How in depth is your plan for your kick off calls?

Your company spends thousands acquiring new customers. It’s worth spending time planning this crucial part of customer onboarding.

If you don’t, then more money needs to be spent clawing back customers from bad experiences.

This can be in the form of your time, the resources needed, executives brought in to mitigate, surprise requests for features or unnecessary changes. The list goes on.

So have a think:

• How much time have you invested in designing your kick off call process to date?

• When was the last time you critically evaluated your approach?

• What's the actual cost of a failed onboarding to your business?

This week’s project is about using best practices with some outside the box thinking.

Let’s kick it off shall we? 😏 ↓

🧪 The Project: Transform Your Kick Off Plan

Take a look at your current plan. If it’s not documented yet - do that first. Then you’ll have a clear map of the process and touch points.

Have a read through these steps and note where you could add them into the process.

Step 1: Do your prep & make a good impression

Do an internal information transfer via a solid handover from sales. If an effective handover is a pain point for your team, check out my previous project to help with that. ↓

It’s important to make a great first impression as an onboarding manager. You want to get them excited to partner with you and excited to utilise the product.

Go the extra mile and create a short video message to welcome them. It’s quick and easy and showcases your commitment before an official first conversation.

Highlight what you already know about their goals and plans (thanks to your very efficient handover process).

Ask them to let you know ahead of the call if you have missed anything vital or if they have anything to add. It starts the process without pressure and shows some personality ahead of the call.

Step 2: Plan your call

Design a structured kick off call with a precise agenda. The goal is to get everyone the same page. To make sure everyone is aligned on expectations and roles during onboarding.

Don’t make them repeat anything you should already know.

• Warm welcome & personal connection - a chance to build some rapport, find out a bit about the individuals, get your personality across. If you can avoid slide decks for introductions, it makes it feel less boring!

• Customer's specific goals and success metrics - you should have these ready to showcase and get confirmation from the customer on the accuracy.

• Implementation roadmap - with goals agreed, show them how you’ll reach them. What’s the overview, what’s needed from both sides for it to work, what are the first tasks to be completed and when? Be careful not to overwhelm the customer.

• Q&A - get confirmation on the plan of action and ask if there are any remaining questions.

• Deliver value - each interaction should deliver value to the customer. It will make them want to turn up to each and every call in future.

Highlight that the customer has already achieved milestones by confirming goals and success metrics. This helps to give momentum to the project. Read more on the psychology of that here. ↓

Step 3: Cover change management needs

One of the biggest unforeseen issues is customer communication issues. This can really derail a project.

So to mitigate this, ensure representation from both technical and executive levels are in attendance for the kick off.

Include decision-makers and key implementation stakeholders. Create a sense of mutual commitment and strategic partnership.

It is helpful to have clear goals and benefits for the different individuals to keep them engaged.

“What’s in it for them?” is good to always have in the back of your mind.

Step 4: Keep the momentum going

Follow up after the call with an easy to digest summary.

• Recap key discussion points

• Provide recorded call access

• Share any relevant documents

• Reiterate immediate next steps & deadlines

• Include contact info for continued support

It’s useful to cover the importance of completing set onboarding tasks by the agreed deadline.

Explain that it will help them progress more quickly and provide them with the fastest value.

🤓 The Analysis

The customer kick off call is an opportunity to dig deeper into the needs of the customer as well as set expectations and the tone for the ongoing partnership throughout onboarding.

Many software users groan when they are told they have a new piece of software to learn.

Be the company that makes it effortless and enjoyable. It will make you stand out from your competition every time.

By implementing these strategies, you can expect:

• Positive and energising first impressions

• Reduced time-to-value

• More predictable and smooth implementation processes

• Dramatically reduce customer churn