Want to Reduce Client Onboarding TTV by 30%? Here’s How

So what is TTV? TTV stands for time-to-value. Think about the last time you put together a piece of furniture or a complicated toy for your kids. Was it a good experience or a bad one? Did you have to provide your own tools? Did it take more time than you expected or less? How many swear words did you say? (We won’t tell.)

Chances are, if you had a set of clear instructions and all the tools you needed, you got the job done without too much trouble—or cursing. And the faster you can finish a job like that, the sooner you can start enjoying the fruits of your labor, which makes any hiccups you experience more than worth it.

If the instructions were unclear, the process was too hard to finish, or you got to the end and didn’t have what you expected, then you probably felt like your investment—and your time—were wasted.

The new client onboarding and implementation process is like building a piece of furniture. Bad processes can slow down the onboarding experience and force customers to wait longer for what they want. That leaves customers frustrated and looking to take their business elsewhere.

But if you have the right tools and processes, you can reduce your onboarding time and get your customers using your product or service faster. This is reducing the TTV for your customers, and we’re proud to say that we’re pretty good at it. We’ve helped customers reduce TTV by an average of 30%.

So what’s the secret to reducing TTV by 30%? Keep reading to find out.

1.   Understand Why Customers Bought Your Product and What Success Looks Like to Them

Start any new customer onboarding process by getting as much information as you can about how the customer got to you and what excited them the most about your product or service. Sales team members can be a significant source for this kind of information.

You should also have a conversation with your customer early on about what they are expecting from the onboarding process and what a successful implementation looks like to them.

Clients might not articulate their definition of success right away, so ask targeted questions and come back to the conversation as many times as it takes to get the information you need.

Don’t forget that everything else you do as part of a new client onboarding won’t work—and won’t matter—if you don’t set expectations and understand what success looks like to your customer.

2.   Create a Guide for the Onboarding Process

Once you know where your customer wants to go, make sure they understand how you are going to get them there. Don’t assume that the customer understands what you’ll be working on or how the process will unfold.

An overview of what the onboarding process looks like and how it works will set the foundation for a strong and trusting working relationship between you and your new client.

You can provide this information in whatever format makes the most sense. A short training video, a kickoff call, or a written step-by-step guide are all good ways to outline what each step of the onboarding process will look like.

Make sure to invite all the right people so no one gets left out!

3.   Make Sure All the Right People Are at the Table

Onboarding projects that include five or more people (from your company or your customer’s) finish on time 91% of the time. When that number of participants goes down, so do your chances of meeting your onboarding deadlines.

Without all the right stakeholders included on your onboarding project, you could miss key information and expertise. That can create confusion and slow you down while you try to find the details you are missing.

Engaging those invited is especially important. You have all the right people, but how do you keep them engaged? It’s all about providing transparency and visibility.

4.   Provide Visibility from Start to Finish

Helping your clients understand what the onboarding process looks like will improve their experience. And giving customers visibility into what work is being done will go a long way towards reducing any doubts or anxiety they have about the onboarding process.

You customers shouldn’t have to spend their time calling you to see where their project stands. They should be able to see it for themselves. Your customers should be able to access information about their project whenever and however they want—through the website, via email, or on a mobile app. If there’s more visibility, it’s easier to identify and resolve any delays or bottlenecks.

5.   Automate Your Manual Processes

For complex onboarding projects with lots of steps, just sending task reminder emails could take up your entire day. We suggest finding a client onboarding solution that automates all your communication. This will make it so one has to wait around for you to send information and you don’t have to take the time to do it.

And what happens when you aren’t spending all your time managing manual processes? You get to spend more time creating strong relationships with your customer and internal team. This is one of the best ways you can reduce TTV.

6.   Stay in Touch

Your clients should never have to make a phone call or send an email to check on the status of their project. Not only does it take time and slow your project down, it also degrades the customer experience and leaves everyone frustrated.

Make sure you are checking in regularly to see how things are going from your client’s perspective. Are they getting what they expected? Is there something that isn’t working the way they had hoped? Has their definition of success changed? These answers can help perfect how you outline your process and reduce the overall TTV.

7.   Examine the Data

Don’t just finish an implementation, move on, and forget about it. Note what went well and what could have gone better. Look at your implementations and identify common bottlenecks and mistakes that you might be repeating.

If you have the tools to do so, analyze project trends—for example, whether projects complete on time and how many tasks were late. Learning from your past implementations can help you optimize the customer experience by making your next implementations even faster and better.

Bad onboarding and implementation processes are the number one reason customers don’t renew SaaS subscriptions. With the right processes, you can make a good first impression, reduce TTV, and earn clients for life.