At ZoomInfo, we’re devoted to offering a seamless and efficient onboarding expertise for our prospects. Through the years, as our merchandise grew to become extra advanced and our prospects’ wants shifted, we acknowledged that our buyer onboarding wanted an overhaul.
So our Buyer Onboarding, Implementation, and Coaching crew set to work, leveraging buyer knowledge, suggestions, and trade finest practices to rebuild our onboarding expertise. The end result: a recent, consultative strategy that locations the client squarely on the middle of our operations.
“Our funding in know-how, sources, and the crew’s potential to adapt has made us extremely customer-focused,” says Mary Iapicca, senior director of Buyer Onboarding, Implementation & Coaching.
This funding has been acknowledged with Rocketlane’s Golden Comet award for Finest Buyer Onboarding Crew of 2024. Listed here are a couple of of the important thing initiatives we’ve carried out which have considerably enhanced our onboarding course of.
1. Customized Onboarding Fashions
One of the vital vital modifications we made is the usage of personalised onboarding fashions. Beforehand, each buyer acquired the identical onboarding expertise, no matter their degree of funding or crew measurement.
Underneath the outdated mannequin, our Onboarding crew assisted a mean of 5,000 prospects on a rolling 90-day foundation, together with new enterprise acquisitions, renewals, and upsells, with every onboarding supervisor liable for 150 prospects. This one-size-fits-all mannequin didn’t have a lot customization, and for purchasers that didn’t have time to spend on calls, it wasn’t at all times helpful.
Now, we meet our prospects the place they’re and cater to their particular wants and tempo of studying. Our new expertise fashions vary from an autonomous to a extremely personalised, one-to-one strategy.
2. Enhanced Self-Service Assets
Launching this new personalization and digital-focused expertise meant that we would have liked to beef up our self-service sources as nicely. The Onboarding crew labored carefully with our product crew to make it possible for a extra autonomous strategy didn’t imply a compromise in high quality sources.
We now provide complete, self-serviced academic sources, together with movies and articles, that may be simply filtered and searched. Iapicca compares the brand new onboarding expertise to buying at Amazon versus a brick-and-mortar retailer that solely retains sure hours and has restricted stock.
“Procuring at a little bit boutique could be a actually cool expertise, however it’s important to look ahead to one particular person to reply your questions, they usually might not have what you’re on the lookout for. However I can go to Amazon at 3 within the morning and discover precisely what I would like, as a result of I already know what I would like,” she says. “It’s about assembly the client the place they’re and offering the expertise that provides essentially the most worth.”
These improved sources be sure that prospects have entry to complete and user-friendly supplies to evaluation and study at any time.
3. Prolonged and Unified Assist
To scale back buyer confusion and enhance assist, we mixed our buyer onboarding and adoption capabilities right into a single function. We additionally prolonged the onboarding interval from 30 to 90 days.
The 90-day interval focuses on 4 key components: planning, technical implementation, schooling, and adoption. Within the first 30 days, prospects concentrate on planning, technical setup, and schooling, setting the inspiration for a profitable onboarding journey. This preliminary stage features a kickoff name, system integration led by Technical Implementation Managers, and tailor-made coaching classes.
The ultimate 60 days are devoted to driving product adoption, which is essential for worth realization and buyer retention. This structured strategy ensures prospects obtain complete assist to maximise their funding and foster long-term success.
“Forrester knowledge reveals that the success of a buyer and your potential to retain them is predicated on how nicely you onboard them, so we actually needed to present them that devoted consideration for 90 days,” Iapicca says. “And increasing the onboarding interval doesn’t imply there received’t be worth shortly. It means that you’ve got a devoted rep that can provide help to for everything of your onboarding journey.”
That Forrester report Iapicca references states that poor buyer onboarding is the No. 1 cause for buyer churn.
4. Streamlined Handoffs and Collaboration
Bettering inside collaboration and streamlining handoffs between ZoomInfo’s onboarding and buyer success groups has been essential in enhancing buyer satisfaction. Traditionally, we had a number of groups liable for separate elements of the onboarding course of. When prospects have been handed off to different groups with out clear communication and path of who can tackle which points and desires, confusion was certain to occur.
“We’ve added much more collaboration between the first capabilities and labored with gross sales on our handoffs,” Iapicca says. “With these efforts, we’ve seen fewer escalations, which happens when a buyer situation can’t be resolved with out supervisor intervention, and fewer buyer confusion on the place to go to get assist.”
5. Inner Purchase-In
From govt management to the onboarding crew and the gross sales crew, inside assist is what made this transition each attainable and efficient.
“The funding that our firm has put into buyer onboarding is nice,” Iapicca mentioned. “I’ve had a fairly huge berth of doing what I believe is finest primarily based on trade finest practices, and it has been supported 100% of the way in which.”
We additionally carried out an 18-week enablement program for our onboarding managers, an intensive course that teaches managers the right way to present tailor-made recommendation and assist. The crew’s dedication to our prospects was instantly evident.
“It’s not about checking the field; it’s in regards to the buyer seeing worth and being profitable,” Iapicca says.
6. Measuring Success
We’re thrilled with the modifications that we made, however we would have liked arduous proof to make sure that we made the suitable determination for our prospects. We monitor particular person and team-based metrics that spotlight effectivity and high quality, and we’ve seen success within the following areas:
- Buyer Satisfaction (CSAT): Within the first six months of implementing our new program, we noticed a 25% enchancment in buyer satisfaction.
- Time to Worth: Kickoff calls are accomplished inside 10 enterprise days of the contract begin date, which means our prospects are instantly proven the worth of ZoomInfo.
- Buyer Onboarding Well being Rating: Based mostly on assembly important onboarding milestones, pulse surveys outcomes from the client, and product adoption persistently exceeding 80%.
- Adoption Objectives: Our analytics crew took a deep dive into product adoption, focusing not solely on what seemingly results in buyer renewals, but additionally which utilization developments make sure the buyer will get essentially the most worth. The primary-tier metrics we concentrate on:
- Provisioned customers exceeding 80%
- Energetic customers surpassing 70%
- CRM connectivity reaching 85%
- Significant exercise exceeding 60%
- Energy customers comprising greater than 55%
Along with metrics, we vastly worth buyer suggestions. That’s why the experiences of shoppers like Mark Hoxie, a principal marketing consultant at Finomation, are so validating for the crew.
“Our onboarding supervisor held an exceptional kickoff name, and we’re actually wanting ahead to working together with her all through onboarding,” Hoxie says. “As know-how companions, we’ve been part of numerous kickoff calls, and these have been nice! We actually recognize the general course of up to now, accolades to the oldsters designing the onboarding program as nicely.”
Continued Funding
Rocketlane, a frontrunner in onboarding {and professional} providers know-how, acknowledged ZoomInfo for our progressive and efficient onboarding practices. Iapicca, who has collaborated with Rocketlane at their annual convention for the previous two years, is a giant fan.
“They transcend the function of mere vendor and as an alternative turn out to be a strategic market companion and chief to their prospects,“ Iapicca says. “Receiving this award underscores the distinctive quantity and high quality of onboarding we handle.”
We’re proud that our dedication to refining the onboarding course of has earned us this award, however extra importantly, has strengthened {our relationships} with our prospects. We’re excited to proceed constructing on these enhancements and stay up for delivering even higher worth to our prospects sooner or later.
