{"id":251661,"date":"2021-06-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/blog\/eight-essential-customer-onboarding-practices\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:13:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:13:45","slug":"eight-essential-customer-onboarding-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/blog\/eight-essential-customer-onboarding-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Essential Customer Onboarding Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"et_pb_row_inner et_pb_row_inner_0\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_column et_pb_column_4_4 et_pb_column_inner et_pb_column_inner_0 et-last-child\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_module et_pb_text et_pb_text_0 et_pb_text_align_left et_pb_bg_layout_light\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_text_inner\">\n<p class=\"p1 p-lead\">If customers cannot use your product, then they may learn that they can do without it. Worse, they may find a competing product that they CAN use successfully. Both of these outcomes pose risks to Customer Success and recurring revenue\u2014risks that effective customer onboarding practices can avert.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"et_pb_row_inner et_pb_row_inner_1\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_column et_pb_column_4_4 et_pb_column_inner et_pb_column_inner_1 et-last-child\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_module et_pb_text et_pb_text_1 et_pb_text_align_left et_pb_bg_layout_light\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_text_inner\">\n<p class=\"p1\">A successful customer onboarding process is the vital first stage of any productive, long-term customer relationships. It demonstrates your company\u2019s commitment to setting up customers to use and adopt their new product as needed to achieve their desired outcomes \u2014 of setting them up for Success!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u00a0Customer onboarding can occur via automated or guided processes. In either case, the core goals are:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\">helping customers engage with your products by eliminating barriers to use<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">introducing them to necessary self-help, assisted support, and training resources that can help assure continued Customer Success<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">To accelerate customer time-to-value, sustain long-term relationships, and advance recurring revenue goals, implement these eight proven customer onboarding practices:<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>Communicate with all new customers. Use automated (e-mail, recorded videos) and guided (phone, video conference, on-site, in-program) methods to initiate contact.<\/li>\n<li>For customers with named or assigned account resources (TAMs, CSMs, etc.), introduce the customer to the account team and share contact information.<\/li>\n<li>Assess the customer\u2019s ability to access and apply products.<\/li>\n<li>Identify and remove barriers that may inhibit initial use of the product with setup assistance, training, support, and recommendations for self-help or self-guided resources.<\/li>\n<li>Introduce customers to the services they are entitled to through a welcome kit that describes service program entitlements, including steps for getting help, and how to submit new support cases.<\/li>\n<li>Communicate expectations, responsibilities, and timeline for major onboarding milestones to ensure the best possible time to value.<\/li>\n<li>Establish outcomes and milestones and monitor customer adoption progress to ensure successful initial onboarding.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/blog\/stay-current-with-customer-outcomes-six-best-practices-for-ongoing-assessments\/\"><strong>Assess customer expected outcomes<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and begin development of adoption and success plans.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Successful onboarding is essential to get customers set up to use and adopt their new product and prepared to achieve their desired outcomes. This article introduces eight onboarding practices necessary &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":251662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[35,51,8,9],"tags":[59,60,32,38,102,103,104,33,61,62,48,105],"class_list":["post-251661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retain","category-success","category-grow","category-process","tag-adoption","tag-customer-success","tag-goals-and-objectives","tag-growth","tag-journey-map","tag-lifetime-value","tag-ltv","tag-metrics","tag-onboarding","tag-outcomes","tag-retention","tag-service-sales-cooperation","post_outcome-retain-customers","post_outcome-success","post_activity-customer-success","post_activity-onboarding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251661"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254924,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251661\/revisions\/254924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}