Traditional B2B sales and marketing models are gradually trending downward in the competitive eCommerce landscape. According to Gartner, by the end of 2025, 80% of B2B sales will be conducted digitally, a significant increase from just 13% in 2019. To survive in the digital age, businesses must leave a positive impression on any customer coming to their door at the initial phase.
A well-executed onboarding process is among the best approaches to ensure your pleasing image in business clients’ minds. By creating a seamless onboarding journey, companies can significantly enhance customer experience, leading to greater satisfaction and lower churn. Hence, a well-planned strategy is a must for any B2B enterprise for the long-term success of the customer onboarding approach. In this blog, we will explore the best practices and valuable tips, focusing on B2B eCommerce to help you onboard your clients successfully. Let’s dive into the details!
What is B2B customer onboarding?
Customer onboarding is the process of educating your customer through the early stages of using a product or service. In the business-to-business model, ‘your customer’ isn’t an individual, but many people from a single company. Therefore, the process should include user-friendly guidelines that serve individuals with varying levels of expertise and knowledge. Effective onboarding methods may include courses on e-learning platforms, scheduled calls, or hands-on training sessions.
Customer onboarding often occurs in the post-registration phase, meaning you had a successful customer adoption to shift them from traditional sales and cooperation means to your digital store. By familiarising customers with your web store’s features, addressing their specific needs, and ensuring they derive value from their purchase, companies can increase order volume and retention rates.
Onboarding B2B vs. B2C customers
When researching B2B customer onboarding, it's important to recognise how it sets apart from B2C. This understanding will enable you to uncover the most valuable insights and practical tips from B2B businesses while also learning from the B2C model.
Even though both B2B and B2C onboarding aim to enhance customer experience, they differ significantly in their approach. Typically, B2C onboarding focuses on speed and simplicity to engage individual clients without the need for a human-intensive touch. B2B onboarding, in contrast, often involves multiple stakeholders, longer decision-making processes, and a greater emphasis on personalisation and human contact.
Major differences between B2B and B2C customer onboarding include:
-
Decision-making cycle: Unlike B2C, which may be more flexible and require less time to place an order, the B2B buying journey takes longer due to the complexity of multiple decision-makers.
-
Human interactions: While B2C clients hardly need any account-based contact, B2B customers require regular follow-ups by email or calls to ensure a smooth workflow for both companies and prevent any issues that may occur.
-
Customer experience: Enterprise clients vary in company sizes, structures, integrated systems, workflows, and policies. Hence, compared to individual customers, businesses tend to look for brands that provide bespoke services.
Why does customer onboarding matter in B2B eCommerce?
Now that we understand the fundamentals of B2B customer onboarding, let’s look at the advantages you may reap from tailoring a successful customer onboarding strategy.
-
Provide enhanced customer experience: Despite the shift to digital channels, many B2B transactions still occur through phone calls and manual order processing, which can be challenging for business customers who are unfamiliar with digital platforms. By offering comprehensive guidance on how to use your web store, clients can navigate your online presence more easily without confusion, thus improving their experience of purchasing your products.
-
Boost customer adoption: Once your customers reach the registration phase and start onboarding, it indicates that you have successfully transitioned them from traditional phone orders to your digital platform. A poor onboarding phase, however, can drive customers back to placing orders over the phone. Therefore, it’s vital to create a streamlined customer onboarding experience to increase the adoption rate.
-
Reduce churn and increase retention rate: Choosing suppliers in the B2B sector often involves extensive research and discussions. Once they opt for a provider, they are unlikely to switch unless the providers don’t meet their needs and wants. A positive onboarding experience reinforces their decision to partner with you, fostering long-term loyalty.
-
Build a positive reputation and get referrals: As B2B clients place a high value on recommendations from their peers, word-of-mouth referrals are incredibly powerful. If your services and delivery methods leave a lasting impression on customers, they are more likely to refer your business to others. This not only enhances your reputation but also opens up new business opportunities at little to no cost. A strong onboarding process helps ensure that customers have a positive experience worth sharing with their networks.
Common goals for a successful onboarding process
Before digging deeper into the process and best practices of profitable customer onboarding, you need to understand and set clear expectations for improved outcomes. Here are the key goals you should aim to set for your business:
-
Full understanding of the website usage: A primary objective of onboarding B2B buyers is to improve their ability to navigate and utilise your newly launched web store effectively. It’s crucial to ensure that all stakeholders from your customers’ side can confidently explore the platform and access its features.
-
Repeated engagement: Engaging customers early in the onboarding process is crucial for fostering a sense of connection and commitment. This can be achieved through interactive training sessions, personalised check-ins, and opportunities for customers to ask questions and provide feedback. When customers feel supported and engaged, they are more likely to remain active users of your online store.
-
Higher conversion rates: One of the critical goals of onboarding is to boost the percentage of web store users who transition into paying customers. A well-designed onboarding experience can guide potential clients through the value of your offerings, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.
-
Much shorter time to first value: Minimising the time your customers take to realise value from your offering is also a key goal of onboarding. As soon as your customers derive the advantages of placing orders through your website, they tend to continue using your website. This not only boosts satisfaction but also encourages continued usage.
-
Improved retention rates: Effective onboarding is crucial for reducing churn rates. When customers feel confident using your product and recognise its value early on, they are less likely to seek alternatives. A smooth onboarding experience fosters long-term loyalty and encourages repeat business, making it an essential component of customer success.
5 steps for a B2B customer onboarding process that works
In order to reach these goals, businesses need to create an ideal customer onboarding process. Here are some main steps for an effective onboarding strategy.To take full advantage of the digital shift, businesses need to develop an effective strategy for web store adoption that addresses the mentioned potential barriers. The strategy should include tactics towards both employees and existing customers.
1. Step 1: Send onboarding emails with incentives
Right after your customers register on your website, send an email asking them for a call to guide them through the website. The email may include helpful resources or links to where they can find the tutorials instructing them on how to use the website.
Unlike B2C onboarding emails, which can be sent to mass recipients with minimal customisation, B2B clients represent diverse audiences that necessitate tailored emails for each group. Consider including incentives like “up to ￡20 off for your first order online” or “free shipping” in the email to urge them to try your website to make their purchases.
2. Step 2: Schedule a walk-through call or onboarding tour
Human-to-human relationships still matter for B2B, even in the digital landscape. Therefore, it’s vital to set up a meeting with your client to guide them through the onboarding process and show them the features of your web store and how they can leverage it to place their orders. Let your customers ask any questions related to the platform to make sure they fully understand how to use it and help ease those less used to digital environments for ordering.
3. Step 3: Let your customers make practice orders
After delivering adequate training about your website, let them make practice orders without requiring any financial commitment. This hands-on experience can release their anxiety about ordering a large volume for the first time. You may also get valuable insights into their obstacles when onboarding a website without practice experience.
4. Step 4: Always available for timely support
Keep communicating with your customers through a communication channel or knowledge hub so that they can get support whenever they have issues. Comprehensive support resources, including FAQs, video tutorials and live chat options are effective means of communication for your customers.
5. Step 5: Keep following up with your leads
Again, a successful B2B flow must rely on nuanced human-to-human interactions. As a sequence, regular follow-ups via email to see how your customers are progressing and if they need further assistance from the company. This proactive approach not only reinforces your commitment to their success but also fosters stronger relationships with your customers.
6 tips for an optimal B2B customer onboarding strategy
Apart from step-by-step workflow, there are effective tips you should learn to create a comprehensive experience that fosters long-term relationships. Here are 6 extra tips for robust B2B customer onboarding:
1. Create comprehensive guides in different formats
Selling B2B means you are educating a group of people with different preferences and skills. Therefore, it’s important to let everyone learn about your website at their own pace and through preferred resource types. Multi-format guidance includes both written and visual documents such as blogs, e-books, user manuals, video tutorials, and infographics.
2. Tailor personalised experience
As previously noted, the B2B onboarding journey should focus on catering experience based on each client’s specific requirements and specifications. To provide your customers with flawless personalisation, you should spend time gathering information about your customer’s needs, goals, and challenges before proceeding to onboarding.
3. Ensure 24/7 availability for customer service
At the initial stage of getting used to your website, your customers might need support to address any questions and concerns that arise. Allocate your human resources so that the customer support team is always available for timely assistance, through various channels, including phone, email, live chat, or community forums. Don’t forget to display clear communication protocols so that your clients know how and when they can reach out for help.
4. Actively seek and listen to feedback
Feedback from your real customers is key for efficient improvement and optimisation. Conduct surveys or feedback forms throughout each stage in their buyer’s journey to gain insights about their experiences, expectations, or any problems they encountered. Based on the information collected through customer feedback, businesses can analyse and optimise the process for enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5. Leverage automation tools
Utilising automation tools can significantly streamline the onboarding process and improve efficiency. Consider implementing automated email sequences that provide new customers with essential information at key intervals during their onboarding journey—such as welcome messages, reminders for training sessions, or tips for using specific features effectively. Additionally, automation can help manage scheduling for training sessions and follow-up calls, saving time for both your team and the customer. By leveraging automation thoughtfully, you can enhance engagement without overwhelming your team with manual tasks, allowing them to focus on providing high-value interactions.
6. Create a user-friendly web store
There’s no use improving your website when it isn’t intuitive to navigate. You must carefully select an eCommerce platform from the outset and create a web store that provides a seamless experience from displaying product information to the checkout process. If you’re unsure about how to create an easy-to-use website, try reaching out to an eCommerce development service provider for expert guidance tailored to your business needs.
By incorporating these tips into your B2B customer onboarding strategy, you can create a more effective and engaging experience that not only enhances customer satisfaction but also lays the foundation for lasting partnerships.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, a stellar customer onboarding flow is fundamental for any B2B eCommerce company embracing long-term growth. By optimising the process, businesses significantly enhance customer experience, boost adoption rates, reduce churn, and build a positive reputation that leads to valuable referrals. The strategies discussed throughout this blog—such as creating comprehensive guides, providing 24/7 support, and leveraging automation—are essential in ensuring that your customers feel supported and confident as they engage with your products.
If you're looking to refine your customer onboarding process and drive lasting success for your business, consider partnering with On Tap's eCommerce consultancy, a member of the global B2B eCommerce Association. Our team of experts can give you recommendations on successful digital tactics, as well as tailor an onboarding strategy that meets your specific needs and maximises customer satisfaction.
