USING EMAIL AS AN ONBOARDING TOOL

Having an impactful on-boarding system is one of the secrets to establishing long term customer retention. While I am an advocate of having an on-boarding system that includes a “human touch” sometimes due to time constraints and the volume of new customers, it becomes necessary to adopt e-mail as an on-boarding tool.
The following are several suggestions to help you develop your own on-boarding system:

• A welcome message should be delivered as soon as possible to a new customer. Thank them for becoming a customer and perhaps share a few of the distinctive benefits you offer.
• The second message should be an educational message. This is where you share more information on your company and all its benefits. This may be a good time to share your personal WHY also to reiterate your promise.
• Encouraging engagement is a good follow up. One way is to introduce a “fun” questionnaire or to have a demonstration video sharing some aspects of your benefits or other customer endorsements.
• There is never enough customer information collected. Reaching out to your customers to complete their profile is a great next step. Knowing more about their preferences and their personal data will help establish stronger relationships. The questions that are asked have to be in keeping with your product or service. As an example, I believe that sending birthday cards is important thus knowing the month and date is a question l would ask. Developing this part of the follow-up may take some thought and creativity.

These four ideas should form the basic structure of an on-boarding system. Please don’t send all of these the same day; spread them out over two to three weeks. Overwhelming a customer with too much e-mail may cause them to either block your e-mail or to ignore it.
After the initial on-boarding process, don’t bombard your customer with sales pitches. Always send a monthly value based newsletter to strengthen relationships not to sell your product or service. Yes, you can talk about new developments in your industry, but not as the only article in the newsletter.
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Tips & Advice by Nick Petra, CFP – Founder of Strategic Duck and BizQuack