Frictionless customer onboarding – what is it? 

When a business acquires new customers online, the onboarding process is a crucial part of the journey.

Someone might be interested in your products or services and want to move forward, but they aren’t yet a customer.  

If there is unneeded friction or a reason that the decision should be rethought, this person might walk away and choose another company for what they need. If your onboarding process is inconvenient, complex, or slow, the chances of someone abandoning the company will increase.  

As a business, many industries need to verify who their customers are and ensure they meet all regulatory requirements. This cuts the risk of fraud and money laundering, but it also makes a potential customer jump through hoops. 

The best thing you can do is offer a frictionless customer onboarding experience. However, it’s also essential to have oversight and security functions to protect the business itself. 

What is frictionless customer onboarding? 

 Everyone has heard the phrase “the customer is king.” Business owners know that keeping customers happy is an integral part of success. This means giving them an experience they can count on. According to Oracle, over 85% of customers will pay more to get a better experience. 

When you create a frictionless onboarding process, you take time to discover and eliminate all points of friction that a customer might run into ad reduce customer churn. This isn’t a simple one-and-done process, however. It’s something ongoing and prioritized to reduce customers’ frustrations and make it easier to onboard. 

The number one reason to create frictionless onboarding for customers is so there are no obstacles in the way of them taking their desired action so you can improve your customer retention. You make the process comfortable and simple, which lets them share their details, expectations, and goals without anything popping up as a challenge. 

The most important reasons to have a frictionless customer onboarding experience 

As you likely expect, making changes to your onboarding process takes time and effort. That’s why you want to ensure that the work to reduce friction is worth it. Creating a frictionless customer onboarding experience is an intentional effort that continues throughout the life of your business.  

If you aren’t sure why it’s worth creating a frictionless customer experience, the points below will give you some helpful insight:  

• • Exceed expectations: Customers expect a specific experience when onboarding with a business. Hitting that level is required but going beyond shows that you genuinely care about your potential customers. Investing in a frictionless experience for customers ensures you exceed expectations time and time again. 

• • Improve satisfaction: When a potential customer wants something from you and chooses to onboard, you want to be sure that the process is seamless. If it isn’t, the person might walk away and never become a customer. When you work to create a frictionless experience, there are no roadblocks, and people are happier. 

• • Enhance retention: Providing a seamless onboarding experience pleases customers and gives them a reason to stick with your brand. In addition, frictionless onboarding can lead to better brand loyalty and word of mouth, which creates additional customers. 

What causes friction during customer onboarding? 

The purpose of onboarding is to identify customers who could be fraudulent while providing an excellent user experience. Businesses with complex and time-consuming onboarding processes often experience the loss of potential customers. This causes customers to abandon the process before the account is created. 

 It may not be immediately apparent how big of an issue account abandonment is. However, the numbers give you a better idea of why a frictionless experience is essential for your business. Most organizations have around a 65% completion rate for the onboarding process. That is calculated at 35% of customers who never complete the account creation. 

Striving for a frictionless experience can bump up your numbers and ensure that your system has as many customers as possible. Below, we’ll share a few of the best ways to create this seamless experience so you can enjoy the benefits of providing an experience that customers appreciate. 

How to get started with a frictionless customer onboarding experience 

Customer onboarding is all about welcoming new people to your platform. It is also composed of answering their questions, addressing their concerns, and ensuring they completely understand your services. Frictionless customer onboarding lets you engage someone from the moment they learn about your brand until they become loyal customers. 

Make use of data 

The more accurate firmographic data you have about a potential user’s company and leadership, the easier it will be to sell to them and verify their business standing. This speeds up onboarding and is also one of the reasons that personalization is a massive topic in businesses. It’s a great way to keep prospects on track.  

For instance, when you send out newsletters, you can call each person by name. Or you might send out a personalized birthday message on their special day. This shows that you know and care about your users by simply using their names to refer to them. 

Of course, basic information like names and birthdays is only the tip of the iceberg. You want to know what challenges and pain points they experience so you can find solutions. Personalization improves user experience and can increase retention by 5%, according to Invesp. 

Focus on your users 

Most customers aren’t going to care very much if you have the latest technology. However, they do care about what experience you provide and the value it offers. Technology is great, but it doesn’t matter unless it creates that seamless customer experience people desire. 

To ensure users are happy, use a minimalist platform without unnecessary elements with a professional, sleek layout. Incorporating whitespace can be a great start, as it gives the user’s eyes somewhere to rest and can prevent the person from getting overwhelmed. 

Another thing to incorporate is transparency. This applies to what the business is, the processes used, and the services and products offered to customers. Even if you encounter a problem, do what you can to own it rather than make an excuse. 

Prioritize mobile 

Almost everyone today has a smartphone. When you do not optimize for mobile, that can cause you to lose many potential customers. Mobile optimization is a crucial element that can be used to build a robust platform and gain credibility.  

Many things go into mobile optimization, such as responsiveness on various screens and devices, the page speed of the platform, and more. If videos and images are part of the package, these should be compressed as much as possible while offering outstanding performance. 

This plays into a frictionless customer onboarding experience since the user needs to do less to get things done. If friction is at any of these junctions, it can frustrate users, and they may leave and never come back. With mobile users soaring, make sure they have a fantastic onboarding experience. 

Think customer service 

Creating a great self-service experience is essential for frictionless customer onboarding. It helps reduce friction as customer service is always there to help. Everything related to your business hinges on including excellent customer support services. 

Consider methods to increase the value of the customer journey and simplify every process you can. For example, you could include a live chat or user knowledge base. Rather than waiting for a call, let customers know that you can call them back at a specific time of their choosing. 

Customers want a smooth, simple, and fast experience. Distractions and roadblocks can prevent them from continuing their journey. You can expect more revenue, a better retention rate, and an improved bounce rate when you get this right. But remember that this is ongoing, and it takes effort to keep things running smoothly. 

Add automation 

When you incorporate automation into your onboarding, it can save you stress and improve the customer experience. This could be as simple as integrating things like chatbots. No matter what solution you choose, fine-tune as needed to get the best outcome. 

When running a business, there are many things you can automate to ensure users are engaged at all times without ditching your brand. Plus, users enjoy automated payment systems, which can play into making a better profit than you might otherwise.  

Final thoughts 

There are many reasons to prioritize a frictionless customer onboarding experience as the head of a small business. This customer journey stage is the most important since it takes interested parties and turns them into customers. Once that’s complete, repeat sales and referrals could be at your fingertips. But that will only occur if onboarding is short, clear, and manageable. 

Understanding the customer onboarding experience, thinking about ways to make it less complicated, and implementing methods to improve onboarding can offer various benefits for your business. There’s great power in a seamless and smooth onboarding process, so it’s worth putting effort into.

Learn how you can enable frictionless customer onboarding using Markaaz’s firmographic data APIs. Talk to our team to learn more.