Onboarding
The onboarding phase stands as a pivotal stage within any customer journey. It serves as the juncture where the promises made during sales begin to materialize. This phase provides a unique opportunity for companies to foster trust with their new customers by delivering on the commitments made during the sales pitch. At this point, customers are typically most engaged with the new product or service they've purchased, willing to invest time and effort into its adoption.
Consequently, ensuring a seamless onboarding process becomes paramount, as it sets the stage for the long-term success of the customer relationship. Salesforce can provide valuable functionality during this critical phase by implementing various strategies.
Facilitating a smooth handoff from Sales to Customer Success is crucial to provide a cohesive experience for the customer. All relevant information gathered by Sales during the purchasing process should seamlessly transition to Customer Success. This eliminates the need for customers to repeat themselves and empowers CS to design a comprehensive onboarding plan based on a complete understanding of the customer's needs and expectations.
To facilitate this handoff, Sales should record essential details before closing a sales opportunity, such as:
While Customer Success may delve deeper into these aspects during the onboarding phase, having this fundamental information readily available at the outset significantly aids in establishing a solid foundation for future interactions. To make the data points required before closing an opportunity, validation rules and field dependencies can be set up.
Customer Success should remain informed about potential customers likely to make a purchase soon. Reports highlighting imminent sales deals can facilitate collaborative discussions between sales and CS. Additionally, automated notifications via email or Slack can alert CS about prospective clients on the verge of signing up. This proactive approach enables CS to effectively plan for upcoming onboardings.
Defining the onboarding process outside Salesforce is crucial. Having a clear, documented process ensures that every Customer Success Manager (CSM) comprehends the necessary steps for successful client onboarding. Teams can use Salesforce to streamline this process by:
A combination of both methods can be advantageous, utilizing a pipeline for tracking broader stages and tasks/emails for specific actions within those stages.
As soon as a new sales opportunity is won, automation within Salesforce (usually Flows) should create the onboarding tasks and/or onboarding opportunity/custom object to ensure the CSM has a way to track required steps.
Using reports and dashboards, you can see where each customer is in their onboarding journey to understand any actions that still need to be taken or any onboardings that have stalled. These data points should be reviewed regularly by the CS team to ensure Onboardings stay on track.
Once a new customer is acquired, prompt assignment to a CSM is imperative. Automated assignment mechanisms based on territory rules, team allocation, or round-robin systems can be set up using Salesforce Flows. This automation minimizes delays in reaching out to new customers and ensures streamlined customer ownership tracking.
The CS ownership of the customer should be tracked either in the ‘Owner’ field or a custom field user look-up on the Account object. Any onboarding or renewal action items (tasks, onboarding opportunities, renewal opportunities, etc.). should be assigned to the CSM.
One of Salesforce’s greatest strengths is the amazing automation capabilities that require no coding. Actions performed within Salesforce can trigger tasks, email reminders, Slack alerts, or automated emails to customers. This ensures immediate assignment of tasks to CSMs upon winning a new customer and aids in maintaining organization and efficiency.
Additional productivity features within Salesforce include:
When it comes to customer onboarding, Salesforce emerges as a pivotal ally, facilitating seamless information transfer, proactive pipeline tracking, and efficient automation. Salesforce stands as a cornerstone in forging enduring customer relationships, ensuring a streamlined onboarding experience that fosters trust and sets the stage for long-term success.