Introduction
Effective onboarding sets the foundation for long-term customer success. Tracking onboarding health through customized health scores ensures you can monitor early adoption, identify risks, and provide timely interventions to keep customers on track. This article will guide you through building and tracking onboarding-specific health scores using Gainsight’s tools.
Step 1: Define Key Onboarding Metrics
Start by identifying the key metrics that indicate whether a customer is progressing successfully through the onboarding process:
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Activation: Track which features or licenses have been activated using Scorecards.
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Training Completion: Measure engagement with onboarding resources, such as whether the customer has completed critical training milestones via Product Analytics.
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Early Adoption: Use Adoption Explorer to monitor feature usage and ensure customers are adopting core functionalities early in the process.
By tracking these metrics, you can ensure that customers are progressing through onboarding and engaging with your product in the right ways.
Step 2: Set Up Onboarding-Specific Health Scores
Create health scores specifically tailored to track the customer’s journey during onboarding:
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Scorecards: Set up Scorecards for onboarding that focus on early adoption, activation, and training completion. Assign higher weights to metrics like Activation since it's a key indicator of onboarding success.
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Automation with Rules Engine: Automate health score updates using the Rules Engine based on onboarding activity, such as when a customer completes their first milestone or engages with a feature for the first time.
Tailoring these scores helps you track customers' progress through onboarding and provides early signals for intervention.
Step 3: Trigger Playbooks for Onboarding Risks
If a customer’s onboarding health score drops below a certain threshold, trigger Playbooks to engage with them and prevent churn during this critical phase:
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Deploy Playbooks: Use Playbooks specifically designed for onboarding, outlining the steps CSMs should take when a customer shows signs of struggling, such as offering additional training or personalized guidance.
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Automate Playbooks with CTAs: Automatically trigger CTAs based on low health scores during onboarding, ensuring quick response to customers who may need extra attention.
This ensures you engage proactively with customers who need help, guiding them toward a successful onboarding experience.
Step 4: Monitor Onboarding Health and Adjust as Needed
Regularly review onboarding health scores to ensure they are accurately predicting customer success and adjust the metrics or weights as necessary:
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Monitor Trends: Use Dashboards to track onboarding health trends across your customer base, identifying which customers are succeeding and which may need intervention.
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Refine Based on Outcomes: Continuously refine your onboarding health scores based on outcomes. For example, if customers with low activation rates consistently churn, adjust the score weightings to make Activation a higher-priority metric.
Refining your scores ensures that they continue to predict onboarding success effectively, allowing your team to intervene early and keep customers on track.
Next Steps for Success
After setting up onboarding health scores:
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Monitor Onboarding Progress: Use dashboards to monitor customer health during onboarding and identify customers at risk early.
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Deploy Playbooks: Ensure Playbooks and CTAs are set up to automate responses to low onboarding health scores, ensuring your team responds promptly.
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