In today's fast-paced business environment, B2B SaaS companies must maximize their profitability to remain competitive for the long term. What’s one of the major operating areas where profitability takes a back seat? Client onboarding!
Before we dig into why profitability should never take a back seat in client onboarding — and how client onboarding automation is a key driver for success — let’s set the scene for how businesses tend to separate the ideas of monetization and client onboarding.
Why Businesses Don’t See Client Onboarding as a Profit Driver
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Sales routinely discounts or downright eliminates “Setuply fees” in favor of getting a new client’s signature faster. The problem is there are often hard costs associated with getting a client up and running — and in some market sectors such as HCM, Paytech, Regtech, and Fintech — the client onboarding process could take months.
Monetization Starts When the Client Is Up and Running
A client may be migrating from another SaaS solution or adopting a new software solution. Many business deals are structured in a way that the client is not invoiced until they are marked as “Live” on the new product. See where we are going with this?
The Onboarding Project Scope Continues to Creep
Without “skin in the game” and without fully realizing the degree of work needed to get solutions up and running, clients can take their sweet time crossing the finish line. While many providers are getting better at “guard-railing” SaaS implementation, the unchecked scope creep can wreak havoc on the profitability of the deal. Here are some proactive steps you can take to get ahead of onboarding scope creep.
Meanwhile, Sales Teams Expect Their Commissions
Sales teams did their job in closing a new client deal and they expect to get paid. You can only push payouts back so far without risking the team walking. In fact, we’ve heard many cases where sales reps get so frustrated by commission delays directly resulting from implementation challenges and onboarding backlog and ultimately walk out. No one wins in this scenario.
And Where Does This All Leave Onboarding Teams?
As sales volumes increase and scope creep becomes an even bigger obstacle, client onboarding staff is more susceptible to burnout. Burnout can reach the point where, like sales reps, onboarding reps are ready to walk out. When this happens, remaining onboarding team members are left to pick up the slack and costs are directed at the recruitment and training of new onboarding staff, which further bites into profitability.
How to Make Onboarding Profitable & Keep Your Team Happy
The list of issues related to poor client onboarding practices hindering profitability impact can keep going. At the same time, businesses need to think about the mental health of their onboarding teams too.
This begs the question: How do you start to see some dollars in the door while minimizing stress for onboarding teams tasked with delivering exceptional client experiences?
One of the most effective ways to achieve this result is through client onboarding automation. When companies automate client onboarding, they can save time and resources, accelerate revenue recognition, and improve their financial health.
5 Ways An Automated Onboarding Process Drives Profitability
- Faster Onboarding Processes: Client onboarding automation can be significantly faster than manual onboarding, with sophisticated automation tools replacing the need for traditional overhead.
- Better Resource Management: While saving on labor costs, an automated onboarding process allows companies to redirect resources to higher-value activities like customer support or product management.
- Higher Customer Satisfaction: A seamless, efficient customer onboarding process can help companies win over customers at the start of a relationship and improve retention rates by 50%.
- Improved Compliance: Customer onboarding automation ensures greater consistency in the onboarding process, reducing the risk of errors and omissions that could result in costly legal and regulatory penalties.
- Faster Time-to-Value: An automated onboarding process helps clients start using a company's products or services more quickly and reduces the time to achieve first value by 34%.
When a company decides to automate client onboarding, it can help drive better margins and cash flows that are imperative not only to its financial health but also its competitive edge in the market. So if you’re not already using client onboarding automation, it’s time to start.
The good news is that you’ve already found a solution that can help. More than an automated client onboarding software, Setuply is an all-in-one client onboarding automation platform that provides the transparency, data management, integrations, communications, and AI-driven insights you need to deliver exceptional onboarding experiences in a repeatable, scalable manner. Everyone wins in this scenario.
Ready to start your journey toward client onboarding automation? Experience the next generation of client onboarding in a Setuply demo. Request yours today!