What is Client Onboarding Software?
Client onboarding software refers to a set of tools and applications designed to streamline and automate the process of bringing new clients or customers into a business or organization.
Why Is Client Onboarding Software Important?
The onboarding process is one of the most critical sections of the overall client journey. It is vital both to the vendor and the client. This is the stage of any purchase or service agreement that is the cause for most churn, but it also presents the vendor with the opportunity to get a relationship off to a strong start.
When establishing your client onboarding processes and assembling an implementation technology stack, it’s imperative to build an experience that benefits both you as a vendor AND your newly signed client A poorly run implementation has massive consequences for both.
This software is typically used by financial institutions, professional services firms, software companies, and other businesses that require a thorough and often regulated process for onboarding clients.
Key Components of a Successful Client Onboarding Process
1. Visibility for the Entire Project Team
Visibility is the most important component of any well-run project. This means the entire project team, from executives, individual contributors, and the client, is involved and engaged in the project.
Static tools like spreadsheets don’t offer a level of visibility that works for complex and high volume projects. What ends up happening is information and data is stored in silos and transferred via email. Too many breakage points exist in the “old” way of running client onboarding projects.
On the opposite side of things, teams who adopt client onboarding software have a living and breathing system of record. This gives the entire project team a live look at where things stand, what tasks are assigned to them, and allows project managers to quickly identify bottlenecks.
Visibility is also paramount for improving the next key component: client engagement.
2. Client Engagement
Onboarding projects are collaborative by nature. After all, without a client, there would be no client onboarding. There are likely a host of different tasks assigned to your client during the process. Getting the client to complete those tasks is the only way to ensure a successful implementation.
Tasks range from document collection to integration work. When customers first switch to client onboarding software like Baton, client engagement is almost always the immediate biggest difference. This has to do with an increased level of visibility and automation.
With Baton, things like document collection are handled by native forms that automatically capture customer data and feed it directly into the project. Baton also eliminates updates by email. Clients are automatically keyed in on every detail through automated alerts and a real-time client portal.
3. Standardized and Automated Workflows
The odds are you are running multiple client onboarding projects concurrently. As project count grows, so does the administrative work. If you are using static tools like spreadsheets and emails, every new project will start with a new sheet, someone on the team will be assigned the task of setting that sheet up, and the cycle continues until the team is buried.
With a standardized workflow, implementation and onboarding teams are able to templatize their process which cuts down on project admin time and ensures a consistent experience across your entire portfolio. Consistency is key as you continue to scale your business and team.
Static tools also lack automation. So even if you are starting from a template, project administration and dual entry will still exist in your process.
The ultimate goal of any client onboarding process is to get customers successfully to go-live as quickly as possible. By eliminating dual entry and automating project administration, your team will be able to focus on driving solutions for the client.
What are the Benefits of Client Onboarding Software
Standardize Onboarding Workflows
Leading software implementation teams all have one thing in common: they have a standardized process. Every team member is working from the same project plan, systems talk to each other, and the client is involved every step of the way.
Most of these leading teams accomplish this thanks to client onboarding software. The technology you use to manage a project makes a massive difference. There is a clear a-ha moment for teams when they transfer project plans from multiple static spreadsheets into a living system.
Client onboarding software allows you to standardize your process across your entire portfolio of projects. This is the foundation for improvement. With a standardized process, you can start to make small adjustments based on data not hunches. With all of your project and resource data in a single system you can start to accelerate your process.
Accelerate Client Go-Live
By utilizing client onboarding software that can integrate with your existing systems and automate most manual tasks, teams can cut go-live times in half.
Automating the busy work allows your implementation and onboarding managers to focus on driving solutions for your clients. Part of that comes down to accelerating the amount of time it takes for your client to go live and ultimately see the value of your product.
By leveraging a system like Baton, teams can track custom metrics and monitor client health in real-time. Baton customers leverage custom metrics like time-to-launch and key dates to track the overall health of their client onboarding process and to identify bottlenecks.
With a standardized process, teams can pinpoint the exact tasks, milestones or phases that are common causes for delay. By editing processes on a template level, they accelerate the amount of time it takes to implement those changes.
Scale Your Onboarding Team and Process
Tools like spreadsheets, email, and generalized project management software can get teams by for a while. But when projects and headcount grow, those tools lead to breakage more often than not.
With project management, communication, and resource management built into one system, teams are able to scale their client onboarding process at a pace that keeps up with business growth. Tools like Baton allow teams to maintain process standardization across hundreds of concurrent projects and can be leveraged by implementation partners and internal teams alike.
Beyond that, Baton has allowed implementation teams at industry leading companies like Built to improve and scale their process to the point they are able to monetize client onboarding. The right tools can turn implementation and customer success from a cost center to a profit center.
Who Uses Client Onboarding Solutions?
Implementation and client onboarding software doesn’t just benefit your implementation team. For executives, contributors, and customers, a centralized solution will provide seamless workflows and unmatched visibility into the entire implementation process – helping teams streamline handoffs and improve collaboration.
Customer Success & Implementation Teams
This one’s obvious. CS and implementation teams will utilize implementation project management software most often. They’ll utilize the solution to communicate and set realistic expectations with customers, track project status, and report on important project- and task-level metrics.
Professional Services Teams
Professional Services teams will also be heavy users of your onboarding software. Often responsible for the technical delivery of a solution, these teams will typically utilize an onboarding tool to review project insights and audit trails to track trends, prevent delays, and proactively identify and resolve existing and potential risks and communication problems.
Sales & Revenue Teams
Your Sales & Revenue teams is typically the first point of contact a prospect speaks with when considering purchasing your product. Once a deal closes, the handoff from the AE to the implementation manager must go smoothly. Ideally, your sales team won’t ever have to access your client onboarding software because the integration with your CRM is so strong. We know how important this handoff is, which is why we’ve invested heavily in industry leading CRM integrations.
Your Clients
Successful implementations rely heavily on both internal teams and the external client who made the purchase. Your customers will utilize an implementation solution to understand role assignments, complete task assignments, share important documents, and view project status.
How These 3 Companies Utilize Client Onboarding Solutions
Built Technologies
Committed to adding new levels of efficiency to the construction finance industry, Built leverages Baton’s implementation solution to streamline processes and heighten client engagement during onboarding.
Since adoption, Baton has helped Built’s team move away from overly complex project management tools and embrace a more agile client onboarding experience that has been well received by clients.
"When looking for a tool to support Built’s Implementation team it was important to find something that not only works for Built but also for our clients. In addition, we wanted a way to have transparency to all implementation projects in flight. Baton provides this and so much more."
Sight Machine
Manufacturing data platform, Sight Machine, choose Baton’s implementation management solution to create a standardized implementation & onboarding structure.
Since using Baton, Sight Machine has been able to create reusable project templates that can be easily tailored to unique customer needs.
“When I’ve inherited another manager’s project, it’s helpful to view a history of what’s been completed and understand the current state of the project in Baton. It’s a nice checklist to go through when transitioning active projects over.”
LoadStop
Relatively new to managing software implementations, Alexander Paris, LoadStop’s Project Manager of Client Services, was in search of a simple and easy-to-use tool that could help systematize and enhance their customer experience from end to end.
After researching several solutions, Alex and the LoadStop team found the “perfect fit” with Baton.
An easy to use solution that was simple and streamlined enough to complement a small, early-stage company, yet flexible and technically powerful enough to support LoadStop through the coming stages of growth and scale.
Since implementing the Baton, LoadStop has cut implementation times from an average 2 months to 4 weeks AND reduced customer onboarding-related churn to <1%.
Is a Client Onboarding Solution Right for Your Team?
From mid-market SaaS to at-scale unicorns, the industry’s fastest-growing companies have utilized Baton’s implementation management solution to add efficiency and improve their customer experience. To learn more, download our free implementation guide or schedule a 1:1 call with a Baton implementation expert.
