Customer onboarding is necessary to keep customers from churning. It is the first interaction between customers and the product after sale. Post the sale handoff, this is the first attachment with the company. Good onboarding is the gap between customer log in and churn. If a customer does not like the onboarding, the chances of them churning are high. A great onboarding experience will ensure that customers have a long-term, healthy loyal life with the company. An onboarding specialist is one who makes sure the customer has the first moment of success with the product or service. A specialist who will take the customer from the signup to the ‘first success’ is an onboarding specialist.

Need for a Customer Onboarding Specialist

A client onboarding specialist has some responsibilities. These stem from the need for an effective onboarding. A customer onboarding specialist allows customers to meet success by ensuring account implementation begins on a happy note. With customer onboarding specialists, customers will be educated on the ways to use products or services in a smooth, hassle-free manner.

Customers abandon products when they feel there is-

• Zero value
• A feeling of loss
• Lack of understanding
• Lack of interest

A good onboarding process makes it easier for CSMs to handle customer accounts. They do not face serious problems with customers if the onboarding is done well. Also, the onboarding process of any company is different and can be quite complex. Someone specialised in this role can help configure things in an easy manner. This is where a good onboarding specialist can make effective difference.

Important Skills Required for a Customer Onboarding Specialist

Onboarding is when customers get the value from the product. To make sure customers get the value early, the focus should be on reducing customer effort and ensuring a smooth experience.

Empathy

Empathy is single-handedly the most important customer service skill. Empathy will ensure customers are happy and understand success. Empathy is a core skill one need to develop to be successful in the field of customer success.

Product Knowledge

Another skill a client onboarding specialist needs to have is product knowledge. They need to grasp the product knowledge, have good communication skills, understand the customer, and carry a positive outlook.

Patience

Customer onboarding does not stop in a certain time frame. Sometimes customers can get angry and may need extra attention and help to understand facets. One thing that helps is cultivating patience that goes a long way in offering the best customer service.

Continuous betterment

To be an onboarding specialist, one needs to deliver good support to customers. They need to measure customer experience through metrics and understand their own impact. This will help develop better service and knowledge.

Communication

A primary skill required is good communication. This is necessary to convey the right information and stop or avoid a barrage of questions. This is the base for any interaction and should be clear and reasonable. If a customer is receiving over 10 mails a day for a simple thing, it is not right. The information process has to be simple, clear, and correct.

Customer Onboarding Specialist Job Description

A customer onboarding specialist has some responsibilities to fulfill to be correct for the job. The primary responsibility is to ensure that customers meet and achieve their goals. The customer onboarding specialist needs to educate new customers about the product and services. The core goal is to deliver an amazing customer experience and ensure faster product adoption. Customer onboarding is the first step of the customer lifecycle, and a specialist to handle this spectrum is important.

The customer onboarding specialist must look to educate customers about the product, help them reduce their problems or initial adoption of the product.

Here is the job description for a customer onboarding specialist.

We are looking out for a customer onboarding specialist to set up and structure processes for customers to achieve the success they signed up for.

As a customer onboarding specialist in our organization, you need to help new customers know more about the product, reduce the roadblocks they face, solve their problems, and ensure seamless entry into the product usage.

Here are the key responsibilities of a Customer Onboarding Specialist-

• Manage the customer from the point of sale to product adoption
• Help successfully implement the product for the customers
• Develop metrics to understand if the implementation is successful or not
• Own and create plans for product implementation
• Handle customer queries about the product implementation
• Understand customer needs and try to align the product implementation accordingly
• Support customers through emails, phone calls, chats, social media, video calls, etc.

Skills and Qualifications

• Excellent written and spoken communication
• Technically sound with video frameworks
• Strategic decision maker to tailor implementation as per customer needs
• Organizational skills to connect and work with various stakeholders
• Driven and highly motivated to ensure customer success

Responsibilities of a Customer Onboarding Specialist

Give customer detailed account directions

A customer onboarding specialist needs to guide users with using their account in an optimum manner. That is, they need to give a detailed demo on how to proceed with the account.

Assist customers with implementation

Customer onboarding specialists also need to help users with implementation. For example: Some users may not be familiar with the technical lingo and jargon. This may lead to confusion and frustration. A customer onboarding specialist needs to reduce that by helping them with implementation.

Enhance communication between stakeholders

Customer onboarding specialists need to be great communicators. They need to enhance and improve communication between stakeholders. The key to this is by making all concerned parties on the same page.

Set up customer expectations

By setting customer expectations, a customer onboarding specialist helps set the mood for customer retention. If during customer onboarding, false promises are made it becomes tough to achieve those expectations and keep the customer happy.

Record and solve customer queries, problems, and requests

Keeping track of customer problems, queries and requests is another responsibility of customer onboarding managers. They need to know the past history of the customer while looking for solutions in the future. This will help understand where the customer is coming from and move accordingly.

Educate customers and ensure best practices are in place to enhance expectations

A customer onboarding specialist needs to educate customers as much as possible. Since it is a new beginning, they need to ensure customers are well versed with the company products.

Act as a bridge between customer’s expectations and company’s objectives

Specialists in customer onboarding also need to act a bridge between what customers want and what the company can offer. This means, they need to set the line and game straight with customer and company equilibrium.

Take customer feedback seriously and ensure proper tool usage

If a customer faces a problem, they will talk about it. Take that seriously. It can be useful in product betterment and improving customer relations.

Solving minor technical glitches during implementation

If a customer has minor technical difficulties, a customer onboarding specialist must be able to address them. This will create conviction in customers about the knowledge levels of customer facing teams.

Ensuring the transition of the customer to CSMs is smooth

The most important responsibility is ensuring that the transition of the customer to a CSM is smooth. The customer goes armed with enough information and product usage details to use the product as effectively as possible. This is the foundation of product-led growth.

Managing customer timelines and accounts

Customer success managers need to manage accounts and timelines of customers. Customers need to maintain a specific trajectory to get the best results.

Encouraging innovation through best practices

Customer onboarding specialists need to encourage innovation in customers. They need to help customers feel more comfortable around the product.

Being voice of customer in this period to convey either experience

Customer onboarding specialists need to convey the right opinion of the product to the company. This will help improve customer experience around the product.

Examples of Customer Onboarding Specialist Job Descriptions

Here are some examples of Customer onboarding specialist job descriptions.

Example 1: Company Information with Customer Onboarding Specialist

Company Description

XYZ has a suite of solutions that help organizations ………………………… We have more than a decade of experience ………………XYZ has a dynamic, smart work environment and is looking for professionals who support our continued growth and success. We offer benefits …….

Job Description

The Customer Onboarding Specialist at XYZ needs to pay attention to customer details, partner with various teams- internally and externally, and enhance existing customer onboarding processes. The specialist also needs to maintain accurate customer information, ensure they are on the road to product adoption, and offer feedback accordingly.

Responsibilities

• Manage customer onboarding and orientation with the product to drive customer satisfaction
• Offer value to customers to ensure progress is possible
• Maintain account information and customer orientation checklists

Example 2: Conversational Job Description for Customer Onboarding Specialist

Hiring is on for a customer onboarding specialist at Apples and Carrots. We are a fast-paced, high growth startup looking for someone to

• Gain a better understanding of customers
• Put their mind at guiding customers through the orientation process
• Provide timely information to customers about the product and service

You Should

• Be a great communicator
• Have project management experience
•  Join team meetings
• Conduct frequent workshops
• Be there for customers
• Deliver complete customer training

Example 3: Onboarding Advocate- Another name, same role

As a core member of our customer success team, the customer onboarding advocate will set the ground for product adoption. You are right for the job if you think you can utilize your project management skills to drive operations, manage customers across the globe, help with administration, and build a process engine for long-term customer growth.

Here is what you will do on an average day-

• Understand the customer requirements from the product
• Oversee the customer onboarding process
• Collaborate with stakeholders to improve communication
• Guide, support, and assist customers in their product adoption process
• Manage priorities across platforms

What we are looking for

• 2-4 years of customer-facing experience
• Communication skills- written and verbal
• Self-motivated and driven to help customers
• Collaborate and be skilled in problem-solving

Bonus points

• Experience in similar roles
• Experience with work tools like ….

Example 4: Customer Onboarding Specialist Role (Americas)

We are looking for a customer champion to help solve customer problems and interact with them to kickstart their product usage. We seek someone who can optimize tasks for customers. Our company is poised for growth, and here are a few resources that will help you know what life is like with us.

<Links of culture, values, and code of conduct guides>

We are an equal opportunity workplace and promote diversity in every manner.

You Need to be

• Highly skilled in customer support
• Problem-solving in nature
• A good communicator- written or verbal
• Obsessive over details for customer success
• Persistent and fixated on solving customer problems
• Efficient and helpful across sales and customer success

About the company

<Details about the company>

How to apply

The application process is standard. We start with a few questions about you in a recruiting call. Post that, you can know our feedback within seven days. We will keep you posted on the cycle of recruitment.

Location

We prefer someone in the Americas (West- Pacific Time Zone)

You can even work remotely. Our team of 200+ is distributed across India, Australia, the United Kingdom, and more! You can take a look at our remote guide to succeeding in working anywhere. In case you are the right fit and need more support, we’ll be happy to discuss it during the interview process.

Salary of a Customer Onboarding Specialist

The salary of a customer onboarding specialist varies based on industry, type of company, experience level and more. The average salary for an onboarding specialist is $52354. In UK, the salaries of a customer onboarding specialist range between £20,000 – £50,000, In Australia, the salary for a customer onboarding specialist is between A$58,500 – A$1,55,000.

The salary increases with level of experience and work performance. The critical thing to look for is handling customer issues and communication.

Customer Onboarding Specialist Interview Questions

A customer onboarding specialist role is one that is defined by customer experiences. Instead of technical faculties, mental and psychological abilities should be checked. Having role-play scenarios will help gauge the way they answer and what separates them from others. Framing questions based on what you need to assess is the best way to get the right fit.

Template questions will only give expected answers. Testing the grit of the candidate through touch situations is the best way to know how they would react. Check to see if they deal with these cases in an empathetic manner. If yes, you have your fit.

Some of the frequently asked questions in a customer onboarding specialist interview are below.

• How will you manage different customers at the same time?
• How will you handle customer complaints?
• When enrolling new customers, what details should you have or ask for?
• How do your methods of onboarding a customer differ from others?
• Will you be frustrated if a customer does not understand a solution?
• Consider a hypothetical situation where you have one critical customer requirement which is a road blocker. disturbance for them to go live. Assuming this point was not identified during sales or later evaluation period, please provide key pointers to handle this situation.
• What if the customer asks for a feature that is not a part of your product? How will you handle this situation?

Customer Onboarding Checklist

Now every customer onboarding specialist needs to have a checklist. This needs to be looked at to improve chances of better onboarding.

• Surveying customers to know more about their needs, jobs, and requirements
• Measure activation rates of customers during onboarding
• Creating and re-thinking the onboarding flow based on customer activation rates
• Plugging gaps with communication via phone or email
• Continuously educate, empower customers till they reach the aha moment.

Customer Onboarding Specialist Resume

A good customer onboarding specialist resume must correspond to the role. A customer onboarding specialist resume needs to include-

• Contact information
• Work experience
• Education
• Skills

The necessary set of skills include-

• Experience in customer onboarding, support, implementation, and more
• Proven complex problem-solving capabilities
• Good at facilitating meetings and virtual workshops
• Simple and effective communication skills
• Project management experience is a must

Bottom Line

Hiring customer onboarding specialists is a big and necessary step for your business. This role ensures that your customers get the value they sign up for always. This will ensure that customers achieve their goals. This is the first point of entry and will help in upselling, reselling, and renewal of contracts. To make sure these targets are met, customer onboarding specialists need to be trained well and hired based on their existing skills. Meeting the first milestone of ‘onboarding complete’ is possible through a good customer onboarding specialist.

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