36% of respondents believe they have missed business opportunities and 31% have lost potential customers to competitors due to poor onboarding.
Executives estimate that reducing dropouts by 50% would increase new customer acquisition by up to 20% and increase revenue by 10%.
Excessive steps (28%) and the need to download additional apps (22%) are the top reasons customers interrupt their onboarding process.
ABBYY, a multinational specializing in Intelligent Process Automation (IPA), reveals the findings of its new study, conducted in partnership with Sapio Research, on the drivers and constraints faced by companies in the context of onboarding new clients. Inflation peaked in 2022 and the trend is expected to continue in 2023 in most European countries, including France, as monetary policy tightening takes effect and global growth weakens. In this particularly difficult economic climate, companies can no longer afford to lose opportunities because of unsuitable and inefficient onboarding processes.
For 56% of respondents, an optimal and fluid onboarding is very important or even essential
Onboarding is the very first step in the process of engaging the customer. It is also one of the most important steps to ensure that a new customer or user will retain their trust in the company for the long term. For 56% of French IT decision-makers, it is very important or even essential that such a process be optimal and fluid, especially since in an unfavorable economic context like today, organizations can no longer afford to miss opportunities.
However, the study also reveals that 89% of companies experience abandonment during onboarding. This can be explained by several reasons such as an excessive number of steps to complete (28%), the need to download an additional application (22%) or the repeated request to enter the same information several times (22%).
The impact of poor onboarding on business operations can be deleterious. French IT decision makers reveal that this has resulted in the loss of business opportunities (36%), the loss of potential customers to the benefit of competition (31%), but also, the difficulty in attracting new customers (24% ).
23% of IT decision makers plan to implement Process Intelligence technologies to optimize their onboarding
To optimize their onboarding processes, companies must rely on technologies that automate their operations as much as possible in order to make them more efficient. They must also be able to offer human support in the implementation of this process. By combining these two factors (technology and people), companies offer their customers an improved user experience and thus gain in resilience. The study reports that today 85% of companies have an onboarding strategy combining people and technology. Only 9% rely 100% on digital, and 4% on people.
In the current inflationary context, organizations measure the importance of onboarding. To limit the negative effects that could affect it, they rely on advanced technologies. 24% of French IT decision-makers have digitized identity verification, 24% use Intelligent Document Processing solutions and 20% RPA tools. In the future, they plan to implement even more of these solutions, including Process Intelligence (23%) and Identity Verification (19%).
40% of companies believe that with a 50% dropout rate they could increase their revenue by at least 30%
The study showed that organizations expect better onboarding to improve user experience (31%), reduce abandonment (30%), attract new customers (27%) and retain them (24 %). But companies do not only think of the benefits for their customers but also of the advantages for their employees. Thus, improving the onboarding process helps improve all interactions between employees and customers (25%), and reduces work for employees (24%).
With a dropout rate reduced by 50%, 40% of companies believe they can increase their revenue by at least 30%. A reduction in the abandonment rate also has an impact on the marketing of new services. Nearly 60% of respondents think they can launch 30% new offers. In addition, 93% of companies say they are ready to invest in their employees, including â…“ of organizations at least 40%. Finally, for 86% of companies, reducing the abandonment rate by 50% would have a positive impact on their brand image.
By optimizing their onboarding journey by adding technologies, organizations will be able to assign their teams to support and advisory tasks that themselves contribute to improving this process. They are thus part of a virtuous circle which allows them not only to absorb the current price increase while continuing their investments.
"Effective onboarding is more than ever necessary in view of the current very tense economic situation in the inflationary context and in which companies cannot afford to lose customers and potential projects under any circumstances. The choice of the right technologies and their association with an adequate human factor are now essential to deal with this situation.This is a unique way to win new customers and optimize the reception experience for all users. The results of our survey thus reveal that it is important in such a context to use the best technologies to meet these challenges and thus remain competitive." Hervé Laurandin, Director France at ABBYY.
The new ABBYY State of Intelligent Automation report gives you additional insight into the drivers and constraints of onboarding and shows you how you can better meet your customers' expectations.