Bringing new customers onboard is the most important part of the customer journey. Yet, despite this being so critical, poor onboarding is the main cause of customer churn(NYC ).

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It’s estimated that more than half of customer churn is related to poor onboarding and less-than-stellar customer service. In the United States alone, avoidable customer churn is costing businesses over $136 billion a year. While it’s easy to blame this on poor products, the main reason customers leave your company in the first year is because they never got value from your product in the first place. They fail to launch.

Customer onboarding is a mess
Donna Weber, the world’s leading expert in customer onboarding shares, “Customer onboarding is a mess. I wrote ‘Onboarding Matters, How Successful Companies Transform New Customers into Loyal Champions,’ because too many companies ignore their customers. I want to change that. Even though customer success is an established function in many B2B companies, they continue to miss the target during the crucial beginning of the customer relationship.”

Deploying a successful customer onboarding program results in higher revenue, more satisfied customers and employees, higher solution adoption, and an increased customer lifetime value. In her award-winning book, “Onboarding Matters,” Weber details the Orchestrated Onboarding™ framework she implements with leading business-to-business (B2B) companies to turn customer onboarding from a missed opportunity into a competitive advantage.

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Three ways to improve new customer onboarding
Here are three tips from Donna’s book to improve the customer onboarding experience at your company.

1. Quickly guide new customers to first value. When customers are left to wonder for weeks (or months) if your product is useful, you’re in trouble. So go beyond the “go live” and make sure new customers know how to use your solution to save time, reduce costs, increase revenue, and/or to be compliant. The quicker your product drives your customers to wins, the more customer loyalty, retention, and your revenue will grow.
2. Know your customers. Companies often ask Weber, “What should we do?”  She tells them to listen to their customers. The key to innovation is knowing what your customers want and need. Find out what they love. Find out what they hate. Ask them about a great onboarding experience they had with another vendor. Ask a few open-ended questions and then listen. You might just learn something.
3. Be prescriptive. Being prescriptive means following a specific process that guides your customers to successful outcomes. Rather than waiting until customers have problems, deliver a proactive onboarding approach to guide customers through milestones and deliverables during the critical first 90 days.

Weber receives national recognition
Weber recently received national recognition through the NYC Big Book Award®. “Onboarding Matters” is the Winner for Best New Non-Fiction, and Distinguished Favorite in Business Entrepreneurship and Small Business.

The NYC Big Book award is for traditionally and independently published authors, publishers, and both big and small presses. The competition is judged by experts from different aspects of the book industry, including publishers, writers, editors, book cover designers and professional copywriters. Selected award Winners and Distinguished Favorites are based on overall excellence and recognized from across the globe.

“We are elated to highlight these authors’ books, recognize their excellence, and share their achievements,” said awards sponsor Gabrielle Olczak. “We look forward to showcasing these titles to a larger audience.”

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