Optimize customer engagement through structured onboarding in Zoho CRM for Everyone
Process
Customer onboarding is a crucial process that sets the initial tone of a company's relationship with its clients. All businesses, irrespective of size or vertical, need a structured onboarding process in order to help their customers use their products or services optimally from the start. This process involves guiding new customers through the initial stages of using a product or a service while ensuring they understand its value and how to maximize its benefits for their business or personal use. A well-structured onboarding experience builds trust, boosts a sense of satisfaction, and lays the foundation for long-term loyalty—thereby reducing customer churn.
To illustrate, let's assume a prospective customer at a bank applies for a new account. The bank has a set of processes to collect necessary information and supporting documents from the prospect. Upon verification, the prospect is expected to agree to the bank's terms and sign the relevant papers to get their account set up. Upon successful account creation, the bank needs to do the following in order to onboard them to their services effectively.
Communicate the status of account creation to the customer.
Invite them to their customer portal with the necessary credentials.
Share the steps necessary to reset their portal credentials.
Provide a brief walkthrough of the customer portal's features.
Share tips and best practices to keep their account safe by implementing an additional layer of security, like two-factor or biometric authentication.
Provide their debit card and security PIN.
Share the steps required to reset their PIN.
Disclose usage details, charges, and other essential details about their card and account.
Provide support information so they can receive quick and timely assistance when necessary.
Share information about their relationship manager and other details.
Imagine the bank doesn't do the activities mentioned above. With no proper communication, the customer doesn't know the progress of their request, and even if their account gets created, they don't know where or how to start using the bank's services. Unless the customer is informed soon thereafter, they'll definitely feel that they've been left in the dark.
Challenges
Businesses across the globe often face similar common customer onboarding challenges, such as the following:
Prolonged customer onboarding due to manual and paper-based processing
Incomplete document submission from customers, resulting in verification delays
Fragmented customer information across departments that complicates document management and data synchronization
Communication breakdowns that impact the initial customer experience
The absence of structured and proactive help, which can leave customers feeling frustrated
Solution
In order to mitigate these challenges and streamline the customer onboarding process, it's essential to consolidate customer information, requirements, and onboarding information into a single database or module.
As a business owner, you need to define your customer onboarding process step-by-step to bring it into a single module. Let's again use our bank example to illustrate this process:
Consolidate the applicant's required supporting documents and store them in the system.
Send the documents for verification and background checks.
Notify the applicant upon successful verification or rejection.
Inform them of your terms and conditions and secure the customers' acknowledgement.
Notify the applicant upon successful account creation.
Help them log in in to their customer portal without hassles.
Walk them through the portal's features.
Share insights to implement additional security for their bank account.
Walk them through the usage benefits, features, and charges of their cards.
Share the details of their relationship manager and support channels.
Zoho CRM helps you quickly implement a customer onboarding module using a pre-defined customer onboarding template.
Easily implement a customer onboarding module using Zoho CRM for Everyone
You can quickly implement a customer onboarding module in Zoho CRM using our recently launched team module templates. Zoho CRM's Customer Onboarding team module template comes preconfigured with a set of essential fields related to the customer onboarding process, such as onboarding ID, onboarding owner name, customer name, email, company, lead source, and status, and others.
By clicking Use this template, Zoho CRM enables you to create a customer onboarding module in just a few seconds, as shown below:
However, you can also use this configuration as a basis and customize it further in accordance with your business requirements.
For example, banks or financial service providers can use this template as a starting point to customize their customer onboarding module according to their business specific needs, as follows:
Include a comprehensive document consolidation checklist for regulatory compliance and validation requirements.
Track document verification stages to ensure all necessary materials are collected and validated, and that progress is communicated to customers.
Track account creation stages and related automations.
Include a step-by-step onboarding checklist to help sales development reps complete a structured onboarding process.
Upon successfully verifying the customer's documents and creating their account, they'll be automatically notified of this progress via workflow rules and email templates.
Here's how a customer onboarding module record looks:
This flexible framework enables financial institutions to streamline their customer onboarding while maintaining full control over their internal processes and compliance obligations.
Similarly, organizations from various verticals can make use of this template to build an effective customer onboarding process in their businesses.
Result
Quick and easy onboarding module creation
Fast customer adoption of products or services through timely communication
A well-structured onboarding process
Better visibility and control across departments
An enhanced customer experience through automation and personalized communication