Are you ready to take your customer's experience to the next level? If so, you've come to the right place. When launching new products in the market for the first time, it is critical that the goods or services are introduced to the customers such that they see how important it is.

It is critical that a customer feels they can’t stay comfortably without the product or service and thus customer onboarding, introducing the Aha! Moment.

Onboarding gives you, the service provider, a chance to make your product stand out before your customers. Onboarding creates the first impression on your customers, it entails introducing your product and explaining how it works in a way that captivates them. Consumers easily walk away from using a specific product from a specific company after having a bad experience with it.

In this guide, we'll show you how to set your new users up for success from the moment they sign up to the point where they're fully integrated and seeing the value of your product. Whether you're just starting out or looking to improve your existing onboarding process, this guide is packed with tips and best practices to help you create a smooth and enjoyable journey for your customers.

So strap on your seatbelt and get ready to learn how to make the most of your SaaS onboarding process!

What is SaaS onboarding?

SaaS onboarding refers to the process of introducing new customers to a Software as a Service (SaaS) product and helping them become proficient and successful users. SaaS onboarding introduces your SaaS product for the first time to a consumer in such a manner that they quickly identify the value of such products. SaaS enables individuals to access an application over the internet via a cloud service provider without necessarily having to download the application.

User experience is the relationship a customer has with your SaaS product during onboarding. Having a proper layout for your SaaS product is essential to getting customers interested in it. Failure to have a proper framework for your SaaS product limits your customer’s user experience, making them get little value from your SaaS product and, thus bad experience.

Why is onboarding on SaaS important?

Successful onboarding of customers to your SaaS product is essential in a number of ways. Successful onboarding is dependent on a number of factors, namely: the ease of use (user-friendliness) and the speed at which one can receive results. If your SaaS software is technical to use, the customer will get discouraged and opt to use less complicated SaaS products. Similarly, if the time taken to see results is long, there is a huge chance the customer will get impatient and end up not using your software.

So why should you be bothered with onboarding for your SaaS product? Here are a few reasons to pique your interest.

High customer churn

Many new customers could get dissatisfied with the product and opt not to use it further without an effective onboarding procedure. High customer churn might result from this, which is expensive for SaaS organizations.

Increase adoption and usage

A smooth onboarding procedure can enhance product adoption and usage by guiding new users through the benefits of the product and how to utilize it.

Improve customer satisfaction

The likelihood that customers will suggest the product to others can be increased and customer satisfaction can be raised with a successful onboarding process.

Provides a foundation for support and success

The knowledge clients need to be independent and successful with the product can be provided by a comprehensive onboarding process, which can help reduce support expenses.

Provide insight on product usability

A SaaS company can acquire information and feedback about what works well and what needs improvement by observing how new customers use the product during onboarding. This information can then be used to create future upgrades.

Steps in Onboarding your SaaS Product

There are numerous ways to introduce your SaaS product to the public and show your customers the benefits of using it. However, it is important to select steps that serve you right. Here are steps that can best serve your customers during onboarding.

1. Signup

Keep it as brief as possible. It is very easy and happens in many cases where a signup sheet is too long, which causes a customer to walk away. Many can confirm that there are times they have logged into various platforms only to meet a 12-page-long sign-up sheet. Make sure the few questions in the signup sheet are absolutely necessary, such as name, street address, phone contact, e-mail, and gender (if necessary).

2. The first email

This has to be brief and straight to the point. It should use a language that is enticing and ventures further into the journey. It may include a text such as “Thank you for signing up or joining us.” The email may also contain a verification code or link, a button that takes you to the platform, and other features that prompt the user to start using the software.

3. The first login screen

The first-ever impressions customers get of your website are critical, it should not be monotonous but fun and engaging. The advisable thing is to introduce a welcome message followed by the product. How does it work? You can terminate at the bottom with client reviews. When promoting a tutorial or a walk-through, create an option of ‘’later’’ or ‘’skip for now” to let your customers feel some form of freedom.

Some tutorials need up to about eight refreshed pages, which might be tedious and discouraging and cause them to leave the platform.

4. Introduction to the product

The main focus is to introduce your customers to your product. This is where things become less fun and games and more serious. This is where you attract and trap your new visitors and get new customers to become your loyal customers.

When it comes to introducing your product, you have about three options to choose from:

Tutorial videos

Having tutorial videos is the best option in terms of having a walkthrough on how to use a product. Having better, higher-quality video shots and soothing voiceovers that are pleasant to listen to is a great step. With the advancement of technology, it is possible to have animations that have tutorial videos.

To ensure your videos are short and interactive and not long and monotonous, it is advisable to get professional video editors to create and edit them.

Online manuals

Having write-ups on how to use a product is another way to introduce your products. You can opt to have a downloadable PDF manual or just a blog post. Having blog text is easier as it is less tedious. Having manuals in PDF that require a download to access can discourage your customers, as it seems like too much work.

Having interactive product tours

This involves having videos on how to use products at the pace of the user. Instead of having an all-in-one video tutorial that explains everything at once, one can have an interactive video that explains how to use the product as one does it. This is very effective as it has personal appeal.

5. In-app messaging

This interaction is very useful in terms of ironing out disparities as well as maintaining interaction. These are some of the reasons to use in-app messaging:

  1. Maintaining interaction among customers and developers.
  2. To gather feedback.
  3. To increase sales.
  4. To be able to get feedback from customers, this may be through rating their experience or leaving a written review.

6. Creating an onboarding checklist

Having an onboarding checklist is a good choice to help customers track their progress. In situations where your SaaS is procedural and requires that you follow steps to the letter in order to activate, a checklist can help ensure that all steps are followed. It is possible to have an automated checklist that checks itself once you complete a step.

7. Having a progress bar

In addition to having a checklist, one can have a progress bar that is updated out of 100 percent. Sometimes having a progress bar may be monotonous, but having a progress bar makes it more attractive.

8. Onboarding surveying

It is possible to have a survey for your customers in the onboarding process. Some of the questions may be:

● Where did you hear about us?

● What business do you run?

● Will you use our services for your business or as an individual?

● Are you a student, teacher, or tutor?

● What are you going to use our SaaS for?

If you didn’t get enough information from your customers during the signup stage, you could use the survey to acquire more information.

9. Do not overload your customers

Ensure that your customers are not met with too much content. Having too much content can be discouraging. Be sure to use images and videos that make the page interactive. Vary your font type and size, as well as your font color. Make your platform easy to use so that any user can comfortably interact with it without having to seek customer support.

How can you improve your customer onboarding experience?

Supposing you have already set up your consumer onboarding and it yields fewer new customers than you expected, it is time to improve on it. These are some of the ways you can know how and where to improve your onboarding experience.

  1. Study your data analytics and find out where audience retention begins to decline. If you have a video, you can check at what point of your video did the customers stop watching, this is where you can make edits. This provides you with feedback on the interests of your customers.
  2. Outline the steps you might take to improve your onboarding experience, a type of hypothesis. This may involve steps such as: employing professional video editors.
  3. Implementing the steps you set out in order to improve customer onboarding.
  4. Test your new onboarding flows.
  5. Compare your performance before and after implementing the changes.

What are some of the ways to measure the success of your SaaS onboarding?

You can only measure the success of something through its returns. One can measure the success of customer onboarding through the:

a) The completion rate

The rate at which users who log into your platform complete the onboarding process. A high number of users who complete their onboarding process indicates a simplistic and less complicated process, whereas a low turnover indicates a complex and lengthy process that ends up discouraging customers.

b) Time taken to complete the onboarding process

A short completion time indicates no completion of the onboarding process.

c) Usage time

High usage time with successive logins indicates that more customers are using your products and are loving the experience so much that they keep coming back. High usage time indicates that your SaaS onboarding is successful.

d) The number of active users using your SaaS product

An increasing number of daily active users indicates the success of your SaaS. If your active users are constant, then you may need to strategize your marketing campaign.

SaaS onboarding checklist

A checklist is used to show what steps should be followed and puts a tiny check mark once completed. A good checklist should be:

  1. Very fast and easy to use - This is crucial because the ease of doing something is relative from one person to another. A good checklist should be simple enough that someone with no knowledge can understand and operate it.
  2. Checkmarks on activities and progression marks - A good checklist should have a checkmark on a check box after each and every activity, as well as a progression bar that gives an indication of progress.
  3. Additional information- Having more documents that have information one may need in order to understand more about the products.
  4. Setting up easy-to-handle tasks - Have tasks that are quick and easy to handle rather than heavy tasks.
  5. Exiting - Making it easy for customers to easily exit from the platform, and have a backup for their work in case of an abrupt exit due to a power outage.
  6. Customer support - Having a customer care center platform that users can reach out to in case of technical difficulties. Most platforms have a chat button to chat with a bot or a receptionist through the platform.

What are some of the software that you can use for SaaS onboarding?

Software onboarding can be a very tiresome process, but having the necessary software can be very useful. Below are some of the software that can be used in SaaS onboarding:

1. Electronic mail (E-Mail)

E-mail is a powerful tool that can convert new users to loyal customers. E-mail is useful in sending confirmation codes and links as well as new developments and products. Customers can reach out for more support through email.

2. User guiding

User Guiding is a simple piece of software that, with one command, can create product tutorials, checklists, and in-app texts, among other things for guiding the user. It requires a paid-for subscription.

What are the best customer onboarding practices to employ?

These are some of the best tips and techniques to employ when it comes to customer onboarding:

● Having fewer challenges and hiccups in the signup process, making sure the signup process is streamlined. Only ask the most necessary questions needed to have the signup complete more questions can be asked as the customer continues to interact with the website.

● From the word go, make sure you make the value of your product known to the public. The sooner the customers realize the value of your SaaS product, the more likely they will become loyal customers.

● Making the Onboarding process simple.

● Having communication simple and straightforward.

● Use the necessary software and tools, such as email listing.

● Studying your analytics to get the users' reaction to your SaaS, see where to improve on and what to enhance.

Examples of successful onboarding experiences

1. Calendly

Calendly is an online scheduling tool that schedules meetings and appointments and sends reminders. During their signup, the customer enters only their email. The name and password are entered on the next page then a confirmation email is sent where one confirms to start using. After email confirmation, the user is redirected to a page where they can customize their personal calendar.

2. Whatflix

Whatflix is a platform that drives customer onboarding and deals with teaching customers how to use techniques by actually doing them. It provides a procedural guide on how to do things. It has a guided tour that allows new users to discover the application. It has a task list feature that allows you to create a list of the actions you would take for your customer onboarding.

3. Live Agent

For all your commerce inquiries, Live Agent has got you covered. It is a very helpful tool for small to medium-sized e-commerce businesses. It has a live chat option to chat with a bot or receptionist, as well as a ticketing tool and marketing.

4. Trello

The tool used for task management and collaboration, it aims to help the user achieve their goal quickly and effectively. The first task is usually to set up a workspace, and then they are redirected to a page where they can set up their tasks.

The take home message: you can improve customer retention with streamlined SaaS onboarding

And there you have it, folks! You now have the tools and the know-how to create the ultimate SaaS onboarding experience for your customers. With the tips and best practices outlined in this guide, you'll be well on your way to setting your new users up for success and keeping them engaged and satisfied for the long haul.

Remember, a smooth onboarding process is key to customer retention and satisfaction, and it all starts with making a great first impression. So go forth and make that impression count! And remember, onboarding isn't a one-time thing, it's a constant journey, so keep an open mind and always strive to improve your process. Happy onboarding!