Lessons in Business Transformation

Businesses that adapt faster to the increasing pace of technology, win.

Story 1 | Automating Client Onboarding & Support

Onboarding a new client is the first time client expectations press up against the company's promise. If you oversold the solution, missed the customer requirements, or missed any opportunities to help the client adoption process, churn is certainly in your future. Although this company had improved the onboarding process significantly, the process was still heavily dependent on staff during business hours.

Challenges

Multiple systems were used to onboard and support clients leading to gaps in handoffs between departments.
Onboarding is mostly provided by staff, leading to inconsistent processes and costly onboarding per customer.
Client support is mainly phone and email leading to heavy staffing loads. Further, during system incidents, help desk, and phone support are completely overwhelmed leading to high abandon rates and low CSAT scores.

Assessment

Support and onboarding could be consolidated into a single system to improve coordination across the client lifecycle.

Further integration with CRM and marketing systems would create a single view of client interactions.

Integrated chat into the platform would provide a more real-time channel for client support.

In-app onboarding automation would provide 24-hour support for new users.

Automated and AI support could reduce live staff and provide 24-hour support for existing users.

Execution

The transition began with support ticket management.
Chat implemented in the application.
A multi-month roadmap was developed to build a new knowledge base and automated support.
Onboarding programs were converted by platform module until 70% of the onboarding experience was automated and shifted from a live staff format to an staff-supported format.

Results

55% of tickets are resolved through self-service chat.
70% of the onboarding process was automated.
Phone support was reduced by 50%.
Incident response was improved with in-app announcements and automated bulk ticket responses.
CSAT increased to greater than 90%.

Lessons

Automation doesn't mean reducing staff. It allows your staff to spend more time with clients who need help and to work on more complex issues when needed. Clients who need personal help can get it more often. Instead of reducing staff, reassign them to work on more automation while making them available to customers on demand when needed for faster response times.
Start small and build delight. The first step was to make sure the day-to-day support was transferred seamlessly. System transitions should not degrade customer service. When you have the fundamentals down, add capability slowly and continuously so that customers and staff can adapt to the change and feel continuous improvement.
Consolidate Systems. By consolidating systems, you simplify the customer experience while improving communication flow and coordination for your team.