Investing in enterprise software is a significant decision that requires careful consideration. However, the path from being a "buyer" to becoming a "user," and ultimately a "satisfied user," can be long and challenging.
As a business owner, your aim is to help your employees achieve their full potential as quickly and efficiently as possible. And one of the most effective ways to do this is through a well-crafted user onboarding process.In this blog post, we'll explore how you can streamline your onboarding process to reduce time-to-value and ensure that your team is productive right from the start. With a tailored user onboarding experience, you can pave the way for a more productive and efficient work environment .
Understanding user onboarding
When you bring a new employee onboard, your goal is to get them up to speed quickly so they can start delivering results. Similarly, when your business invests in new technology, you want your employees to understand how to use it effectively as soon as possible. This process of educating new users to fully utilize a product's features and functionalities in the shortest amount of time possible is known as user onboarding.
Why is onboarding crucial for your brand?
The onboarding process is a significant aspect of any organization as it not only enhances employee productivity but also increases employee retention. A well-structured and personalized onboarding program can improve employee retention by up to 82% and productivity by over 70%.
An employee’s work is centered around the product they use each day, and the onboarding process is closely tied to this product.
Typically, there is a dedicated session that familiarizes new team members with the product. However, these sessions can be very generic, and people with different roles and objectives end up in the same group. This is followed by a training or supervision period where they get to know the system but don’t actually work without a senior person by their side.
They may also have to submit documentation and watch recorded videos. Despite all of this, it could take weeks or even months for users to scale up, and at the end of it, your new hires still may not be as confident as you'd like them to be. Time is valuable, and it is being lost as they try to get help and figure out what they need to do. On average, it takes about eight months before new employees can achieve peak productivity.
So, what's the solution?
Creating a stellar onboarding experience
Formalizing your onboarding process is a great start, but how do you turn it from an average experience to a fantastic one?
Personalization is key. Make the new employee feel like the job was tailored just for them and anticipate their every need. Put yourself in their shoes and pace the process with simpler steps so they can comfortably go the extra mile.
Let's say you're onboarding a new team member in your team. They'll need to know general administrative and financial details, which should be covered in the initial parts of onboarding. However, they'll also want to understand the team, their role and expectations. To put them at ease, it's important to have a conversation with their manager and informal catch-ups with the team right at the start.
Information about the company culture and overall mission can be introduced gradually. A few hours a day over the first few days, with sessions from relevant department leaders and even top executives, is a good idea. These leaders should be from the agent's department so that a social media team agent, for example, would interact with the head of social media or communications. A session with the director or VP of the marketing function would also be a bonus, to set context around the overall direction of the function and get them excited to be on board.
The last component is a deeper dive into the agent's specific responsibilities. This can be done in phases, with the manager, mentor or team buddy explaining each aspect of the job. The agent must get used to the software they'll be using, the protocols they'll need to follow and the processes they'll be handling. Each team should have its own set of materials that are specific to its functions.
How can your products help in creating a great onboarding experience?
Are you looking to create an exceptional onboarding experience for your new hires?
When selecting a customer experience management (CXM) platform, you should consider how it can help with onboarding. After all the hard work you've put into building a great journey within your organization, you want to ensure that it pays off in the end, where your agents spend most of their day.
The key to a successful onboarding is a product-led approach, where agents are introduced to the platform in a phased manner. For complex platforms with multiple features, it is important to gradually introduce them to avoid overwhelming them.
The ideal onboarding experience is one that is tailored and informative, enabling agents to learn and try things hands-on simultaneously. This not only reduces the time it takes for them to start their daily activities, but also ensures that your onboarding efforts generate value quickly.
At Sprinklr, the world's leading Unified-CXM platform, we offer a gold-standard onboarding experience that lets agents track their progress as they learn and try things out. With our platform, you can customize the journey according to your team's needs and priorities.
Conclusion
Do you want to accelerate the time-to-value for your users during the onboarding process?
A personalized journey that caters to the user's specific use cases and persona is the way to go. Imagine if your users could watch and learn in small, easily digestible steps, with bite-sized videos embedded within the platform, and have the ability to try out functions in real time. This, coupled with a rich set of training materials to follow up, can put your users on the highway to rapid value realization.
At Sprinklr, our personalized onboarding journey and training have been recognized as one of the best practices in education services, making us a finalist in the TSIA STAR Awards 2022.
Want to see what sets us apart?
Learn more about our Unified-CXM solution and our comprehensive user-onboarding experience by requesting a demo.
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