The onset of Covid-19 forced customers around the world to adapt to an online marketplace, with service and ease of access often the only things setting a company apart from its competitors. Another shift is that customers have higher expectations from day one — and fulfilling those expectations is no easy task.
More than 48 percent of Americans say they have higher customer service standards than they did before the pandemic, according to ZenDesk’s 2022 Customer Experience Trends Report, and 60 percent said that they have made purchase decisions based purely on the quality of a company’s service. What’s more, 73 percent of business leaders reported a direct link between their customer service and business performance. Rather than be discouraged by the quick judgements and high expectations of customers, companies like SevenRooms see an opportunity to engage and retain customers from the very beginning.
Chaya Patel, the senior director of client onboarding at the guest experience platform, understands that how a client is brought into the company will define the long term success of their account. “In order to ensure healthy accounts from day one, customers need to be educated about the product’s value and how to best leverage it to achieve results,” she said. “It’s important to set expectations with the customer about education and their role in the process throughout their entire journey with our company.”
Built In New York sat down further with Patel to discuss how a change in onboarding processes increased customer satisfaction and ultimately reduced churn.
SevenRooms supports hospitality operators to acquire, engage and retain more guests. Their platform helps customers create positive and exciting experiences that boost profitability and repeat business, driving greater personalization at scale.
What is the single most impactful change you’ve made to your customer onboarding process and why was it successful?
One of the most impactful changes I’ve made is related to customer enablement. As part of that, I partnered with our training team to create and implement a customer bootcamp during the onboarding process, helping transform all clients into superusers.
Foundational knowledge is critical before configuration because it enables the customer to make valuable decisions. Communicating best practices and strategies used within the industry also ensures a more collaborative conversation between the customer and our team. I always operate with the mindset that just because something was successful at one point doesn’t mean it will always be successful in the future. I believe in iterating, making informed decisions by monitoring customer behavior and asking for my team’s feedback to understand where we can improve. Onboarding is critical because it lays the groundwork for a client’s ongoing success.
Onboarding is critical because it lays the groundwork for a client’s ongoing success.”
What was your biggest challenge implementing this change?
The biggest challenge, or rather opportunity, was aligning expectations across all points in the customer journey. First, we needed to connect with our partners on the revenue team, including sales, enablement, success and support. It’s critical to get buy-in from these teams upfront to understand the why and value proposition of education. We needed to reallocate our internal team’s time to unpacking, comprehending and actioning new frameworks around customer education. By setting expectations within our team, we were able to better set expectations with our customers, enabling them to be more successful in the long-term by offering comprehensive education upfront.
What do your users say that they love most about your product?
Our biggest secret ingredient for customers is our marketing automation product, which helps venues drive repeat visits, guest retention and incremental revenue. It’s not just a tool, but a comprehensive, automated strategy that runs for operators behind-the-scenes, giving their teams time back to focus on other key priorities in their restaurants. On average, we are able to achieve incredible results for our customers, driving a 25 percent conversion-to-reservation rate and generating an average of $3.26 in incremental revenue for each email sent — the industry average is just $1.32. Deeply tied into our CRM and guest profiles, there’s nothing quite like it on the market and it’s one of the many offerings that makes SevenRooms special.
