How AI Supports Software Partner Onboarding

In large software companies, partner networks have to be tiered and categorized, with the most attention and resources going to top-tier partners, as they are likely to generate the most revenue and other business benefits. A high-level partner is more likely to expect a personal touch when it comes to onboarding and dedicated support to boot, which gives them the best conditions to thrive.

However, this micro-detailed approach is not really possible when you start to look further down the list to the smaller partners, known as the "long tail." Smaller partners are often left to their own devices and forced to navigate self-service portals on their own, which can be a real chore and cause problems if not handled correctly.

This lack of focus on smaller partners doesn’t come from bad intentions; it’s just the reality of where staff can be assigned. In fact, according to a recent IBM report, more than 70% of businesses report that their IT staff cannot support the amount of vendors that their company needs to onboard and manage.

This challenge isn't only faced by large enterprise software companies; it's also common in the open-source world, where thousands of developers rely on community forums for support. Unfortunately, even though the collaboration can be positive, it often results in long wait times for responses, especially if additional clarifying questions are needed. In fact, many questions remain unanswered altogether.

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Effective channel partner onboarding can really help maintain your partner's engagement later down the line. Plus, starting off on the wrong foot is never a good idea and may cause many potentially great relationships to fall by the wayside.So what are some of the biggest challenges faced when onboarding partners and how can AI present a solution with partner enablement? Let’s dive in.

Partner Onboarding Enablement 

Firstly, we need to outline briefly what makes successful partner enablement. It should essentially involve ensuring that your partners have the tools and training necessary to drive success together. Training can take on many forms, but it is most effective when it includes product knowledge and sales techniques for that product but personalized for the customer use-cases and industry domain of every parter. Alongside training, technical assistance is needed to implement and support products. This provides access to technical documentation, support portals and direct assistance from the company's technical team so that successful product deployments and ongoing customer satisfaction are guaranteed.

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Aside from training and resources, there also needs to be a clear communication strategy and performance tracking tools enabled too. Lastly, partners need to be assisted in generating leads, closing deals and their marketing campaigns, which is all essential for both sides’ market penetration too.

A CSO Insights survey showed that approximately 63.5% of businesses put their annual channel revenue down to their partners. It’s clear that you need a well-thought-out partner onboarding program to meet business objectives.

Onboarding Process Challenges

Many businesses have very inefficient onboarding methods that can burden IT teams. According to an Ovum survey, 40% of businesses need at least a month to onboard a new partner. This is mostly because IT teams sometimes have to develop new procedures for managing partner data by extracting or validating it. This operation is fraught with danger and there are countless examples of partners modifying or changing the format of their data ( partner contracts, contact information, rights, roles, or connectivity requirements) to a different platform, which leads to huge data loss.

Long tail partners usually finding it challenging because they are not offered personalized onboarding unique to their requirement. They might also struggle to understand the nuances of different software, making it harder to successfully implement changes. Additionally, the self-service approach that we touched on in the intro can be really overwhelming and cause partners to give up or even abandon a platform altogether.

How AI Pairs with Partner Enablement Platforms

AI, through a specific partner enablement platform, offers a solution to these challenges by personalizing the onboarding experience for long-tail partners. The hope is that this replicates the level of support given to top-tier partners. AI-powered tools can analyze user data to recommend relevant learning materials tailored to each partner's needs and goals. Additionally, AI agents can do all kinds of tasks in real-time, such as answering questions, offering immediate assistance and eliminating the long wait times associated with traditional support tickets.

Visibility is an often overlooked aspect in the partner onboarding process, but it is crucial because it lays the groundwork for data insights that reveal the story of your partnerships. For example, monitoring, reporting and alert notifications provide visibility. Furthermore, this gives your key stakeholders information to ensure business planning is to a high standard. Lastly, AI self-service portals don’t have to be a struggle and can enable your staff to incorporate cloud databases, web apps and other online platforms into the business by utilizing APIs.

Software companies that can automate the partnership onboarding process while maintaining good communication throughout will forget successful relationships for many years to come. By using a partner enablement AI platform, you will save time during the onboarding process and improve upon the mutual goals that you have set out with your business partner. It is a win-win for the company and the partners as effective onboarding and support is the key to effective partnerships and that directly translates into revenue growth for both. AI automation can help software companies scale to thousands of partners without incurring any additional support costs or human-scale issues.