Effectively Onboarding Your SIP Trunk Customers
By now, most resellers know the value of SIP with the right SIP Trunk reseller platform — even your target consumers have grasped the importance of modernizing their business communications. The ongoing problem many face today isn’t conveying the power of Session Initiation Protocol. It’s combating the lack of efficiency in onboarding to ensure SIP Trunk customers are using the technology to its maximum potential.
This is the problem for most industries leveraging incredibly advanced and powerful tools in technology. According to research, 88% of businesses do not conduct adequate onboarding, despite a revenue increase for 78% of those that do.
Customers that get the complete overview of SIP trunk onboarding are set up for success and equipped with the knowledge and expertise they need to leverage SIP. It’s up to you to ensure they get it.
So, what are the keys to a great customer experience that will allow your customers to get up and running? We’ve got the inside scoop, including important onboarding dos and don’ts.
What Does Successful Onboarding Look Like?
Before we get into what you should and shouldn’t do when onboarding new customers, let’s discuss what successful onboarding looks like for your SIP Trunk customers:
- They leave onboarding feeling more confident about what they can achieve with SIP
- They have a basic understanding of how SIP works and its valuable place in their business
- They are smoothly acclimated into the new technology and aware of how to take full advantage of SIP communications
- They’ve had important questions and concerns they may have had about the technology answered in full
- They are familiar with all their service options, such as potential add-ons that could increase the value of their workday
Remember that you, as the reseller, are not alone in this. The SIP services may be under your brand, but if you don’t know the answers to customer questions and issues regarding SIP during or after onboarding your customers, you don’t have to approach the topic alone.
If you don’t feel confident in the education you can offer your customers, the right SIP services platform will have a specialized support team to back you throughout your SIP reselling journey.
This includes guiding you through the necessary steps to onboard your customers effectively. Now that we know the goal, let’s take a look at the steps you’ll need to get there.
Steps to Onboard a Customer: From Foundations to Follow-up
To effectively onboard your SIP Trunk customers, it’s necessary to provide support during three crucial phases:
- Basic introductions to SIP to lay the foundation for how the technology works and what it can do.
- More in-depth instructions on using SIP to its full potential, such as leveraging softphone apps and powerful analytics.
- Ongoing training to ensure your customers are implementing the best practices, are aware of additional services that could add value as they scale their business, and have reliable support or resources when a team member is unsure about how a feature works.
Your strategy for onboarding will evolve, become more in-depth, and align with your brand. Not every reseller will have the same exact strategy for their customers. However, every reseller that successfully onboards their new customers will have the above three steps within their plan.
RELATED: Keys to Keeping SIP Trunk Customers Happy
Three Costly Mistakes to Avoid in Your Onboarding Process
Like with most things resellers experience in the business, there may be some trial and error as you create the best onboarding experience for your customers. Fortunately, you can cut those costly errors in half by learning from the mistakes of others.
Warren Buffet, a famous American business investor and philanthropist, once shared that “it’s good to learn from your mistakes, [but] it’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.” In SIP Trunk onboarding, in particular, this is true because some mistakes can cost you your clients. Here are the top mistakes to watch for.
Mistake #1: Not Using Multiple Learning Tools
One of the biggest mistakes SIP sellers make is not offering an array of learning tools in their onboarding. Education and training are not one-size-fits-all, so they shouldn’t be approached that way.
Several studies over the years have supported the need for multiple learning styles in education and training to ensure the recipient is properly informed or, in this case, oriented to the topic of SIP. We recommend a diverse range of videos, images, texts, and hands-on content to help prepare your customers for their experience and ensure they’re satisfied with your offerings.
Mistake #2: Lack of Open Communication
Communication is key to successfully onboarding your SIP trunk customers. According to an article in the Open Journal of Business and Management, effective communication is the key element of any organization that hopes to impact performance positively.
This is especially true when dealing with clients transitioning from traditional communication methods to advanced, cloud-based technology. Confusion and questions are inevitable. You must have an open communication policy that ensures you will be there for every step in their SIP journey, equipped with the answers they need to succeed with the technology.
Mistake #3: Not Having Clear Expectations and Goals Ahead of Time
To make sure your new customers receive effective onboarding — and your training is continuously evolving for the better — you must set the goals and expectations of onboarding before implementing it.
What do you want your customers to get out of the training? What do they need to know to successfully use SIP Trunk in their business? Use these questions to set goals, create valuable content, and measure results so you can make more informed decisions on future updates.
Onboarding with Confidence: Some Things to Consider
Now that you know what to avoid, here are a few SIP trunking best practices to consider in your training:
- Don’t rush the process. Although SIP is relatively easy to navigate, your customers must be completely comfortable with the new technology before implementing it in their business.
- Provide an onboarding checklist. Checklists are a great way to show your customers what they can expect from your orientation while making sure your training doesn’t accidentally omit any crucial steps that will help them with their experience in SIP.
- Make your onboarding consistent and memorable. According to Dr. John Wittman at CSU Stanislaus, forgetting is natural, but you can disrupt the process of forgetting by presenting material multiple times to make it more memorable. By presenting your onboarding material in several different ways — whether through an interactive experience or more hands-on techniques —you will increase the likelihood that your customers remember crucial steps in SIP and are properly prepared to use it to its full potential.
RELATED: Explaining SIP Trunking to Your Customers
SIP Trunk: Your Trusted Wholesale Partner for Streamlined SIP Trunking
The terms VoIP and SIP are making their rounds in the business world, but there are still many people who aren’t entirely familiar with the full extent of what this new cloud technology can do for their business. How well you onboard SIP Trunk customers will determine how well they leverage it, as well as how satisfied they are with your SIP trunking services. When you partner with SIPTrunk, however, you have a reliable wholesale partner by your side.
Do your customers have questions you’re not sure how to answer? Is a technical issue keeping your clients from using SIP to its full potential in their company? SIPTrunk has an industry-leading support center equipped with telco veterans ready to help you win opportunities and resolve technical issues. Get started with a free dealer account to access our portal and learn more about our SIP Reseller Platform that has everyone talking.