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What is digital onboarding

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Digital onboarding represents the core process in which companies and organizations acquire their customers and users in a fast, simple, secure and guaranteed way.
Thus, we know digital onboarding as that onboarding process carried out in an automated way and through a digital device.

Digital onboarding is an online process to bring in new customers. During the procedure, a person registers with a company or government service to access its products and services. With a digital onboarding process, a company can easily and securely identify a person.

In this world of interactions that brings down the boundaries between the physical and digital world, companies focus on connecting with customers and employees too. And considering the latest international events, there is a significant push to improve the existing digital tools and services.
Digital onboarding allows a company to boost its sales figures and public image while the customers receive complete service satisfaction and the employees feel less burdened about their professional life. In fact, Digital onboarding is an online process whereby an individual signs up with a company or a government/institutional service in order to later access its products and services.

For the manual onboarding version there are forms to fill out, information to be verified, accounts to be created, documents to be sent. Digital onboarding replicates that same process, except now it is totally carried out online, plus it has a few tricks up its sleeves in terms of automation. This means the process can be conducted entirely remotely, without customers ever having to visit offices or branches anymore, or speak to a representative. This allows all businesses to convert a lead into a customer using exclusively online tools at a much faster rate.
The individual provides their personal data, and if required, a piece of biometric information such as a fingerprint or face scan. The digital onboarding process allows the individual to be easily and securely identified even at a later date.

In short, onboarding is the process of acquiring or subscribing new users online, ensuring that they have access to all the services and products that an organization can offer in a simple and fast way, directly integrating them into the database.

Before remote onboarding was a common service, people would often provide their data either in person or through the mail. The whole was often an expensive time and cost consuming process. With digitalization becoming a priority for nearly all private and public companies, they all need reliable and secure digital onboarding channels.
The demand is specifically high during the current Covid-19 pandemic and it’s still growing more and more due to the need of minimize person-to-person contact.

The onboarding process is the official beginning of a direct and consensual relationship with an individual as a registered user or official customer. This is a crucial step in which it will be decided whether the lead becomes an official customer or if the user will abandon in their attempt. In the case of a registered client in the company database that allows its identification and access to the products and / or services contracted, or even marketing benefits or tracking services or purchased products.

Although the concept of onboarding is well known in the field of human resources and talent management, it’s, in fact, now more and more common the process of talent online recruiting and digital onboarding facilitates the data collection of a much bigger number of candidates in a faster and simple way and it allows to register the data for future uses as new job positions openings.
In short, digital onboarding is widely used in any field in which an organization needs to incorporate a person into its structure, either as a client, as an employee or as a user.

This process, now digitalized, can be done completely online and remotely from any device with a camera. Thanks to specific and exhaustive technical and security controls, companies in any sector, including those as sensitive as financial ones, can incorporate new customers and users from anywhere, at any time and through any channel with security and regulatory support.
In particular the customer digital onboarding process is also known as Know Your Customer (KYC) or Know Your Client. These terms, widely used in sectors such as banking, finance, insurance or related, are synonymous of digital onboarding, used in all industries and areas.
KYC and digital onboarding, used in other industries, are sometimes used synonymously. But KYC is a critical customer identification tool that companies use for their digital customer onboarding process.

Online businesses in particular are massively benefiting from digital onboarding technology. The digital onboarding of customers brings benefits to the user/customer but it is extremely useful for the company as well. The digital onboarding process allows to register the user data into the company’s database and as a result it enables the businesses to better keep track of their customers data and purchasing behaviour to better target their products and services to their customer base.

The current proliferation of well-designed digital identity platforms on the market, which are user friendly and of simple and easy understanding both for the end user to operate and for the company to manage, is turning a once tedious and time consuming process into a more lean and faster one.
Although it is obviously important that the process of digital onboarding should be designed to help the customers in filling the forms in a fast and simple way, thus to avoid them to be discouraged and prematurely leave the process. This first impression is significant for the success of the relationship, because the very onboarding process is the time when the company starts to build a relationship with the customer, hence it is an extremely important time for the company to make a good impression on the customer, so is crucial to note that the customer can decide and leave the onboarding process because they found it too complicated or lengthy.
This essential part of the user-organization relationship is presented as the key touchpoint for two fundamental aspects:  The security of the company or organization to acquire as a client a legitimate user with the appropriate controls and the final decision of the potential client of to become a client, but more importantly it is crucial to collect and analyse customer behaviour and attitude to design a better service for the loyal customers or to create marketing benefits for the new registered ones.
The digital onboarding process shouldn’t be dismissed as a fad. It will soon become the default way to onboard not only clients but even your teams internally. Digital transformation is an important part of any business, and finding the right tools to make life easier is crucial.

In conclusion digital onboarding is becoming the only way to onboard not only external users but is becoming more and more helpful to manage the internal team too. Digital transformation is an important part of any business, and finding the right tools to make life easier is essential.

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