34%
9%
13%
23%
4%
13%
6%
59%
< 50
50-500
501-1000
1001-5000
5000 >
Profile of respondents
4
Key insights from the study
• Customer satisfaction (89%) is the number one benefit that organizations gain out of customer onboarding.
• 81% of respondents who have mentioned ‘churn reduction’ as their top benefit have a defined and repeatable customer onboarding process.
• Lack of understanding customer needs (41%) is one of the key challenges faced by marketers in managing their customer onboarding activities.
• Training docs (73%) and live demonstrations (70%) are the top two content assets that organizations use in customer onboarding.
• The average duration that organizations spend on their customer onboarding activities ranges from 3 to 8 weeks.
• 71% of the organizations who have plans to invest in improving their customer onboarding services plan to do so in the area of technology.
5State of Customer Onboarding 2019
Majority of organizations have a customer onboarding team. 75% of the organizations surveyed said they had a dedicated customer onboarding team. The remaining 25% did not have one. (Figure 1)
Customer onboarding done right is conducive to a long and profitable relationship with customers. Organizations that currently do not have a dedicated onboarding team are perhaps depending on different sets of people at different times to deliver onboarding services. This inevitably results in inconsistency in the quality of onboarding, which is undesirable for both the customer and the business alike. Such organizations should jump in with both feet and provision a dedicated customer onboarding team that can carry out the onboarding process more consistently and reliably.
Does your organization have a customer onboarding team?
Figure 1
Yes 75%
No 25%
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Most organizations manage customer onboarding using in-house resources.As much as 90% of the organizations we surveyed said they managed customer onboarding activities using in-house resources. Another 8% said they used a combination of in-house and outsourced resources for the same. (Figure 2)
How is the customer onboarding activity managed in your organization?
Figure 2
90%By in-house resources
8%Combination of in-house and outsourced resource 2%
By outsourced resources
7State of Customer Onboarding 2019
Majority of respondents say they have a defined, repeatable process for customer onboarding.78% of respondents said they had a defined, repeatable process for customer onboarding. The remaining 22% did not have one. (Figure 3)
The fact that a large majority of organizations have defined processes in place indicates that they are aware of the importance of consistency in delivering customer onboarding. As for the rest, one can only assume onboarding is either conducted infrequently, or it requires customization at an individual level; if not, it would be wise for them to take a closer look at what is stopping them from instituting a defined process in delivering customer onboarding.
Do you have a defined, repeatable process for customer onboarding?
No 22%
Figure 3
Yes 78%
8
Almost half the organizations surveyed say they spend between 3 and 8 weeks onboarding customers.When asked how long they spent onboarding each customer, responses varied from less than 2 weeks (40%) to between 3 and 8 weeks (49%) and above 8 weeks (11%). (Figure 4)
On average, how long do you spend onboarding each customer?
Figure 4
49%3 and 8 Weeks
40%2 weeks or less
11%More than 8 weeks
9State of Customer Onboarding 2019
Charging for customer onboarding is not the norm.56% of respondents said they never charged for customer onboarding services, while 31% said they sometimes did. 13% of respondents said they always charged for customer onboarding services. (Figure 5)
While organizations, in principle, may not want to charge their customers for onboarding, the cost implications, especially in the case of high- and medium-touch customers, might warrant such a move. With improvements in AI, automation and self-service technologies, the compulsion to charge customers for onboarding would perhaps recede.
Do you charge for customer onboarding services?
Figure 5
31%Sometimes
13%Always
56%Never
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Training docs (73%) and live demos (71%) top the list of content assets that organizations use for onboarding their customers.Explainer videos (62%) and onboarding playbooks (57%) were some of the other assets that were widely used. (Figure 6)
With the wide array of content assets that is available to the marketer, organizations can choose to deliver content in a form that suits the different learning styles of their customers.
Which types of content assets do you use for your customer onboarding?
Figure 6
Onboarding playbooks
Feature guides
Case studies
Simulations
Other
Explainer videos
Training docs
Recorded demos
Live demonstrations
57%
38%
28%
12%
3%
62%
73%
53%
70%
11State of Customer Onboarding 2019
Lack of alignment between functional areas (44%), lack of resources (42%) and lack of understanding customer needs (41%) are the top three challenges faced by marketers in managing their customer onboarding activities. Lack of understanding customer needs could well be the outcome of a lack of alignment between functional areas within an organization. For effectively onboarding customers, it is important that we understand their needs and the purpose for which they intend to use our product, so that we may customize the onboarding process in such a way that it meets each customer’s individual needs. For this, it is imperative that all stakeholders including sales, marketing and customer success teams share information with the onboarding team in real time.
Lack of resources could perhaps be addressed by outsourcing all or part of the onboarding process to external agencies – something that only 10% of organizations are currently doing.
As partner networks grow in size and diversity, investing in a PRM platform would be beneficial. Training, onboarding and updating partners, which are seen as key challenges in the partner management process, can be automated and managed more efficiently with the use of PRM tools. (Figure 7)
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What are the top 3 challenges that you face in managing your customer onboarding activities?
Figure 7
Technical/system issues (availability, accessibility, user experience, etc.)
Lack of information/data
Other
None of the above
Lack of understanding of customer needs
Lack of alignment between functional areas
Lack of communication
Lack of resources (staff)
39%
19%
10%
7%
41%
44%
36%
42%
13State of Customer Onboarding 2019
Customer satisfaction tops the list of benefits that marketers gain from their customer onboarding activities.89% of respondents said customer satisfaction is the top benefit they got out of their customer onboarding activities.
Product adoption (68%) and customer engagement (68%) came in next. (Figure 8)
What are the top benefits you get out of your customer onboarding activities?
Churn reduction
Customer advocacy
Other
Customer engagement
Customer satisfaction
Upsell/cross-sell
Product adoption
60%
42%
2%
68%
89%
45%
68%
Figure 8
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While the maximum number of respondents say they use an in-house platform for facilitating customer onboarding, JIRA turns out to be the most popular tool for managing it.36% of respondents said they used an in-house platform for facilitating customer onboarding. Of the tools mentioned, Intercom (9%) and WalkMe (4%) topped the list. (Figure 9-A) Besides JIRA (24%), Smartsheet (13%) and Asana (9%) were the other popular tools used for managing customer onboarding. (Figure 9-B)
The low level of penetration of third-party tools and the high prevalence of in-house solutions in facilitating customer onboarding perhaps suggests that the solutions currently on offer aren’t adequately addressing the requirements of the market, thus giving businesses little reason to adopt them. This presents a good opportunity for new entrants or current solution providers to update their offerings to fill in the gap in the market.
What tool do you use for facilitating your customer onboarding?
Figure 9-A
Intercom
Other
None of the above
WalkMe
UserIQ
Userlane
In-house platform
9%
18%
30%
4%
2%
1%
36%
15State of Customer Onboarding 2019
Figure 9-B
What tool do you use to manage your customer onboarding process?
Smartsheet
Taskfeed
Wrike
TeamGantt
Other
JIRA
Asana
None of the above
13%
4%
4%
3%
19%
24%
9%
24%
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Recommendations
• Align the customer onboarding team with other customer-facing teams in the organization:
For effectively onboarding customers, it is important that the onboarding team has access to all the necessary information about them. This is possible only if the team is aligned with the other customer-facing teams in the organization such as the sales, marketing and customer success teams.
Lack of alignment between functional areas (44%) and lack of understanding customer needs (41%) were two of the top three challenges faced by marketers in managing their customer onboarding activities. By aligning the teams and ensuring there is seamless information sharing between them, these challenges can be adequately addressed. Understanding the customer would help you to personalize the onboarding experience and deliver it in a manner that suits the customer’s learning style, thus making the whole process more effective and efficient.
• Consider outsourcing all or part of the customer onboarding process:
While 90% of marketers in the study acknowledged that they managed the onboarding process using only in-house resources, as high as 42% of them also mentioned lack of resources as a major challenge faced in managing their customer onboarding activities.
Given this scenario, we believe organizations should consider the viability of outsourcing all or part of their onboarding process to external agencies - a practice that only 10% of organizations are currently following. This could go a long way in helping organizations avoid making compromises and maintain a high level of quality and consistency in their deliveries at the customer onboarding stage at all times.
17State of Customer Onboarding 2019
• Invest in emerging technologies:
89% of marketers in the study mentioned customer satisfaction as the top benefit they got out of their onboarding activities. That’s no mean feat. It came as a surprise to us, then, that only 52% had plans to invest in improving their customer onboarding services. Given the pace at which technologies are changing in today’s business environment, we feel it is imperative that organizations continually invest in evaluating and adapting newer technologies to improve their delivery to stay competitive in the marketplace. Customer onboarding is no exception.
Whether it’s providing omnichannel support, enabling process optimization or adapting advanced analytics, there are many emerging areas that organizations need to invest both time and resources into, to ensure that as their products and customers evolve, so does their onboarding process.
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Research contributors
Arunh Krishnan
Shubharthi Ghosh
Survey operations
Aishani Majumdar
Creative services
Priyokumar Singh Naorem
About the Analysts
Credits
Nimish Vohra SVP, Principal Analyst
Nimish works with CMOs and senior marketing professionals. His research focuses on customer success management, predictive analytics, mobile enablement and other emerging trends that help customers leverage technology as an enabler of marketing and business outcomes.
Tabish Khan VP, Solutions
Tabish is a subject matter expert in the domain of customer success. He works with senior executives from various teams such as customer onboarding, customer satisfaction and customer engagement. His research focuses on identifying, creating, driving and delivering innovative strategies focused on revenue maximization for clients.
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About Regalix ResearchRegalix Research supports organizations across the globe augment their marketing, customer satisfaction and retention initiatives through timely insights. Headquartered in Mountain View, the heart of the Silicon Valley, the organization boasts of an extensive network of top executives and practitioners across the globe who help identify and answer the ‘when’ and ‘why’ of disruptive trends.
About RegalixRegalix is a Customer Acquisition and Customer Success company that re-imagines digital experiences across hi-tech, ad-tech, and retail domains. The company has partnered with some of the largest global B2B organizations in their efforts at customer acquisition, growth and retention. Regalix works with businesses, supporting their customers through the entire journey, to deliver reliable products and services in today’s subscription-based economy.
Regalix has a long history of creating award-winning ventures with enterprises through co-innovation and idea-driven frameworks that inspire companies to think different. Headquartered in the Silicon Valley—Mountain View, California—Regalix has offices in Europe and Asia.