To Sum It Up…

One of the most crucial pieces of a launch that entrepreneurs regularly overlook is to plan what happens after someone buys your program or service.

If you’re missing a stand-out onboarding process, today I’ll walk you through why it’s so important and share my best tips for how to do it really well.

Why Onboard Your Customers?

Your client onboarding process is crucial to your launch for:

• Increasing customer satisfaction
• Reducing your refund rates
• Creating raving fans who will tell all their friends about you
• Eliminating overwhelm in knowing the next steps
• Boosting trust in your ROI for delivering results

By having a clear onboarding process, you can eliminate this overwhelm and immediately, your client or customer will know exactly what they need to do to be successful in working with you or reviewing your materials.

And when they are successful, and when they get great results, they will tell people about you and buy your other products and programs because they have the trust in you that they know you will deliver.

Onboarding Best Practices

Sending clear and detailed emails after a new client or customer sign up is essential. This could detail information that you’re going to need from them prior to getting started, or documents they’ll need to gather before your first session. If you’re onboarding for a program, this could be an email for how they access the membership site, join the Facebook group and tune in to the group Q&A calls.

You’ll also want to document any first steps they’ll need to take inside a membership site, in a Facebook group or on your website.

And if you want to score some extra bonus points with your new client, send something to them in the mail. Whether it’s just a card or you actually want to pick out a gift, it’s something tangible that will say, “Hey, you’re special to me.”

Your Turn

So, will you be adding a client onboarding process to your project list for 2017? If so, leave your questions and ideas in the comments below!

Share The Knowledge

Full Transcript

One of the most crucial pieces of a launch that entrepreneurs regularly forget to plan is what happens after someone buys your program or service. A lot of people stop the launch after people buy. That’s it, launch is closed, cart’s closed, all good to go, but there’s actually a very crucial piece of your launch funnel missing if you’re not properly onboarding your new clients and customers.

I’m Jessica Castle, your online launch strategist, and today I want to share with you why onboarding is so crucially important and share a bunch of great ideas for how to do it well.

Whether you’re launching a product, program, or service, it’s so important that you have an onboarding process. The reason this is crucial is that it will increase customer satisfaction, it will reduce your refund rates, and it will create that raving fan who will tell all their friends about you.

Onboarding is the process of telling people exactly what you want them to do after they sign up to work with you or take your program.

It’s so that they don’t get overwhelmed logging into a membership dashboard and have no idea how to access the pieces of content that they want, or they sign up to work with you one-on-one and have no idea what comes after that. How many calls do they get? When are the calls? Do they need to prepare anything before your next session?

By having a clear onboarding process, you can eliminate this overwhelm and immediately, your client or customer will know exactly what they need to do to be successful in working with you or reviewing your materials. When they are successful, and when they get great results, they will tell people about you. They will buy your other products and programs because they have the trust in you that they know you will deliver.

So, how do you onboard? We know the what, so how? Today, I want to share with you some really great tips for how to onboard well. Obviously, email is essential. If you signed the client, and they signed their contract, you need to send them an email with next steps and how to get started in working with you. This could detail information that you’re going to need, passwords you might need access to, or things they’ll need to gather before your first session.

If you’re onboarding for a program, this could be an email for when are the weekly Q&A calls? How do they get access to the Facebook group? How do they create their membership login? You really just need a welcome email that tells them the exact next steps that they can take to get started.

If you are doing a Facebook group, this is really important that you have a welcome post, an introduction post, something that tells them the best ways to use the Facebook platform and how it’s best used. Is this where they should put their tech questions, or is there an email for that? All these questions really need to be answered right after someone buys, so that they know exactly what to do and there aren’t any questions.

After the welcome email, you may also want to send a series of emails. If this is a program, you might be dripping a weekly email. You need to tell them what to do. You need to make sure that all their tech questions are answered. It’s also a really important time to have all of your team in the support inbox to be answering the questions.

If we’re talking about one-to-one onboarding, it’s a little bit simpler. You just need to make sure that when you’re first working with someone, if your usual response time is 48 hours that they know that, and maybe try and respond to them a little bit quicker and give the feeling that they made the right decision.

Those are just the basics of onboarding. But let’s say you want to take it to the next level…

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that will ultimately create a raving fan, and it is this:

Send something to them in the mail.

It’s that simple. Whether it’s just a card, a handwritten note, whether you actually want to pick out a gift or a gift basket of some kind, it’s something tangible that they will say, “Hey, you’re special to me.” There’s other people who record a voicemail and leave that as a welcome after you join a program, or actually give you a call and say, “Welcome, I’m so excited.” It could be as simple as, also, texting someone.

Do something that’s a little touch, and bonus points if it’s something that comes in the mail, because people love getting real mail. Not to mention, if it’s something extra cool, you can probably count on a little social media shout-out, and that’s always good for business.

I hope these tips for why onboarding is so important and how to do it well were helpful for you. I hope that you will take some time this week to map out your onboarding process. I literally have a document in Asana that tells me, “These are the steps to take after someone signs up to work with me.” You don’t have to be that advanced, but it does help to have it documented.

I hope you will use these tips, and I hope you will create tons of raving fans with your new onboarding process. And I’ll see you next week. 🙂