A Smooth Onboarding Experience

Mar 01, 2016

3 Tips for Your Customer Onboarding Process

Presentations have been delivered, solutions created, pricing negotiated and signatures collected. Your company has made a significant investment to earn the customer’s Managed IT Services business. Now comes the fun… the technical team must deliver the promised solution(s) without issues, within budget and on time.

A smooth onboarding matters because it is a critical time to develop a solid relationship with your new customer. Promises of increased performance have been made and the client’s expectations are high. Many times the customer’s excitement to adopt Managed IT Services is tempered with fear and confusion about the onboarding process. This is your opportunity to shine and build the customer’s confidence.

It’s a fact, no onboarding project is painless. But here are three things to help you develop an efficient and effective onboarding process:

1. Create an Overall Plan.
   • Resist the temptation to just jump in and start the project. Good planning involves reviewing the promised deliverable, identifying tasks, assigning responsibilities, anticipating setbacks and setting deadlines.
2. Set Proper Expectations.
   • Educating and sharing the onboarding plan is critical so your customer can be prepared for any potential issues and disruptions. This includes highlighting times when the network or other services might be impacted to help clients prepare for any possible interruption.
3. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.
   • Sending reminders, updates and service alerts are important. But don’t forget to also document your communications as well. Having a record of conversations, decisions and changes will help keep project resources coordinated and accountable. Good communications will highlight the plan, update statuses, share expectations, identify issues and celebrates successes.

These tips may seem simple or even obvious, but under performing on any one of these items can lead to a poor customer experience. Don’t let your first step be backwards!

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