A Seamless Sales Onboarding Experience: When Sambhar Land met Dosa Heaven

The Onboarding journey of a guy from Madras getting onboarded into a company located in Bangalore (in Madras!)

As a young salesperson, I witnessed process magic in Wolfsburg, Germany at the Volkswagen manufacturing plant. I was right in the centre of one of the largest manufacturing plants in the world, and I was in awe of the process and the seamlessness involved in assembling a car. One can never imagine the amount of work involved behind the scene to make a car a successful work of art.

It took me 9 years to experience the same feeling again- not in another manufacturing plant, but when I was exposed to the way Hevo onboarded an employee under remote conditions. I had a million thoughts about how my onboarding experience would be, from the time I was offered an opportunity to join Hevo Data, and I was excited to know that my onboarding had started even before my official start date in an absolutely warm and friendly manner.

Introductions:

The HR team had arranged for me to meet the key stakeholders with whom I would be working at Hevo for a casual introductory conversation 2 weeks prior to my official start date. Considering the nature of the pandemic year, this introduction happened over a Zoom conference. The conversation was warm and friendly and the team wanted to know more about me and my thoughts about this new opportunity. They took time to explain what to expect during the onboarding session and the steps involved, and also gave me an outlook on what would be expected out of me months down the line. When there is clarity, there is purpose. I was confident and looking forward to starting my journey with Hevo.

Day Zero:

On the eve of Day 1, my laptop and accessories arrived as if it was programmed and I also did get two emails, one email welcoming me to the team (Again! I lost count of the times Hevo welcomed me) and the second email from the IT team with all the logins that I would need.

Day 1: And so it begins ( If you had read that in Gandalf’s voice, extra points)

There was a meeting invite for 10 AM in my email box on day 1 to connect with my “Buddy” (more on this in just a bit), there was an email from the sales excellence team with the introduction to the on the job training, and there was an email from HR welcoming me officially on board (AGAIN!) and providing me with details on the employee handbook to reach for what, etc. It was so structured that as an employee coming on board in a remote fashion, I hardly felt unattended. Just like that, I went from feeling like I was crashing the party to realizing the party was for me.

The Buddy Program:

To put it in simple words, each employee onboarded was provided with a “Buddy” whom they can reach out to at any point during their onboarding journey with any questions. This is such a well-thought-out idea because this ensures a new employee feels that they are part of the team already and they have friends who look out for them and want them to succeed. This program also ensured I had accessibility to people whenever I wanted, which I think is extremely critical in a new environment that can sometimes be overwhelming.

The Sales Excellence Machine:

It really is a well-oiled machine because the program that is constructed to onboard a sales professional at Hevo is unparalleled. I feel the Onboarding process can make or break a salesperson, because this is where all the learning and core understanding of the product happens. The dedicated team was available round the clock to take questions and provide me with the thought clarity that I sought. The support system was so strong that by the time I was done with all the training modules, I walked into customer meetings like they were a cakewalk- literally and figuratively.

Training Module Structure:

The single most important artefact for any team is how well their training modules are constructed. It gets even more complicated for a sales team because, beyond the effective understanding of the product, there are factors like understanding a user journey, buying thought process, discovery sessions, negotiations scenario, and possible FAQ faced during product demo and discussion. The training module developed covers every inch of a sales professional's journey and acts as a Bible to go back to when one seeks clarity during a sales cycle.

Chai pe Charcha:

On the first day, I was enrolled in this grand informal meeting over Zoom. This meeting was a perfect place and opportunity to interact with members across the organization and the first person I met in this meeting was the CTO himself. Only one rule in this forum — No work talk. This was such an effective session, especially for a new joinee, because you are given a grand welcome again by 100+ members from various functional areas of the organization. This broke the ice and made things easy for me. I am currently working with many of the people I met during this forum.

A causal hi from your CEO on Slack to check on you, a conversation with the CTO who wants to get to know you beyond work, an HR team that works relentlessly to ensure you have everything you need so you can be fully functions and a bunch of annoyingly nice colleagues who care about you succeeding are all things one usually wish for during their on-boarding journey; and Hevo ensured I had all of that and more.

There are only a few things in life I wish I could go back and do it all over again. Hevo’s Onboarding journey tops that list.