5 Features Of Successful Customer Onboarding

Are you struggling to get new users to utilise your SaaS solution as intended? Or even just to come back after their initial trial? Creating new habits is never easy. If you have not created a streamlined customer onboarding process that encourages regular interaction with your SaaS product from the onset, it’s safe to assume you're probably suffering from a higher level of customer churn than you’d like to see. 

Take a look at the below key features to successful customer onboarding and find out where your current process may be costing you valuable customers: 

1. Users experience value quickly 

Efficiently demonstrating your app’s value to the customer is vital if you want to avoid churn. 

The best way to do this is to keep the focus on the benefits of your product rather than on the features. Guide users towards the problem-solving capabilities of your software during the onboarding stage, this ensures correct application of the software and enables instant gratification. This positive experience will affirm their choice of purchasing from you.  

2. Create milestones that can be celebrated 

Encourage a feeling of progress by providing users with a helpful roadmap to follow as they get to grips with your product. This will help them to get the most out of their investment with you.

Insert milestones at each stage of the onboarding process. They should be specific objectives that can be achieved and measured through your platform so customers can get a comprehensive experience of your product. This will also allow you to monitor usage and anaylse engagement so that you can jump in with help if you spot a roadblock at a particular point in the user’s onboarding. 

To make sure you focus on the important milestones for your customers, review the onboarding experience your existing top customers had. Find out what features and tools they most interact with and if their usage changes across your pricing tiers. By doing this you can pull out the right milestones to focus on based on real customer data. 

3. K.I.S.S

One of the biggest features of a successful customer onboarding procedure for a SaaS business is to keep it simple, stupid. 

I’m sure your software is full of amazing extra tools that will make your clients’ lives easier, but it’s vital that you do not overwhelm them as soon as they get started. By holding back and only focusing on your core features, trickling the hints and tips as the user works their way through their own exploration of the product will be much more beneficial than bombarding them with every single piece of information during their first visits. 

Avoid pop-ups to sign up to your latest product newsletters or other marketing communication until they have started to show signs of engagement with the product itself to avoid overloading them with too many decisions during their initial usage. Once they start to explore your content, such as visit your blog or knowledge centre, then you can bring in these CTAs to delight them further post-sale. 

4. Stay in contact 

If your onboarding is a managed service, don’t leave the onboarding process to emails. Set up regular calls with the stakeholders to make sure everyone is on track and still on the same page from the initial sales process. 

There should be a clear roadmap based on the milestones we discussed earlier that will allow you to hold your clients accountable. Your account managers need to make sure these are being met and be on hand to assist with any blockers. 

If your onboarding process is self-service, then use the power of email automation to keep your users on track. By sending educational tips, tricks and usage cases you will allow your clients to feel supported and excited to finish their onboarding so they can reap the benefits you promised during the sales process! 

Depending on your business consider: 

• One to one training 
• One to many training 
• Self-guided learning resources 
• In-app walkthroughs 
• Knowledge-base centre 

5. Ask for feedback 

By incorporating milestones into your onboarding process, you can also build in automated check-in points with your new users. From prompting them to provide feedback via a quick survey once they have completed a particular milestone, or sending regular NPS surveys to help gather insights into how well your solution is living up to their expectations. 

However, if a user isn’t following the onboarding process or has got stuck somewhere along the line, having your account managers reach out and offer assistance can really help a customer feel valued. This will also enable them to feel confident in their decision to make a purchase from you.

73% of people want to solve problems on their own, so make it easy for them to find content when they need it. Customers are looking to solve complex problems with simple solutions, so take some time to review your current onboarding process and prioritise any challenges that could be causing frustration. Once you start optimising these areas, you should start seeing an improvement in churn rates.  

Interested in how you can improve your free trial leads into paying customers? Download your free ebook and cheat sheet that will give you more tips to help you achieve tangible results from your free trial campaign.