While it may seem like everything is gradually getting automated around us, humans still crave a personal connection. That’s why personal customer support is still a requirement despite the intelligent technology that’s fully equipped to deal with menial support tasks.
However, we can’t ignore the agility and ease provided by automation in customer support, especially in terms of user onboarding. As a business, your aim is to offer your customers the easiest way to familiarize themselves with your service or new product.
Although useful, automation can only do so much. At some point in time, you’ll need to bring in personal onboarding support. But when and how? Below, we answer these questions and explain the need for personal support when automation poses limitations.
What Is User Onboarding?
First off, let’s begin with a brief introduction to user onboarding. Simply put, it refers to the introduction of new users to a product, helping them use it to its full potential.
When done right, user onboarding can turn your customers into advocates who would spread the good word about your business. If done poorly, you’ll end up losing a customer.
ProfitWell researched about 500 software products and found that customers who perceive their onboarding experience positively are less likely to leave in the first three weeks of using a product.
Moreover, the research showed that customers who have a positive onboarding experience have a 21% higher likelihood of paying for a mobile app.
So it’s safe to say that positive onboarding is good for the financial side of your business as well as the acquisition strategy.
Components Of an Effective Onboarding Strategy
For your user onboarding strategy to be effective, it must be a blend of automation and personal support. In today’s time, mobile user onboarding is a necessity, regardless of your industry.
Apple is known for the saying, ‘there’s an app for that.’ The saying actually shows why user retention on mobile apps is so difficult. With millions of apps, it’s quite tricky to convince people to use your app for their needs.
Here’s a breakdown of the must-have components in your onboarding strategy.
A Straightforward Sign-up Form
The first step of app onboarding is collecting the user’s information. Of course, you’d like to get as much information about the customer as possible, but it’s better to keep things simple because most users don’t tolerate long, extensive sign-up forms.
People want the sign-up process to be simple and quick. Also, they don’t want to share a lot of information during the initial steps.
Even better, give the users an option to sign up with their existing accounts, such as Google or Facebook. Research shows that offering your customers this option raises the sign-up rate by 8.5%.
Welcome Message
Once a customer begins their onboarding journey, you should send them a welcome message. A study found that 74% of the people who sign up want to immediately receive a welcome message.
58% of the millennial users prefer being contacted via email, so that’s where most companies greet them. The message should make the customers feel welcome and understood. Plus, you can also give them an incentive to stay.
For instance, a cab-hailing service could give a 50% off the first three rides or a shopping app could offer free delivery for the first order.
Clear Tutorial
When the users open your app, a tutorial should pop up, teaching them how to get the most out of it. However, make sure the tutorial is skippable since some users do not want to watch the tutorial.
72% of the users prefer video tutorials to learn about a service or a product. So, it’s better to opt for a video guide, just like the one Uber has for onboarding its drivers on the app.
Alternatively, you can have a knowledge base on your app. Again, it must be skippable because not everyone wants to read the long guides and manuals.
Experience Tailoring
Following the tutorial, you should have a couple of questions to optimize the user experience. Suppose you’re creating an onboarding experience for a fitness app.
Ask the users questions about their weight, preferred exercise routines, equipment availability, etc. Based on their answers, you can optimize the fitness recommendations or workouts in the app.
Benefits Of Automation In Customer Support
A component of the onboarding process is customer support. Automation offers a quick solution to your customers, shortening the wait time that often drives users away.
Here are some perks of using automated customer support during onboarding:
Minimized Human Error
Since automation eliminates human error, it’s a remarkable way to ensure that your customers get a seamless experience every single time. Additionally, automation compensates for futile effort and idleness.
Saves Time and Energy
Your workforce is an asset that you must spend on for the betterment of your organization. If they’re busy typing out repetitive responses for hours every day, they’re practically wasting their potential.
Instead, these employees should be doing other tasks that are more fruitful for business while the repetitive responses are managed by the automation tool.
Millennials Embrace Automation
More importantly, you should consider the fact that the customer pool has changed now. Millennials are more likely to embrace automation as compared to their older counterparts.
Therefore, your app should be resourceful enough for the users to be comfortable using it.
Shortcomings Of Automation In Onboarding
When it comes to building business relationships, personal support is imperative because automation cannot be a solution for every problem your customers face.
Lack of Human Approach
Even with technology taking over most aspects of our lives, people require empathy - a quality lacking in automation tools. Customers want an emotional bond with your brand, and that’s something they can only get through personal support.
Complex Issues
While automation may be helpful in providing support for everyday, minor problems, customers need a human conversation to resolve complex problems. Chatbots can help your customers with problems like billing, product types, and purchases.
However, some issues are more complicated, and customers need a human agent to discuss, understand, and solve them.
How to Automate Customer Support Successfully?
You can avoid the pitfalls in customer support by coupling automation with human support. While personal support is imperative in some cases, a customer support automation tool can simplify the process immensely.
For instance, HelpSpace is a tool that lets you enhance and simplify your customer support since messages from all channels come to a single inbox. For quick and efficient responses, you can change the message status, reply to it instantly, or assign an agent.
If a customer has had a bad experience, 30% of them will tell you, 50% will share it with their buddies, 14% will tweet about it, while 15% will offer feedback on a third-party rating site, like Trustpilot.
On the other hand, if they’ve had a good experience, they’ll tell about 11 people on average. As a business, you need all the positive publicity you can get through word-of-mouth. Thus, human interaction in customer support is very important.
For that, the helpdesk needs to be designed accordingly. It should serve the customers well without taking any additional physical or financial toll on your business.
Here are some useful tips:
Automate Smartly
The golden rule of customer support and onboarding automation is not to automate everything. While a first-time user might need the chatbot, a repeated customer has no need for it.
Plus, there are some issues that can only be resolved by human agents, so you must leave room for that.
Integrate the Processes
Make sure the automation channels are connected so that your customers do not have to repeat themselves multiple times.
Instead, the automation processes should be integrated with human representatives as well as with other automation channels for a stellar customer experience.
Human Team Matters
As a business, you should cherish your customer support staff. Don’t replace them with chatbots completely. Instead, give your customers an option to choose since some users prefer empathy and a personal feel over automated responses.
Moreover, when issues get complex beyond the scope of automation, the human representatives should act as technology’s backup.
Act-On Feedback
It’s hard to devise a one-fits-all model for customer support. However, you can almost perfect your onboarding strategy by getting feedback from your customers.
If you want to implement a change on a new feature, test it gradually. Release it in small segments and assess the customer response before making the change app-wide.
Getting feedback helps in two ways. One, it gives you insight into what customers want from you and tells you if they’re satisfied with your customer support. Two, it makes them feel heard, increasing their trust in your brand.
Final Words
To wrap up, it can be comfortably said that as much as consumers love getting quick, automated support, some problems still require them to approach the helpdesk and talk to a human representative.
Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
