Top 6 Steps to Successful Customer Onboarding

A substandard onboarding experience is heavily linked to higher levels of customer churn. Conversely, customers who are onboarded successfully, having had their expectations met or exceeded, are primed to be long-term customers, grow their investment with your company, and be strong advocates for your brand.

It all starts with understanding your customers’ desired outcomes and building a plan to deliver those outcomes across your customer base in a scalable and repeatable way. 

How you structure that onboarding and your method of engagement will of course be determined by the complexity of your solution, the customers’ spend, how savvy your users tend to be, and the tools you have at your disposal. It can range everywhere from a fully digital and self-service onboarding to a white-glove, high-touch, long-term process.

So, let’s address these challenges and investigate what it takes to successfully onboard a new customer…

When Does the Customer Onboarding Process Begin?

In e-commerce, companies are applying strategies for customer onboarding after the sale. However, in SaaS, the process should begin a moment after a potential customer signs up for the service. If the SaaS company offers free trial versions, this is the perfect time to demonstrate how the service works and let the users assess whether it fits their needs. By having a detailed yet clear-cut onboarding, a business can spark interest more easily and convert free users into paying customers. 

6 Steps to Successful Customer Onboarding

Getting familiar with a new service can feel overwhelming for users. The time spent in their mission to understand its basic functionality should be as short as possible, and the same rule applies to the sign-up and welcoming process. This is why it is important to take carefully determined steps to successful customer onboarding.  Here is a customer onboarding checklist you can follow.

Step 1: Include a Short Sign-up 

Make sure to seek only the vital pieces of information during the sign-up process and gather additional ones later. One of the best practices is to offer a sign-up with the platform they already use (like Google, for example) or simply use a short form that contains a few fields.

Step 2: Keep the Welcome Email Informative 

Except for sending a welcome email that shows appreciation for their interest, we recommend you include important resources about the service or product to help the users get started. You can include videos, various links, FAQs, images, and others. Staying clear about CTAs (calls to action) will guide your users smoothly to the new chapter. Therefore, make sure to include a single CTA that drives the exact action you wish to encourage. 

Step 3: Simplify the Initial Log-in

Motivate your audience to move on to setting up an account by providing guidance. Include simple set-up wizards and engaging CTA that will move them forward to the goal, and don’t forget to celebrate their milestones!

Step 4: Keep the Product Walkthroughs Customisable

It is not rare that new users wish to skip certain product walkthrough segments or the entire program in case they are short on time. Still, make it optional for them to come back to it whenever needed, and include a skip option for each part. 

Step 5: Offer Integrations and Data Imports

Even though most of your new customers will need to set up integration between your product and other platforms they use, this area should still be optional. In every case, making the process automated as much as possible will certainly facilitate the bothersome data import and integration. Also, during this vulnerable stage, it is crucial to stay supportive and responsive when the issue comes up. 

Step 6: Include Follow-up Emails

Remember, the new customer onboarding process shouldn’t end after the first log-in. This is a perfect time to send a follow-up email with additional resources, tip-offs, and reminders that your dedicated onboarding customer service is ready to jump in at any time. 

Here you can find good examples of the onboarding process.

How does Akita helps SaaS companies onboard their customers?

This is done in the form of filtered segments. From an Onboarding standpoint, Akita users can create segments that identify which customers are currently onboarding, whether the onboarding is proceeding smoothly, has stalled, or has failed. See below.

Akita segment identifying which customers’ onboardings are failing

The user is then armed to either manually intervene if required or apply a triggered Akita playbook (combining tasks and customer messages) to ensure the onboarding is completed successfully. Here you can find more details on the importance of the usage of playbook templates (example from Akita)

Tips to Improve the Onboarding Experience

• Customer onboarding doesn’t come in one shape, so testing its performance should be as frequent as possible.
• Try out different approaches (like the number of welcome emails or the need for an extensive product tour) and see what the feedback is like.
• Read about creating a customer onboarding strategy so your team can do the onboarding successfully and strategically.
• If you have problems with setting up the onboarding process, go through the reasons why the process isn’t working and how to transform the onboarding.

Conclusion

Learn all the steps to successful customer onboarding – prioritize clear communication, proactive support, and tailored guidance. To facilitate and speed up the given processes, it is essential to use high-edge customer success platforms like Akita. With its powerful automation features, including advanced segmentation options, you can get an in-depth understanding of your customers’ needs and preferences, adapt your onboarding strategies, and provide a seamless transition for each client.