Key Takeaways From Our Customer Onboarding Lab

  Ross Palley

Earlier in August, we invited three B2B tech startups in the Venture Lane community to participate in our Customer Onboarding Lab. Participants worked directly with a Mentor Committee of seasoned customer success leaders from Boston's startup ecosystem to optimize their customer onboarding processes for speed, product adoption, and retention.

On the Committee, we had Laurie Long (Chief Customer Office at Allego), Jessica Meschino (VP of Customer Success at Workable), and Shonak Patel (Founder & Customer Experience Leader). Check out their key takeaways below!

RELATED: How To Cut Customer Onboarding Time In Half

How to pick the right success metrics for implementation...

• Use pre-sale questionnaires. Especially for larger accounts who have ROI clearly defined, ask what value they anticipate gaining from the product before contracts are signed.
• Bring it up in the kick-off call, especially for smaller accounts who are less likely to have ROI clearly defined. They'll need assistance defining success metrics.
• Own the definition of success. After wrapping up discovery, define success metrics internally and then share with the customer. This will help you ensure that goals are achievable.

How to motivate customers to finish their to-do's...

• Paint the picture of success and failure. Don't just tell the customer what success will look like. Explain the ramifications of a failed implementation to drive urgency around to-do's.
• Don't let training materials live outside the product. Remove friction by baking training materials into the product, so the customer is logged in and ready to roll.
• Offer to execute on the customer's behalf. If the unit economics support it, offer to execute implementation work on the customer's behalf as an additional paid service or a feature of a higher priced tier.

How to make the implementation go faster...

• Set up a shared Slack channel with the customer, just for the duration of the implementation. Keep lines of communication open and immediate throughout.
• Don't wait until the next status call to check in. If you can see that a customer has not completed one of their to-do's, ping them about it.
• Start with a couple quick wins. Close out low hanging fruit at the start of the implementation that deliver immediate value to the customer. This will motivate them to power through longer milestones thereafter.

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