How To Develop Successful Customer Onboarding
As an LMS service provider, winning a new client is not the end, rather it is just the beginning of the whole ‘association’ process. You will have to be pro-active and present for the client at every single step –be it selection, implementation, internal marketing, actual rollout or usage– for the LMS to thrive and deliver its pre-empted objectives.
While there are legion things to focus upon through the process, it's important to 'start' right. As they say, 'a good beginning is half the battle won'. Of course, the operative word here is ‘half’ because there is a lot more to do once a robust ‘start’ is achieved.
The best way to assure a successful LMS is to get a good, resounding start by pondering upon a few questions as the first step:
- How would you/the client measure the success of the LMS?
- What does the LMS hope to achieve for the client's business?
- What are the desired outcomes for the LMS?
Once these questions are answered, you will get a realistic understanding of the requirements from the LMS and the results it is supposed to deliver in a business sense. This is a critical component of the LMS Solutioning process.
As an LMS service provider, delivering high customer satisfaction is imperative for you since it could be the cornerstone of many further successful alliances. The idea is to provide good touch points for the customers. It is important you ensure they are happy with your product or service, are aware of all benefits and are able to leverage them to reach their goals. This makes client onboarding one of the key steps in the entire LMS process. This initial experience will help in setting the tone for the rest of your customer’s lifespan and kick-start the relationship.
Let’s first understand what exactly customer onboarding is when it comes to LMS and training programs. It’s about working alongside your clients as a part of their team and working hand-in-hand with them to achieve LMS success. Some strong approaches here include procedures such as conducting needs assessments, providing assistance and offering them a personalized WIIFM (What's In It For Me) experience.
But before your customers can be properly onboarded, it is important to lay out the framework. Creating an onboarding program doesn’t have to be a stress-filled endeavor. Here are a few steps that you can take to create and launch a successful customer onboarding program.
1. Understand The Customer Well
Before setting out on the LMS implementation, it helps to conduct a customer due diligence to understand any specific information about them that can impact the implementation. You can hold interviews with people at different levels in the customer’s organization to understand their influence, interest, impact and level of involvement in the project. Once you have an understanding of this, you may have to customize your offering in terms of content, technicalities etc. as per the requisites of your target audience.
2. Identify The Users
An important step is to identify the stakeholders and various touch points at the beginning. This part is essential because as an LMS vendor, you will have to understand who is responsible for the approvals of the LMS, who is its owner and who is the one who is actually going to use the system, i.e. the end user. You can then create responsibility matrix including all these concerned people and then take into consideration different perspectives through the process.
3. Arrange For An Opening Meeting And Introduction Session
An introduction meeting between your team and the client’s team will be helpful in understanding who is involved in the project and what exactly the client has in mind for it. It is possible that the stakeholders’ expectations may vary at different levels for the LMS. You could opt for a face-to-face, a telephone, or Skype session where everyone involved from both ends could get to know each other.
4. Tailor-Make Processes To Suit Client Needs
As a service provider, you may be serving a wide range of clients belonging to different verticals and sections. They could be enterprises or start-ups, each with different processes and requirements. You must be able to focus individually on the requirements of each client, amend your approach and take care of their needs efficiently.
5. Encourage Customer To Explore LMS
Often clients might come to you asking how we can make the best use of this LMS to enhance our business. In this case, it is best to egg them on to explore the LMS to understand what best value they can get out of it. Rather than having them do this on their own, the best way is to brainstorm along with them. You could do mock virtual sessions with them, conduct calls with the teams etc. to help them understand the various options that are available to them to get the best out of the LMS.
6. Provide Guidance Depending On Customer Type
Your client may be someone who is a first-time LMS user or someone who has used one before and is now switching to yours. In each case, the role that you are required to play as an LMS provider is different. While the former may look up to you for advice, the latter has chosen you as an expert. The size of clients may also differ. You should be able to cater to these different types of needs and provide service, support and a helping hand when needed.
Final Word
Ultimately, taking care of the LMS onboarding is all about delivering an effective strategy that will help cement your relationship, possibly a long-term one with the customer. After all, it is important to be on the same page as the customers because a good partnership is the key to delivering a great experience for the LMS!
