Best Practices for Improving B2B Customer Experience in Onboarding

There are essentially two kinds of SaaS companies: those that cater to end-user customers (B2C) and those that cater to businesses as their end-user (B2B). In the case of the latter, chances are your software is part of a larger contract, and your clients could be using it for many years to come—many companies engage with SaaS companies because they need to outsource a portion of their business that is too expensive, resource-heavy, or specialized in providing effectively in-house.

While a sales process gives them an idea of how the product could meet their needs, onboarding is their first real engagement and interaction with the people and products at your company. If your onboarding process is difficult, time-consuming, or just plain non-existent, here are some best practices to take it to the next level.

Start with Structure

One of the most important things you can do is have a structured and consistent onboarding process for everyone. Even small startups (or perhaps especially if you’re small and have limited resources) with just a one- or two-person team in your onboarding department should have a streamlined and consistent onboarding. That begins with your onboarding software, which should provide templates to reduce manual work that can be customized to meet each client’s specific needs.

Map Your Successful Customer Journey

You should be aware of the things that must happen for your customers to achieve success with your product, including a deep understanding of the “time-to-value” (TTV), or the average time it takes for someone to get to the “aha” moment when they realize how much your software can help. Map out that journey with your team and then build an onboarding process around the customer’s journey to get them to that TTV as quickly as possible.

Use Multiple Tools and Learning Styles

Everyone learns a little differently, which is why it’s important to cater your knowledge base training and materials to a variety of learning styles, including:

• Written materials (blog posts, help center articles)
• Visual materials (how-to videos, webinars)
• Hands-on experiences (in-person training or DIY online tutorials)
• Live help center (phone, email, or chat)

Keep Customers Informed

Too often, the onboarding process—especially a B2B one that is long or involved—can seem like a black hole to the customers. They get passed from sales to onboarding, have a kickoff meeting, and then don’t hear anything for weeks or months. Keeping customers informed along the way by showing them exactly what’s happening, how far into the process you are, and what the next steps are allow them to feel confident in your onboarding team’s work. A platform like GUIDEcx also allows you to assign certain tasks to the clients so they don’t hold up the process and get frustrated when they perceive nothing is happening.