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Onboarding Matters: How Successful Companies Transform New Customers Into Loyal Champions
New! Onboarding Matters just received two awards for Best New Non-Fiction and Distinguished Favorite for Business Entrepreneurship and Small Business.
If you don’t have a customer onboarding plan set up for your business, you’re losing customers and burning future revenues. It’s as simple as that. Onboarding is the most important part of the customer journey, yet many B2B companies fail to act proactively at the start of the relationship. Instead, Customer Success teams are stuck making heroic efforts to save accounts and fighting fires when customers inevitably run into problems or get stuck. The reactive approach is a problem for your Customer Success teams, your revenues, and your customers. Customer onboarding matters. More than you may think. A successful customer onboarding program results in more satisfied customer and employees, higher solution adoption, and increased customer lifetime value. In Onboarding Matters, Donna Weber shares the Orchestrated Onboarding™ framework that she implements with leading B2B companies to turn onboarding from a missed opportunity into a competitive advantage. "Onboarding Matters provides an impactful framework as well as practical tips and valuable resources to perfect the art and science of a superior onboarding process. It's a must read for anyone who cares about Customer Success."
~ Ashvin Vaidyanathan, Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight "Onboarding Matters, by Donna Weber, is the leading guide for anyone seeking to create a high-impact onboarding program. The book is a step-by-step blueprint for orchestrating Customer Success from day one. I always say that customer onboarding is the beginning of churn or success, and Donna’s book takes you through the why and the how. A must-read with clear examples and resources to apply to your organization."
~ Emilia D’Anzica, Founder, Growth Molecules Buy this book today and use its practical guidance and detailed templates to start building your own customer onboarding practice.
If you don’t have a customer onboarding plan set up for your business, you’re losing customers and burning future revenues. It’s as simple as that. Onboarding is the most important part of the customer journey, yet many B2B companies fail to act proactively at the start of the relationship. Instead, Customer Success teams are stuck making heroic efforts to save accounts and fighting fires when customers inevitably run into problems or get stuck. The reactive approach is a problem for your Customer Success teams, your revenues, and your customers. Customer onboarding matters. More than you may think. A successful customer onboarding program results in more satisfied customer and employees, higher solution adoption, and increased customer lifetime value. In Onboarding Matters, Donna Weber shares the Orchestrated Onboarding™ framework that she implements with leading B2B companies to turn onboarding from a missed opportunity into a competitive advantage. "Onboarding Matters provides an impactful framework as well as practical tips and valuable resources to perfect the art and science of a superior onboarding process. It's a must read for anyone who cares about Customer Success."
~ Ashvin Vaidyanathan, Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight "Onboarding Matters, by Donna Weber, is the leading guide for anyone seeking to create a high-impact onboarding program. The book is a step-by-step blueprint for orchestrating Customer Success from day one. I always say that customer onboarding is the beginning of churn or success, and Donna’s book takes you through the why and the how. A must-read with clear examples and resources to apply to your organization."
~ Emilia D’Anzica, Founder, Growth Molecules Buy this book today and use its practical guidance and detailed templates to start building your own customer onboarding practice.
- GenresBusinessNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
Published May 4, 2021
145 people are currently reading
397 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 10, 2021
Donna Weber’s new book Onboarding Matters is a comprehensive, overtly detailed walkthrough of the umbrella term and everything it entails, aided by Weber’s own, veteran experience with implementing such strategy for startups and established business enterprises across the country. As she expertly articulates within Onboarding Matters’ pages, it’s clear the titular philosophical steps are part of the greater fabric of post-modernist principles concerning leadership, industry, and consumerism. There’s been something of a paradigm shift in roughly the last ten years, a complete and total overhaul of traditionalist pragmatic strategy into something arguably more wholesome and, statistically speaking, more effective in a post-economic crisis landscape. Considering the massive sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and cultural shifts in public perception regarding the American corporation, accompanied by the acute and seismic strides in technological innovation, Weber’s promotion of ‘Customer Onboarding’ proves itself more than a necessity. Take into account the chameleonic fluctuations and emergences of unexpected competition, the question lucratively-speaking becoming divided between not just superior quality of product, but simultaneously superior longevity of said product. Add to that the various, intrapsychic building blocks that can predict consumer purchase choice and one finds themselves desperately in need of an elaborate schemata for all the information. Weber provides this courtesy of her new book, complete with three, extensive breakdowns of chapter information, with sixteen total chapters overall.
One of the chapters I would single out as the spine of the book’s contents is the tenth, entitled Design Thinking Principles. “While some companies jump on the Customer Success bandwagon with amazing speed, most ignore their customers,” Weber writes. “It seems many teams are too busy planning and managing to consider their customers. The problem is you can’t innovate without understanding your customers. Listening and empathizing, or using design thinking, are essential principles of the Orchestrated Onboarding framework, that will put you on the fast track to improving your company, selling your products, and to leading your customers to successful outcomes.” Sandwiched between two of the beginning paragraphs, like some sort of formalized branding, are the words: ‘Whoever understands the customer best, wins’. Breaking down design thinking, the tenets Weber highlights are the following: Implement, Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and ultimately Test. What makes the formulas she showcases so effective is the almost mathematical, scientific method-like precision. The systematic breaking down of steps, articulated in clear, concise labelling that anyone can fully comprehend. The result makes the christened ‘Design Thinking Principles’ seemingly undeniable in their effectiveness, as statistically they have proven effective as much as they are synonymous with the building blocks of the old-fashioned, colloquial ‘common sense’.
If not the premier corporate strategy guide, Donna Weber’s Onboarding Matters is definitely one of them. It’s concise and straight-shooting with the critical information it provides…
One of the chapters I would single out as the spine of the book’s contents is the tenth, entitled Design Thinking Principles. “While some companies jump on the Customer Success bandwagon with amazing speed, most ignore their customers,” Weber writes. “It seems many teams are too busy planning and managing to consider their customers. The problem is you can’t innovate without understanding your customers. Listening and empathizing, or using design thinking, are essential principles of the Orchestrated Onboarding framework, that will put you on the fast track to improving your company, selling your products, and to leading your customers to successful outcomes.” Sandwiched between two of the beginning paragraphs, like some sort of formalized branding, are the words: ‘Whoever understands the customer best, wins’. Breaking down design thinking, the tenets Weber highlights are the following: Implement, Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and ultimately Test. What makes the formulas she showcases so effective is the almost mathematical, scientific method-like precision. The systematic breaking down of steps, articulated in clear, concise labelling that anyone can fully comprehend. The result makes the christened ‘Design Thinking Principles’ seemingly undeniable in their effectiveness, as statistically they have proven effective as much as they are synonymous with the building blocks of the old-fashioned, colloquial ‘common sense’.
If not the premier corporate strategy guide, Donna Weber’s Onboarding Matters is definitely one of them. It’s concise and straight-shooting with the critical information it provides…
April 24, 2021
Weber’s Onboarding Matters provides a clear step-by-step process of how to successfully onboard new clients. As she states, onboarding is the most crucial step to build strong and successful relationships, and I couldn’t agree more. Lower engagement, missed milestones, and longer time to value on specific metrics, just to cite a few points, can be linked to poor onboarding, which in turn leads to churn.
The author introduces six essential stages for successful onboarding. However, given that customer success can look quite different from industry to industry and business to business, not all of the actionable points need to be implemented. Different teams can incorporate and marry different actions that presently exist in their org.
And in order to do this, the author poses critical thinking questions and steps for further action at the end of each chapter. She pushes for critical thinking and discussions, which in turn provide a clear direction for the teams to take. Even when the answer and next steps seem clear, the questions / action points are a shortcut to success based on the accumulated knowledge, experience, and trial and error of the various trainings conducted by the author.
In short, if customers are not wildly successful, they will opt for other solutions when it comes time to renew. Best practices with onboarding provide a greater surety that that this does not occur.
The author introduces six essential stages for successful onboarding. However, given that customer success can look quite different from industry to industry and business to business, not all of the actionable points need to be implemented. Different teams can incorporate and marry different actions that presently exist in their org.
And in order to do this, the author poses critical thinking questions and steps for further action at the end of each chapter. She pushes for critical thinking and discussions, which in turn provide a clear direction for the teams to take. Even when the answer and next steps seem clear, the questions / action points are a shortcut to success based on the accumulated knowledge, experience, and trial and error of the various trainings conducted by the author.
In short, if customers are not wildly successful, they will opt for other solutions when it comes time to renew. Best practices with onboarding provide a greater surety that that this does not occur.
March 18, 2022
An Invaluable Onboarding Resource
This book is extremely insightful and has helped me understand onboarding live never before. The step-by-step onboarding process as well as the principles shared for successful onboarding, proved invaluable to me.
If you could only read one book about onboarding, make it this one. You will not be sorry!
This book is extremely insightful and has helped me understand onboarding live never before. The step-by-step onboarding process as well as the principles shared for successful onboarding, proved invaluable to me.
If you could only read one book about onboarding, make it this one. You will not be sorry!
December 8, 2021
Really great overview of the Customer Journey in SaaS companies. Weber thinks about what works today, but more importantly, what's going to work in the future and as a start-up grows exponentially. More business leaders need to read this book and implement its recommendations.
August 24, 2021
Donna gets to the heart of the importance of not only onboarding a customer correctly, but maintaining the relationship. If you have customers or work with customers, this is a must read.
February 4, 2024
Extremely solid framework presented by Weber. Seems like this book is a little bland at first but then you read the entire thing and come to realize that it’s a true diamond in the rough.
This is a book about how to grow a company responsibly. Management that fails to implement a solid onboarding process leak customers for no good reason at all. Weber paints pictures clearly for any reader & guides you through the weeds of customer retention to the promise land. She leaves you confident that you can enact change at your org & that however this change takes place—as long as you have this loose framework in place and keep working at it based around your customers needs, you’re way ahead of the game. This book definitely inspired me to step it up—almost all churn can be prevented. So do the work.
It’s I think more formally geared towards people at larger (Series A +) software or tech companies to help their customer teams reduce churn & more generally teach them how to champion their customers, but its really should be required reading for anyone who is post-seed.
Onboarding is where it all begins—you have one shot to make it go right. If it doesn’t go perfectly, you just increase the odds of churn by ALOT! Good news is it’s all manageable, and Weber teaches you how.
Read to Retain!!!
This is a book about how to grow a company responsibly. Management that fails to implement a solid onboarding process leak customers for no good reason at all. Weber paints pictures clearly for any reader & guides you through the weeds of customer retention to the promise land. She leaves you confident that you can enact change at your org & that however this change takes place—as long as you have this loose framework in place and keep working at it based around your customers needs, you’re way ahead of the game. This book definitely inspired me to step it up—almost all churn can be prevented. So do the work.
It’s I think more formally geared towards people at larger (Series A +) software or tech companies to help their customer teams reduce churn & more generally teach them how to champion their customers, but its really should be required reading for anyone who is post-seed.
Onboarding is where it all begins—you have one shot to make it go right. If it doesn’t go perfectly, you just increase the odds of churn by ALOT! Good news is it’s all manageable, and Weber teaches you how.
Read to Retain!!!
May 5, 2022
This is the quintessential book for turning a new customer into a client that will bring in more business. The fact is it will cost your business more money to try to acquire a customer versus retaining your clients. Donna Weber is the world's leading expert in customer onboarding, and her orchestrated onboarding framework works brilliantly for both products or services. I have read this book and taken notes on it. It is truly eye opening and is a great tool kit for you to help you to truly get your customer to be a client that will champion your business.
August 17, 2022
I like the simplicity of the book. The framework breaks down the complex process of onboarding into stages and helps one visualise through purpose and journey through that. A must read for folks in Customer Success!
Read
July 7, 2021Got boring.
July 18, 2022
Handbook for anyone who is in CS Space. Industries are struggling to have a framework for onboarding and leaders can rely on this book to create a framework.
August 26, 2022
Great easily read book with suggestions for how to do this.
October 28, 2022
Read it in one sitting. Packed full of good information!
Read
November 9, 2022Loved. Great ideas, very actionable. Looking forward to implementing some of these.
February 4, 2023
This was better than most business books. But for being under 200 pages, it was still boring enough to take forever to read.
February 3, 2024
Great for what it does. Looking forward to working through it more slowly, especially all the areas where it talks about establishing KPIs.
December 28, 2024
It's good, but would be better if it also talked through what a CSM program could look like if customer doesn't take the premium package, like how do you manage that...?
May 2, 2022
Good book the first time through. It will be interesting to revisit after implementing.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews