Enterprise SaaS companies struggle to provide a faster time to value to their customers because they rely on silos of legacy project management tools for their customer onboarding. As every customer goes through different phases of a customer lifecycle, the entire organization must view the customer onboarding process holistically.
A 360-degree approach is critical for successful customer onboarding with the involvement of multiple stakeholders in the onboarding process (customer success, product management, customer support, marketing); a single source of truth platform that addresses the customer business objectives has become the need of the hour.
Choosing the right tool for onboarding customers is critical for B2B SaaS companies.
Why Can't Project Management Tools Meet Your Client Onboarding Needs?
Let us dive deep and understand why choosing a legacy project management tool is not the right option for onboarding your customer.
Project Management VS Execution
Project management tools have a lot of fancy features that assist you in planning and visualizing tasks. However, making visually appealing plans is not the end of the process; someone must accomplish those responsibilities for the project to be successful.
You need a proper tracking system to track the project's progress and ensure that team members are making progress and submitting their deliverables on time. It also helps you to address creeping issues before they become an issue and cause a delay in go-live.
Need For Silos Of Tools
Project management tools don't cover all the requirements essential for your projects and customer onboarding, which concludes you require additional tools to cover gaps.
Maintaining multiple expensive tools can be time-consuming and result in errors or mismatched data, spending a lot of time just trying to link up and track everything, then updating your software, solving bugs with multiple help desks, etc.
Poor API Integration
With the requirement of additional silos of tools, sometimes it's hard to Link up with other tools like MS-word, excel, slides, or similar. Most B2B SaaS enterprises must maintain silos of tools and keep an eye on their abilities to link with their existing Project Management tools, like databases, communication links, and syncing capabilities, which are essential for customer onboarding.
Required Features Selection
Project management tools do not provide features-specific templates and tasks for your market segment. There is no proper workflow management on legacy project management tools considering your customer onboarding needs.
Silos of tools are expensive and difficult to maintain; having a unified customer data platform as your one-stop solution to all your customer onboarding requirements is cheaper than combining overall solutions from multiple providers.
Resource Accessibility Management
Most project management tools support multiple users and are typically integrated into the infrastructure of a business using a cloud solution, which means that all employees, customers, and other stakeholders involved in a particular project often have access to sensitive data.
However, while multi-user access has collaborative benefits, access to internal communication might confuse customers and their stakeholders, which we obviously wouldn't want. It is crucial to avoid unauthorized viewing of sensitive project data and maintain access control under strict supervision.
How is CogniSaaS Different from legacy project management tools?
Now that we have seen how CogniSaaS helps its customers achieve value delivery for their customers and why project management tools are not fit for your customer onboarding needs.
Let us understand the difference between CogniSaaS and a legacy project management tool.
Single Source Of Truth
CogniSaaS provides a one-click view of the BRAG status of all clients, projects, tasks, and use cases and the level of value delivery. It also gives you a timeline for deliverables as well as status alerts with client health scores to help you stay ahead of your customers and help them achieve their ideal outcomes through an exceptional onboarding experience.
Track Value Delivery At All Levels
CogniSaaS allows you to clearly define and track which module/use case is required for which customers, as well as module-specific RAG status for implementation. It also gives you various view options with cognitive data showcasing the accountability status of your resources at the project and client levels. With project templates for different segments of customers and use case templates for module-wise tracking of business outcomes, you can automate customer onboarding.
Actionable Insights For Prioritization
CogniSaaS provides a one-click revenue impact dashboard with system-generated actionable insights, product roadmap prioritization, and implementation tasks that enable faster revenue recognition of Live ARR, as well as automated adjustments of forecasted dates in the event of go-live delays.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
CogniSaaS has made cross-functional team collaborations seamless with a single source of truth among Sales, Implementation, Product, and CS teams for tracking good-fit and bad-fit customers right from the pre-sales stage. It provides you with a one-click calculation of the RAG statuses of the customer, project, uses case or module, and task with no human intervention. Also, you can track dependencies with the product and tech teams in a single place with bi-directional integration with JIRA.
Is CogniSaaS the Right Fit for Your Customer Onboarding Needs?
Now that you understand the difference between what benefits CogniSaaS has to offer your organization and what a legacy project management tool doesn't.
Let's see if CogniSaaS is the right fit according to your specific customer onboarding needs.
CogniSaaS is a perfect fit for any and every enterprise SaaS company that handles implementations for their products regularly.
CogniSaaS is the right fit for your business if your onboarding/implementation teams are struggling to answer the following "customer-centric" questions:
- What are the desired business use cases of each customer, priorities, and deadlines?
- When can we deliver the use cases/modules (Not features)?
- Which clients are at risk of gaps between their use cases and the product?
- Who needs to do what by when to close any gaps before the deadline?
- How do we know when a use case is delivered?
CogniSaaS provides you with a customer-centric onboarding and implementation platform that helps to drive faster value delivery and achieve customer-centricity at an organizational level.
If your team is having difficulty with customer onboarding and delivering value, you are welcome to try CogniSaaS for free for 14 days.
Our customer success expert will provide your organization with a customized evaluation report that includes recommendations for faster time-to-value, which is crucial during onboarding.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why Shouldn't I use my existing project management tool for customer onboarding?
While project management tools are great for task management, they lack specialized features needed for enterprise SaaS onboarding such as use case tracking, value delivery monitoring, and customer-specific workflow management. They also don't provide the necessary customer-centric view that's crucial for successful onboarding.
What makes customer onboarding different from regular project management?
Customer onboarding requires specific focus on value delivery, customer success metrics, and cross-functional collaboration between teams (Sales, Implementation, Product, and Customer Success). It needs specialized features for tracking customer use cases, managing module implementations, and monitoring customer health scores.
How does CogniSaaS handle customer data security differently from project management tools?
CogniSaaS provides granular access control specifically designed for customer onboarding scenarios. Unlike generic project management tools, it allows you to carefully manage what information is shared with customers while maintaining internal team collaboration, ensuring sensitive data remains protected.
Can I integrate CogniSaaS with my existing tools?
Yes, CogniSaaS offers bi-directional integration with tools like JIRA and provides a unified platform that reduces the need for multiple tools. This helps create a single source of truth for all customer onboarding activities.
What metrics can I track with CogniSaaS that I can't with regular project management tools?
CogniSaaS allows you to track customer-specific metrics such as:
- Value delivery progress
- Module-wise implementation status
- Customer health scores
- Live ARR tracking
- Use case completion rates
- Customer-specific BRAG status
How does CogniSaaS help with scaling our onboarding process?
CogniSaaS provides templated approaches for different customer segments and use cases, allowing you to standardize and scale your onboarding process while maintaining customization capabilities for specific customer needs.
What is the learning curve for implementing CogniSaaS?
While CogniSaaS is feature-rich, it's designed specifically for enterprise SaaS onboarding workflows. The platform comes with dedicated customer success support and training to ensure your team can quickly adapt to the new system.
How does CogniSaaS improve collaboration between different teams?
CogniSaaS serves as a single source of truth, allowing Sales, Implementation, Product, and Customer Success teams to collaborate effectively with real-time visibility into customer status, requirements, and progress.
Can I track the ROI of switching to CogniSaaS?
Yes, CogniSaaS provides clear metrics for tracking:
- Reduction in time-to-value
- Increased customer satisfaction
- Faster revenue recognition
- Improved resource utilization
- Reduced risk of customer churn
How does CogniSaaS help with customer communication?
CogniSaaS includes a dedicated customer portal that allows for structured communication, progress tracking, and task management with customers while maintaining appropriate information boundaries.
What makes CogniSaaS a better alternative to traditional project management software for B2B SaaS companies?
CogniSaaS is specifically designed for B2B SaaS companies with features like use case tracking, module-wise implementation status, and customer success metrics that aren't available in traditional project management tools. It provides a unified platform for customer onboarding that eliminates the need for multiple tools while offering industry-specific templates and workflows.
How does CogniSaaS help track and improve time to value for enterprise customers?
CogniSaaS provides comprehensive tracking of implementation milestones, use case delivery, and customer success metrics to optimize time to value. The platform's analytics dashboard helps identify bottlenecks, prioritize high-impact activities, and accelerate value delivery through data-driven insights.
What features does CogniSaaS offer for managing complex enterprise SaaS implementations?
CogniSaaS offers advanced features specifically designed for enterprise implementations, including:
- Multi-module implementation tracking
- Customizable implementation templates
- Dependency management across teams
- Integration with existing enterprise tools
- Automated progress reporting and forecasting
- Risk assessment and mitigation tools
What makes CogniSaaS the ideal solution for enterprise SaaS customer onboarding?
CogniSaaS stands out as the ideal solution because it combines customer-centric features, workflow automation, and comprehensive implementation tracking in a single platform. Its specialized focus on enterprise SaaS onboarding provides capabilities that generic project management tools cannot match, leading to faster time to value and higher customer satisfaction.
How does CogniSaaS help with customer success management during implementation?
CogniSaaS enables effective customer success management by providing real-time visibility into customer health, tracking progress against business objectives, and facilitating proactive communication. The platform helps customer success teams identify risks early and ensure successful implementation outcomes.
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