UserGems increases launch velocity (and keeps their sanity) w/ Accord

A clear, frictionless onboarding process is the key to unlocking value from a new solution. By using Accord to structure their onboarding, the UserGems team built an efficient, repeatable process that quickly guides their customers to that value and sets them up for long-term success.

UserGems helps sales teams drive more warm leads, increase win rates, and reduce customer churn by identifying the buyers who are most likely to buy, including former champions who have started at a new company. 

“The goal is to help generate more revenue and sales success by enabling teams to spend more time selling and less time researching,” says Christian Kletzl, CEO and Co-Founder of UserGems.

But before sales teams can reach this success, they need to learn how to use the tool, from setting up system integrations to receiving and acting on their first leads. That’s where Accord comes in.

Accord enables the UserGems customer success team to improve their onboarding process in three key areas:

  1. Managing their onboarding pipeline
  2. Increasing customer launch velocity
  3. Building a repeatable, scalable process

Eliminating Chaos with an Organized Pipeline

UserGems’ onboarding process typically involves several steps and stakeholders. Prior to using Accord, Christian had to constantly check in with stakeholders to make sure everything got done. Information was buried in his inbox under multiple email threads, or in shared documents. Christian spent too much time trying to figure out each customer’s onboarding status, and not enough time actually advancing the onboarding.

By centralizing the onboarding process in Accord’s shared space, the UserGems team is able to easily manage their onboarding pipeline. All of the information, stakeholders, and tasks are in one place. Now, the customer success team can simply open Accord, see the onboarding status, and focus on executing the next step.

“Before Accord, there was no way to get a quick overview of each customer’s status,” says Christian. “The organization in Accord helps us keep our sanity and provide more value to our customers.”

Maximizing Customer Launch Velocity

Since UserGems’ customers’ sales cycles can be long, it’s critical that they onboard quickly so they can see the benefits of the tool as soon as possible. By using Accord to set expectations and milestones during onboarding, both sides adhere to timelines much more consistently. Customers can start receiving and acting on their first leads from UserGems sooner, get to value faster, and are less likely to churn after their contract is up.

“We’re highly cognizant of launch velocity,” says Christian. “Accord impacts both launch velocity and launch thoroughness, which ultimately lead to more positive outcomes with the customer.”

Building Templates to Drive Efficiency & Growth

Once they started using Accord, UserGems’ customer success team was able to nail down which steps were essential during the onboarding process, and how best to work through each step. They established a repeatable process and created templates in Accord that each member of the team can use.

Standardizing the onboarding process enables UserGems to:

  • Start onboarding faster. There’s a template ready to go in Accord. No more hunting down past emails to copy and paste, or writing out each step from scratch.
  • Make onboarding easier for customers. Inviting customers to a structured, collaborative space during onboarding makes it easier for them to understand the process and complete steps.
  • Create a repeatable process for future team growth. By standardizing UserGems’ onboarding best practices, new customer success reps can learn the ropes quickly.

“Since Accord enabled us to create dedicated steps that work, I don’t have to worry about onboarding as much,” says Christian. “I trust that the team is following the process.”