Overview
The kickoff call is one of the most important moments of the customer journey, as it is the meeting that sets the stage not only for the onboarding experience, but the rest of the customer journey. When conducted well, the kickoff call can prevent customers from getting lost, reduce support tickets, and mitigate buyers remorse. By nailing the kickoff call you will see higher engagement from your customer because they’ll trust that you’ve got a plan to guide them to where they want to be!
So… how do you nail the kickoff call with GUIDEcx? We’ve broken down the kickoff into three main stages. You can use the acronym PCR to remember them. Those three stages are:
Prepare
Conduct
Recap
Stage 1: Prepare
The first stage is to PREPARE. Prior to hosting the kickoff call you should align internally with your sales team to understand the incoming customer’s expectations. Using the internal project notes in GUIDEcx is a great place to store that info so it can serve as a north star for any internal teams - for example when a trainer gets involved they can reference the Kickoff notes to tailor the training a little bit better for the customer.
You might be wondering, what do you put in that internal kickoff note? The 5 questions we like to answer in preparation for our kickoff calls are:
Who: needs to be involved in the project (internally + customers). Knowing this will help you better assemble the right people and resources for a successful project completion.
What: are the customers' expectations? What are they looking to get out of your product/service?
When: are they looking to achieve that value? Does your project planned end date match the customer’s expectation?
Where: are they looking to use your product/service? Do they have a particular use case?
Why: did they buy your product or service? Understanding this will serve as your north star as you look to deliver value.
Stage 2: Conduct
Now that you’re aligned on what the customer needs, you’ll need to show them how you’ll get them there and you’ll do that in the next stage, which is, CONDUCT:
The Conduct stage is where you actually host the kickoff meeting. Here are 5 pro-tips to deliver a memorable kickoff call.
Get to Know Each other - learn who’s who. Build a human connection here! Know who you’ll need to keep in touch with in case things go south.
Confirm what you know - this is when you’ll confirm what sales shared with you. People don’t like to repeat themselves so the more aligned you are, the better you’ll build rapport. This is also a great chance to capture info that might’ve slipped through the cracks and update any details.
Review the map - Now’s the moment you can really blow the customers’ socks out of the water. Don’t just tell them, show them how you’ll guide them to their desired outcomes! This is where we recommend you share your screen of the project plan. Start by showing the Project Overview. Review the start/planned end date, if they need to edit anything do it then. Set expectations with the level of effort that will be required. You can do this by talking about estimated time and days to complete. Then jump over to the project plan. Call out common pitfalls with task tags, and who’s needed for a successful completion. Add any additional customer team members to the project and assign out tasks from there.
Next, you’ll cover how the experience will work. - give a brief explanation of how GUIDEcx will send assignees emails with tasks for them to complete. Those added to the project without task assignments will only receive weekly email updates and notes directed at them. Whereas those with task assignments will receive those notifications along with task reminder emails and the way those work are there is 1 email when the task is ready to be worked on, 1 when it’s 1 day from being due, and 1 when the task is overdue.
Finally, SOS review. Go over Resources - help them understand that if they reply to an email or @mention you in the project, you’ll be notified! Remind them to mark their assigned tasks as done otherwise the delivery of their product or service will be late.
Stage 3: Recap
The final stage of the kickoff call is to RECAP. For far too many times I completed a stellar kickoff call, but then a week goes by where there's no movement from the customer, all because they forgot what the next steps were. So, save yourself a headache and check out the kickoff call template below so you can copy and paste this template in your project notes and fill in the blanks.
PS Don’t forget to cc the customer by @mentioning them in the note so they have a record.
Kickoff Call Recap Template:
🔄 RECAP
So nice meeting you! As promised, here is the recording <insert recording url> and recap of our Kickoff call!
WHO'S WHO:
GUIDEcx Team -
[@Elan] will be your Main Point of Contact during your onboarding journey
[@Kim] will be your Training Guide and will assist your team in learning how to use GUIDEcx.
[@John] will be your Integration Guide and will assist you with getting GUIDEcx integrated with your tech stack.
Customer Team -
[@Will] is the COO and will act as the Executive Sponsor.
[@Joseph] is the Director and will act as the Program Manager
[@Sherri] is the IT manager and will assist with domain verification
MUTUAL OUTCOMES:
Customer team is looking to go live before the end of the quarter
Customer team wants to standardize and refine their onboarding process
ETC
NEXT STEPS:
[Joseph] will fill out the document and return it before EOD
[Joseph + Will] to complete online training before EOW
[Elan] to send Sherri domain verification credentials.
[Sherri] to complete domain verification
NEXT MEETING: Working Session 1 @ 10am MST on Wednesday, July 1.
Thank you again, I'm looking forward to working with you! Keep an eye on your inbox for when it's your turn to complete a task and don't forget to mark them as done as you complete them!