Introduction

Effectively welcoming new customers and setting onboarding expectations is crucial for establishing a positive customer relationship from the start. By leveraging both manual and automated approaches, you can ensure a smooth and engaging onboarding experience. This article will guide you through comprehensive strategies for welcoming new customers and setting clear onboarding expectations.

Why does this matter?

• Enhances first impressions: A well-structured welcome process sets a positive tone for the customer relationship.

• Reduces churn: Clear onboarding expectations help customers understand the value and reduce early churn.

• Improves efficiency: Automated onboarding processes save time and resources, allowing your team to focus on strategic tasks.

How to get started

Step 1: Define your welcome strategy:

1. Decide between manual and automated approaches, or a combination of both.

2. Identify the key information and resources to include in the welcome emails.

Step 2: Manual welcome emails:

1. Create a pre-built Email Assist template to set onboarding expectations and share resources.

2. Ensure the email is inviting and easy to read, with clear next steps.

3. Involve CS leaders and CSMs to personalize the welcome.

Step 3: Automated welcome emails:

1. Use Journey Orchestrator to automate the sending of welcome emails.

2. Personalize the email content using tokens and ensure it sets clear expectations.

3. Define triggers and segmentation to ensure the right contacts receive the email.

Step 4: Monitor and optimize:

1. Track the performance of your welcome emails and make adjustments as needed.

2. Collect feedback from new customers to continuously improve the onboarding experience.

Gainsight features you'll need

To effectively implement advanced automation in customer lifecycle management, leverage the following Gainsight features:

• Journey Orchestrator: For creating and automating customer journey communications.

• CTAs (Calls to Action): To guide follow-up activities and ensure consistency.

• Email Assist: For building pre-built email templates for manual welcomes.

• Playbooks: To provide structured guidance for managing customer interactions.

What’s next?

With a solid onboarding process in place, the next step is to maintain personalized communication throughout the customer lifecycle. Our next article, "Personalize customer communication across the lifecycle" will cover strategies for ongoing engagement and tailored communication.

Further reading and inspiration

• Blog: Six essential customer onboarding steps

• Pulse Video: Revolutionizing digital onboarding to boost customer value and slash service costs