The Importance of onboarding and Implementation: Are They Essential Components?
In the realm of customer service management, two distinct yet complementary phases play a crucial role in ensuring a successful client relationship: client onboarding and client implementation.
Onboarding, the broader post-sale customer journey, is focused on welcoming, educating, and ensuring clients achieve value [1][3]. This phase encompasses a variety of activities, including preboarding tasks such as welcoming the client, setting expectations, providing initial training, and supporting their transition into regular use of the product or service [1][3]. The ultimate goal of onboarding is to build lasting partnerships and boost client experience by ensuring clients feel supported from the beginning [2].
On the other hand, implementation is a more focused process, dealing with operational steps such as configuring the software, integrating systems, migrating data, and officially launching the client’s use of the product [1]. This stage runs from sales completion to go-live, and its primary objective is to create the functional environment needed for the product to work effectively [1].
Both onboarding and implementation are essential for a successful client relationship. Onboarding establishes trust, confidence, and a smooth transition into using the service, reducing early churn, while implementation ensures the technical activation and customization needed for the client to start benefiting from the product [1][3]. Neglecting onboarding can lead to poor client experience and churn, even if implementation is technically correct, while poor implementation can cause delays and frustration that undermine the onboarding efforts [1][3].
A mature and flexible software platform is beneficial for both onboarding and implementation processes. Such a platform should be able to monitor metrics, generate insights, and provide usable data to improve onboarding and implementation processes [1]. A good example of such a tool is FuseBase, a SaaS tool that offers client portals, white-label features, and file storage features to streamline implementation deals [4].
Understanding a client's needs is crucial for tailoring the onboarding and implementation process. Customization features can be advantageous for building strong relationships during onboarding [5]. Client implementation usually involves adjusting settings, testing integration into other products or services, training on more specialized features, and tailoring front-facing aspects to align with the client's branding [1][3].
Client onboarding typically involves welcome emails, product demonstrations, tailored support, and access to guides, ebooks, and other useful resources [1][3]. Client onboarding is the process of establishing a relationship with a new client and managing their setup to make them self-sufficient users [1][3].
In conclusion, both onboarding and implementation are necessary for a successful client relationship and full integration of a product or service into a client's workflow. By aligning technical setup with client education and support, these phases reduce confusion, build confidence, and foster long-term client loyalty in customer service management [2][5].
- To ensure a smooth client onboarding process, a client portal could be used to provide access to guides, ebooks, and other resources.
- With the client onboarding phase focused on providing initial training, e-signatures might be used to sign mutual action plans that outline the client's responsibilities during the onboarding process.
- As technology plays a significant role in both onboarding and implementation, analytics can be utilized to monitor metrics and generate insights, improving these processes and the overall client experience.
- The business value of a product or service is realized during client implementation, which involves operational steps such as configuring the software, integrating systems, and migrating data – all aspects that can benefit from technology's assistance, including e-signatures and client portals.
