Onboarding New Customers for Best CLV / Customer Lifetime Value

The customer experience (CX), especially during the period that immediately follows the first purchase is critical. In fact, it can determine the overall value of the customer to your business and is therefore worthy of a strategically designed customer onboarding process. Customer lifetime value extends through all potential value-generating opportunities from product sales, to even loyalty and evangelism.

'New customer onboarding' is an umbrella term in marketing and sales that describes your 'grooming' through interactions and communications, especially during the all important starting period. In short, customer onboarding prepares the customer for maximizing all his / her potential value as it relates to cross selling, add-ons, upsells and other aspects of the customer experience like loyalty and evangelism. Consequently, for each suitable potential product or service, the sales team's sales pipeline ought to reach the 'customer onboard' milestone.

The onboarding process towards the goal of a first purchase may look like this.

• Signup form
• As for only absolutely necessary information. The less information you request, the better. Simpler forms are better. 
• Social signup buttons are also known for increasing signup.
• Welcome message 
• Keep it as simple and concise as possible. At this point, less (information) is more! 
• Say 'thank you' for their commitment
• Deliver what you promised in a way they can easily grasp, access and use. This may involve providing links and explanations.
• When your product or service requires, inform new customers of the onboarding process (though you may want to use a more product-relevant name than 'onboarding'). This will mentally prepare new customers to become receptive to your correspondence, especially when such customers prefer as minimal contact as possible with sellers.
• Give resources to engage them further. 
• Resources may include quality content. Educational content is an example. However, consider using drip campaign techniques to teach new customers. However, such campaigns should be as customized as possible. For instance, have a collection of items for new customers at a certain onboarding stage and send only those items that specifically relate to the context and behavior of the individual.
• TIPS for the day
• Introduce the next onboarding step(s)
• Make it as personal as possible.
• Show your commitment to supporting them. Example include a postscript note for the end of your emails like 'Need help getting started? Book a meeting with me.' / 'Need help getting started? Check out our help documentation or book a meeting'.  
• First use of products, especially technical products
• Sign posting. When Gmail users open a new account, they are faced with 3 automatic emails from Google along with flashing notifications. All of these interactive elements do several things; thank and welcome users, instruct them how things work and what the steps should or may be. It would be a very daunting new customer experience otherwise. 
• Sign posting that is optional. Further to the Gmail example above, Gmail did not make the tutorial material mandatory. In short, they do not force repeat users to undergo a tutorial. Remembering these small details makes a huge impact on first impressions and like-ability. 
• Optional data imports for convenience. When setting up an account, many users are happy for convenience of not having to manually enter data. Consequently, consider an option for sourcing their data from another established account (like social media, calendars, etc). predictive typing and support for those who are stuck.
• Documentation. Documentation refers to any type of collection of materials that describe specification, handling, functionality and instructions for a technical product or a product under development or use. Give access to documentation for new users.
• Educational material
• Consider using drip email campaigns. Essentially, these are small, single-context messages with a certain conversion goal in mind.
• Checkup call
• Making a call (human-to-human) makes a huge positive impact if done at the right time. Call when the customer has had sufficient exposure to your product to have something to say if he wishes. However, do not give him enough time to defect if he has an unpleasant experience.
• 'marketing swag', ie innovative free gifts like branded t-shirts.hand-written cards and so on. Since they are extrinsically related to the product experience, they are likely to have the effect of what Herzberg called 'hygiene factors', ie the swag will likely glee an already satisfied customer but cannot make a dissatisfied customer satisfied. 

Above is the onboarding process for a first purchase. However, consider that onboarding can be done for different goals. Consider it more broadly as the activities to be done not only for new customers but also the use of a new product, the navigation through new projects, new employees, new employee roles and so on. Onboarding deals with learning something new. Below is an example of onboarding a new product with an existing customer ... with the goal of evangelism. After all, many customers are likely to keep their good impressions to themselves unless motivated to do otherwise. 

• Offer a trial of the new product
• Request one-on-one feedback
• Use the feedback to improve the product. 
• Offer free credit to incentivize further shopping for more feedback on the improved product. Place the review link at the bottom of the offer or ask directly for a review.

CONTENT RELATED TO NEW CUSTOMER ONBOARDING

• Customer experience (CX) planning involves being proactive about onboarding, ie versus taking only a reactive customer service approach (when something goes wrong).
• Customer experience management is largely influenced by the onboarding of your employees. Since onboarding is not only for 'new' customers but also new experiences, consider onboarding your employees (new and existing) to achieve new roles and even the new milestone of onboarding customers.
• Using brand storytelling for evangelism
• Ensure new customers who you wish to become your evangelists share your core values. Well designed core values can be used as yardsticks for determining whether your new recruit is a good fit.