Customer onboarding success: Personalized video for tailored customer journeys

McKinsey & Co report, consumers are 76% more likely to purchase from brands that personalize and companies that value personalization generate 40% more revenue than those that don't.

Personalization has been shown to improve performance and give better results for customers. Personalized marketing can lower acquisition expenses by up to 50%, increase sales by 5-15%, and boost marketing returns by up to 30%.

Customers expect experiences that are fluid and suited to their individual needs and wants. This shift in customer expectations has brought a necessary element of the customer lifecycle into focus - the onboarding process.

As customers now expect more personalized content, businesses are looking for ways to improve their customer onboarding. The main goal is to make customers feel valued, understood, and catered to. Replace traditional with conventional, replace tactics with methods, and replace fits in with fits into. To do that, conventional techniques are being replaced by new, creative, and interactive methods, like personalized video.

Understanding the Onboarding Process

The onboarding process is a critical phase in the customer lifecycle. It's the first real interaction a customer has with a product or service, and it sets the tone for the entire customer lifecycle.

The significance of the onboarding process in customer retention and satisfaction cannot be overstated. It's the first step towards building a loyal customer base and plays a crucial role in driving customer success. A well-executed onboarding process can boost customer confidence, encourage product adoption, and reduce churn.

Onboarding plays one of the biggest roles in the customer journey. It's key to your customers understanding your product and deriving value from it. The process typically involves several key stages, including initial sign-up, product walkthroughs, and ongoing support, making sure that the customers are comfortable using your product or service. From step-by-step tutorials to helpful guidance, and celebrating customer milestones when using your product or service, onboarding makes customers' lives easier and sparks excitement when using your product, increasing your customer lifetime value (LTV).

Each stage of onboarding presents an opportunity to engage the customer, provide value, and build a strong relationship. Making onboarding a personalized experience is where you hook those new customers and turn them into loyal ones, showing that you care about them as your customer and that you can tailor your solution to their needs.

Data is the key spice of your personalized customer onboarding. Sprinkling those data throughout your onboarding part of the customer journey will add a personalized flavor to the experience. To make your customers' initial experience an even more personalized one and make them feel connected to your product, you can use those customer data to create unique and personalized onboarding videos.

Personalized Video in Onboarding

Video remains the top-performing marketing tool, with 91% of consumers wanting to see more video content from brands. Videos are great for quickly and compellingly explaining things, and they're often an element of successful onboarding. Including videos in the onboarding process gives you improved engagement, faster learning, building connection, and increased retention.

Onboarding videos are often used as part of a successful introduction and have proven to be quite effective when showing off products and services. Capitalizing on the effectiveness of video, and trying to meet the customer need for personalization, personalized video onboarding will get you the maximum impact.

Enhancing Customer Journeys With Personalized Video

From the initial sign-up process to product walkthroughs, personalized videos can deliver tailored content that resonates with the customer. Use it to create a more engaging and interactive experience, boost customer satisfaction and retention, and build trust.

A personalized video that addresses the customer by name and provides product/service recommendations based on their preferences creates a more engaging and enjoyable experience. Here's how you capture the customer's attention, using personalized video on various stages of onboarding.

Greeting Message

Make the welcome email more welcoming with a personalized video. Put the viewer's name and other details in it. A welcome video can make a great first impression and set the tone for onboarding.

Setup

Use personalized tutorials to show users the main features and capabilities of your product or service. Make them feel special by taking the time to walk them through it. This will create a strong bond between your product/service and the user.

Demo & Training

Show customers how your product or service can help them achieve their goals with personalized service. Give them a walkthrough of the product or give detailed instructions that are tailored for them.

First "Transaction" or "Interaction"

Thank your customers for taking action. Send them a personalized video as they take the first step in using your product/service, to support and reinforce their action.

Support & FAQ

Use personalized videos to deal with typical issues and frequently asked questions, to cut down the necessity for customer service intervention.

Milestone Celebrations

Use personalized video to build excitement around your product or service. Celebrate customers' successes in milestones and point out the benefits of your product/service.

Personalized videos can be introduced at any part of the customer onboarding journey. This level of personalization can significantly improve the customer journey, leading to higher engagement and satisfaction.

In customer onboarding, video personalization is a strong tool. It can simplify complex information, making it easier for customers to understand and use a product or service. It can also create a more engaging and satisfying experience, which can boost customer satisfaction and retention.

Here's What You Can Expect in Using Personalized Video for Your Onboarding Process

Introducing personalized video into your onboarding process will transform customer experience and results. By providing tailored onboarding, you can create a more interactive, engaging, and productive experience for your new customers.

With personalized video, customers have an experience that is tailored to their specific needs and interests. This encourages them to engage with your business in a more meaningful way. The end result is an onboarding process that is faster, more efficient, and more impactful. These are some of the benefits:

Higher Customer Satisfaction

Customers appreciate feeling valued and understood. Personalized videos show your customer that they're important, and that you’re willing to invest the time and effort in helping them along the path to achieving their goals.

Increased Product/Service Adoption

Personalized videos give customers a sense of comfort and familiarity while introducing them to your product or service. They can be a great tool for success, making customers more comfortable on their onboarding journey.

Reduced Churn

Personalized video makes customers feel welcomed, valued, and appreciated. It also helps build a connection between them and your brand, making them less likely to cancel or switch to a competitor.

More Referrals

Happy customers are more likely to tell others about their great experience with your company. This tracks down to more referrals and more positive testimonials which boost brand awareness and credibility.

Cost and Time Savings

With personalized video, you can save cost and time from customer support and training, reducing the need for 1-on-1 onboarding and replacing them with videos that speak 1-on-1 to the customer.

The versatility and effectiveness of personalized video in the onboarding process transform the onboarding experience. Personalized videos can create a warm and inviting atmosphere, provide valuable information, and foster a sense of community and connection. Packed with practical information and helpful tips, personalized videos are proven to deliver a practical and positive onboarding experience.

Overcoming Customer Pain Points with Personalized Video

In the crucial early stages of a customer's journey, the onboarding process can often feel impersonal, confusing, or even frustrating. Common pain points such as a lack of personalization, poor customer support, and inefficient communication can hinder a customer's initial experience with a product or service. However, personalized video transforms the customer journey, directly addressing and mitigating these common pain points.

Personal Touch: Addressing Lack of Personalization

In a world of generic, one-size-fits-all experiences, customers yearn for a personal touch during their onboarding journey. This is where personalized videos shine. SpareBank 1 Kreditt, demonstrated the power of personalized video during their onboarding campaign. The videos were tailored to each customer, providing clear instructions on responsible credit card use. This personal touch resulted in increased engagement and positive customer feedback.

Similarly, Ahlsell, the Nordic region market leader in installation products, created an engaging onboarding campaign that welcomed new customers by name and highlighted how Ahlsell could help them work more efficiently. This direct, personal approach led to a remarkable 53% click-through rate.

Enhancing the Service: Tackling Poor Customer Support

When customers face challenges or issues, prompt and effective customer support is crucial. Personalized videos offer an innovative solution, transforming traditional, often impersonal support channels into interactive, personalized experiences. By replacing text-heavy FAQs or guides with engaging videos tailored to the customer's issue, businesses can not only enhance the effectiveness of their support but also build stronger relationships with their customers.

Streamlining the Flow: Overcoming Inefficient Communication

One of the major hurdles during onboarding is inefficient or confusing communication. Personalized videos can break down these barriers, providing clear and concise information directly relevant to the customer. For instance, Norwegian spa-bath manufacturer Mspa, leveraged personalized video to offer practical tips and information upon order completion, simplifying the onboarding process and achieving a 92% net reach.

Amplifying the Voice: Encouraging Customer Feedback and Advocacy

Customer feedback is a vital part of refining the onboarding process and addressing any challenges that customers or members may encounter. Personalized video can facilitate the collection of this feedback in an engaging and interactive manner. The political party, Arbeiderpartiet, sends a personalized video message from their party leader to each new member, fostering a sense of community and prompting feedback and sharing.

Through personalized video, businesses can directly address the common pain points in customer onboarding, transforming the process from a potential obstacle into an engaging, personalized journey that drives customer satisfaction and business growth.

The Customer Journey: Personalized Video and Beyond

We're beginning to see more companies catering to their customers by providing personalized video tailored to the customer's individual journey. By leveraging advances in tech, businesses can customize their videos to show consumers the best and most relevant high-end products. Data-driven video marketing can boost engagement and drive more conversions by providing insights into who is viewing the content.

As we look toward the future, it's clear that customer onboarding is set to become even more sophisticated, with personalized video being just the tip of the iceberg. By investing in technology to power customer segmentation, marketing automation, and data-driven video marketing, businesses can provide up-to-date, relevant service and ensure their customers reach the end of the customer journey satisfied.

Upselling, Cross-Selling, Win-Back Campaigns, and More

Personalized video can play a significant role in upselling, cross-selling, and win-back campaigns. By delivering tailored content that highlights additional products or services that a customer might find valuable, businesses can encourage customers to make additional purchases, thereby increasing customer retention and lifetime value.

For instance, a personalized video could highlight the benefits of upgrading to a premium version of a product or service, effectively upselling the customer. Similarly, personalized videos can be used to cross-sell related products or services, or to win back customers who may have churned.

Leveraging CRM Data In Personalized Video

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data is a goldmine of information that can be leveraged to create highly personalized video content. CRM data can provide insights into a customer's behavior, preferences, and interaction history, which can be used to tailor the content of the video to the individual customer.

For example, a personalized video for a customer who frequently purchases a particular product could include a demonstration of a new feature of that product. Similarly, a personalized video for a customer who has recently contacted customer support could include a solution to their specific issue.

By leveraging CRM data in personalized video, businesses can create content that is highly relevant and engaging, enhancing the customer journey and driving customer satisfaction and retention. As we move into the future, the use of CRM data in personalized video is likely to become an increasingly important part of the customer onboarding process.

Closing Thoughts

The customer onboarding process is a critical phase in the customer lifecycle, and personalization plays a pivotal role in its success. Personalized video has emerged as a powerful tool in enhancing the onboarding process, providing a unique blend of personalization and visual storytelling that resonates with customers.

From the initial sign-up process to product walkthroughs and ongoing support, personalized video can enhance every stage of the customer journey. It can address and alleviate common customer pain points, provide effective product demonstrations, and foster customer advocacy.

Moreover, the future of customer onboarding looks promising, with advancements in video personalization, marketing automation, and data-driven video marketing. Personalized video can play a significant role in upselling, cross-selling, and win-back campaigns; and CRM data can be leveraged to create highly personalized video content.

In essence, personalized video is not just a trend but a powerful strategy that can transform the customer onboarding process. As businesses continue to navigate the evolving landscape of customer experience, the use of personalized video in the onboarding process will undoubtedly become increasingly important.

Key takeaways

🎯 Personalization, particularly through personalized video, plays a crucial role in enhancing the customer onboarding process, improving customer retention and satisfaction.

🛠️ By addressing common customer pain points, personalized video can make the onboarding process smoother and more enjoyable.

📹 Personalized video can be used effectively for product demonstrations and customer support, providing clear and engaging solutions to customer issues.

🎥 Personalized video can enhance every stage of the customer journey, from the initial sign-up process to product walkthroughs and ongoing support.

📣 Customer feedback is vital in refining the onboarding process, and personalized video can foster customer advocacy, turning satisfied customers into brand advocates.

🚀 The future of customer onboarding will see an increased focus on video personalization, marketing automation, and data-driven video marketing, with personalized video playing a significant role in upselling, cross-selling, and win-back campaigns.

📊 CRM data can be leveraged to create highly personalized video content, enhancing the customer journey and driving customer satisfaction and retention.