Having the right technologies on hand is an essential part of any successful customer engagement strategy—but implementing a new marketing technology platform can sometimes be both time-consuming or labor-intensive. Accordingly, in order to provide best-in-class onboarding support for our incoming customers, Braze launched our Partner-Led Onboarding (PLO) program in 2022.

Introducing Partner-Led Onboarding:

To help address this challenge at scale, Braze partners with top-tier marketing service organizations who are uniquely equipped to support new customers. Armed with tailored onboarding teams made up of technical and functional specialists, our PLO partners can expedite deployments and curtail implementation costs. Plus, by leveraging Braze Learning training programs, these specialists serve as on-call experts who persistently educate, inspire, and challenge our customers, helping to keep them ahead of the curve in a dynamic market.

Through our Partner-Led Onboarding program, we offer a multitude of benefits tailored to meet the unique needs of our customers. Here are some of the key advantages that set our program apart:

• Access Ecosystem Expertise: Our PLO partners have been trained on a wide range of technologies in the marketing technology ecosystem and execute, implement, and manage them on a day-to-day basis, enabling them to offer Braze customers a comprehensive and expert onboarding experience, regardless of those customers’ current tech stacks.

• Uplevel Your Marketing Strategy: Drawing on their extensive experience with hundreds of brands, our PLO partners are well-positioned to provide strategic marketing advice that is comparable to that offered by our in-house Braze Integrations and Onboarding team. This allows our customers’ marketing efforts to be optimized right from the very beginning.

• Expand Your Network: As a Braze customer, you gain access not only to top-notch customer engagement solutions but also to our extensive network of best-in-class technology and solution partners, helping you to build out a robust network of resources for your business.

• Efficient Time to Value: The PLO program is designed to meet new customers’ go-live dates swiftly and efficiently. Our Onboarding Consultant (OC) and Technical Architect (TA) validated partners offer flexibility with start dates, ensuring customers can get their mission-critical campaigns up and running on their terms and timelines, aligning with your business goals and achieving time to value.

To become a PLO partner, these marketing service organizations undergo rigorous validation, including comprehensive courses and mock sessions that provide graduates with a validated OC and TA badge. Once badge-certified as Braze OCs and TAs, these partners are adept at expediting value for our customers.

The program has proven highly effective, with our partners successfully delivering over 200 onboarding services projects while maintaining impressive CSAT results. As a crucial part of our broader Partner-Led Services strategy, we look forward to further expansion of the program in 2023 and 2024.

What Does a Great PLO Partner Look Like? Meet Ragnarok.

NYC-based Ragnarok has emerged as one of the leaders in this space. Having led over 90 onboarding projects to date, Ragnarok is focused on investing in their Braze capabilities, allowing them to continue taking on larger and more complex onboardings. Plus, their successful partnership with Braze extends beyond onboarding, allowing them to help brands continue seeing success long after they're up and running.

"It's an honor to be a leader in the Braze Partner-Lead Onboarding program. Ragnarok was an early adopter and has worked closely with Braze on the successful launch of this program. We are incredibly proud of our team of onboarding consultants, technical architects, campaign managers, and project managers who have been certified on Braze, and who have embraced the launch of the Partner-Led Onboarding program. The PLO program is one of the most thorough, well-defined, and delivered training and certification programs in the industry."

From kick-off to the launch of your first campaign, we have a team of experts that help with your data strategy, ramp plan, template best practices, and integrating complementary systems like mParticle, Segment, or Snowflake. The final step is optimizing campaigns enabling data-driven, real-time campaigns with actionable reporting."
—Shelly Alvarez, Vice President of Marketing Services, Ragnarok

Ragnarok has provided onboarding services to numerous brands of various sizes across the world, and can successfully onboard Braze customers within six weeks. With their experience and continued commitment to Braze, we are thrilled to continue to partner with Ragnarok on future onboardings and are excited to see them serve as one of the leaders in the PLO space.

Jumpstart Your Journey With Braze Partner-Led Onboarding

Proper onboarding not only helps users solve immediate issues, but can set up long-term engagement and loyalty to your brand. For more information on how to create a valuable, brand-building onboarding experience, check out Optimize Onboarding with Braze or get in touch with sales to learn more.