Beating buyer churn is how the best-of-the-best Buyer Success orgs shine. And all of it begins with their onboarding expertise.

Regardless of how intuitive and well-designed your product is, you may’t count on your consumers to know tips on how to use it. They want some hand holding to assist them turn into proficient.

So how are you going to assist your prospects obtain worth quicker? How are you going to improve engagement in your software program as a service (SaaS) app?

Easy. With an efficient SaaS onboarding course of.

On this article, we’ll clarify what SaaS onboarding is and why it’s vital. We’ll additionally break down every step of the onboarding course of and finest practices so that you can observe.

What’s SaaS onboarding?

SaaS onboarding is the method of getting new customers arrange with their accounts. The purpose is to assist them attain that first “aha second” of seeing worth out of your product.

Most onboarding contains product excursions and tutorials that showcase completely different options. The thought is to assist customers get arrange and conversant in the platform.

Nonetheless, onboarding goes past educating prospects tips on how to use a product. The very best SaaS onboarding processes assist consumers obtain their targets and make it a part of their workflow.

Why is that this vital?

As a result of serving to customers obtain desired outcomes can improve retention charges.

Onboarding has the greatest impression on retention within the buyer lifecycle. Get it proper, and you’ll retain extra loyal prospects. 

Why is SaaS onboarding vital?

Correct onboarding units the tone for a long-lasting relationship. Whether or not by means of a free trial or a sales-led movement, offering a powerful onboarding expertise to new customers is a should. 

Right here’s why.

Reduces churn charges

Churn, also called buyer attrition, is the share of customers who cancel a recurring subscription inside a given interval.

The components to calculate churn is as follows:

• Churn = (Misplaced prospects / complete prospects) x 100

Let’s say that your SaaS firm had 300 prospects at the start of the month and misplaced 8 prospects by the top. Primarily based on the components above, your churn charge could be about 2.67%.

Whereas some extent of churn is inevitable, a powerful onboarding expertise might help you improve buyer retention and scale back churn charges.

Will increase internet greenback retention

Internet greenback retention (NDR) measures how a lot your recurring income has grown or shrunk. It elements in buyer expansions, in addition to downgrades and cancellations.

NDR goes hand-in-hand with churn charges. Whenever you take steps to cut back churn charges, you’re turning prospects into longtime customers and rising their NDR.

Nonetheless, if consumers aren’t reaching desired outcomes, your possibilities of retaining them lower considerably. 

An efficient onboarding course of might help you enhance buyer retention charges and improve your NDR. With a better NDR, you may modify your gross sales technique (e.g., concentrating on sure industries or firms based mostly on their dimension).

Lowers buyer help prices

By offering customers with clear directions on tips on how to use your product and the sources which can be obtainable to them, you may scale back the variety of messages despatched to your buyer success workforce.

This might help scale back your overhead prices and release your buyer success workforce to deal with extra advanced points.

Boosts person engagement

It doesn’t matter what product you provide, its success finally depends upon engagement. 

A robust onboarding expertise can get customers to that essential “aha second.”

That’s not all.

For those who provide a free trial interval (or a pilot), onboarding is your likelihood to make an incredible impression. Assist trial/pilot customers notice worth inside their first few makes use of, and you’ll improve your trial-to-paid conversion charges.

Extra importantly, it provides customers extra of a cause to log again in. This helps your SaaS turn into extra “sticky” — when consumers return to your merchandise as a result of they discover them partaking and helpful.

How you can create an efficient SaaS onboarding course of (with examples)

Creating an efficient onboarding course of that delights your customers isn’t straightforward. It requires considerate planning and tons of trial and error.

Right here’s a full breakdown of the vital steps of an efficient SaaS onboarding course of with examples for every.

1. Welcome new customers with personalised onboarding emails

When a buyer indicators up in your product, they really feel optimistic about their choice. Assist your prospects reinforce their shopping for choice with a well-crafted welcome e mail.

Congratulate new customers on their buy and embody a hyperlink for them to register and arrange their account. That is additionally an incredible alternative to supply new customers with useful sources.

Right here’s an instance of a welcome e mail that Harvest sends to new customers for its time monitoring and invoicing software program:

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Harvest’s e mail does job at welcoming customers — it features a personalised welcome, a brief description of its worth proposition, and a hyperlink for them to register.

It additionally encourages customers to begin monitoring only a minute of their day. That is vital as a result of getting customers to carry out a small process is step one to driving engagement.

Lastly, the e-mail features a hyperlink to its assist heart that new customers can entry if they’ve any questions on how the software program works.

Listed here are some fast tricks to take advantage of out of your welcome emails: 

• Embrace the recipient’s title so as to add a private contact
• Take the time to thank your customers for signing up
• Use outstanding call-to-action (CTA) buttons
• Share useful sources to get them began
• Hold the e-mail brief and easy

2. Outline your product’s “aha second”

A robust SaaS onboarding course of helps customers get to their “aha second” — the important thing second when customers first notice worth along with your product.

Consider them as small milestones that ship fast wins in your customers. It may be so simple as beginning a timer or as advanced as constructing an automation.

These impactful moments differ for each firm.

Listed here are examples of “aha moments” for numerous tech firms:

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Discovering these moments will assist improve engagement and drive long-term progress. 

Listed here are some methods to seek out your product’s “aha second:”

• Take a look at your analytics knowledge: You’re on the lookout for actions or behaviors that correlate to retention. In its early days, Fb’s progress workforce realized that customers who added simply seven associates in 10 days had been extra prone to stick round.

• Get suggestions out of your customers: Analytics knowledge might help you kind hypotheses which you can check to extend engagement, however don’t cease there. Attain out to your prime customers and schedule interviews to get their ideas. This may even assist present extra context on the information you’ve collected.

• Ship exit surveys: You’ll be able to study an incredible deal from customers who didn’t stick round. Ship exit surveys to customers who canceled their subscriptions and ask open-ended questions like, “How can we enhance our product?” The solutions can reveal friction factors in your onboarding course of. 

As soon as you discover behaviors that correlate to buyer retention, the next move is to information new customers to these actions.

3. Present in-app steering and interactive walkthroughs

New customers might already be considerably conversant in your product. They might have watched a video tour and even gone by means of a personalised demo with a gross sales rep.

However don’t make any assumptions right here. 

Customers shouldn’t have to seek out themselves going through a clean display screen with zero steering on what to do subsequent. Offering in-app tooltips is a good way to spotlight core options and get customers arrange.

Right here’s an instance of how Slack onboards new customers with a collection of useful tooltips:

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These tooltips open routinely in a set order. Customers can click on the hyperlink within the immediate to skip the tooltips and begin utilizing the platform immediately. 

One other means to assist customers get to their first “aha second” is with an in-app guidelines. 

Checklists are extremely efficient at driving engagement as a result of they offer customers a way of accomplishment as they test off every merchandise.

Right here’s an instance of how Evernote makes use of checklists in its onboarding course of:

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Evernote, a note-taking app, kicks its onboarding course of off with a guidelines that consists of simply 4 objects.

New customers can get their first win inside seconds of logging in. In fact, nobody likes to go away a guidelines incomplete, so customers will possible proceed with the setup course of till they test off all objects.

Create in-app tooltips, interactive walkthroughs, and checklists based mostly in your product’s “aha second” to extend engagement and get customers to expertise worth as shortly as potential.

4. Observe up with useful onboarding emails

86% of consumers say they’re extra prone to stay loyal to firms that present extra partaking and academic onboarding experiences.

Nonetheless, when you need customers to expertise the complete worth of your product, you additionally don’t wish to go away them feeling overwhelmed.

A greater method is to ship a collection of follow-up emails that direct customers to different features of your product. This may maintain your consumers engaged and provides them a cause to log again in.

Right here’s an instance of a follow-up e mail that Zapier sends to customers:

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The e-mail goes on to clarify what a Zap is and the way it works. It additionally contains hyperlinks to Zap templates that customers can check out for themselves.

Deal with only one function in your follow-up emails to keep away from overwhelming your customers. Clarify what it’s, the way it works, and the way it makes their lives simpler.

5. Iterate and enhance your onboarding course of

Onboarding isn’t a “set it and neglect it” ordeal. It’s vital that you just proceed to check and enhance your onboarding course of.

Evaluation your person conduct analytics knowledge usually.

How are customers partaking along with your merchandise? Are they finishing these actions that you just’ve recognized as “aha moments”? If not, the place are customers dropping off?

By digging into your analytics, you may establish factors of friction in your onboarding course of and give you experiments to enhance engagement. Examples can embody testing welcome emails and experimenting with in-app tutorials.

Proceed to hunt suggestions out of your customers. Ship out surveys and schedule interviews. Then, use these insights to enhance your onboarding course of.

SaaS onboarding finest practices

Observe these finest practices to construct a extra partaking onboarding course of in your customers.

Reduce friction throughout sign-up

Consumers usually don’t wish to present extra info than they should. Solely ask for as a lot info as you want for customers to get began along with your product. 

For example, Shopify solely requires an e mail handle to begin a free trial:

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Conduct a proper sales-to-success handoff

The sales-to-success handoff is when the gross sales workforce passes a brand new account over to the client success workforce. It usually happens after a prospect turns into a buyer.

A clean sales-to-success handoff ensures that buyer success groups have the precise info to begin onboarding a buyer, together with what their ache factors are and what their desired outcomes are.

Supply personalised onboarding flows

Your product’s “aha second” might differ from one buyer to the following. Make the onboarding course of extra partaking by providing personalised flows which can be particular to a person’s function.

Have customers fill out a quick survey through the sign-up course of or allow them to select their most popular studying path in your welcome display screen.

Schedule coaching classes

Providing personalised coaching classes is a good way to assist your customers get probably the most out of your product and obtain desired outcomes.

Tailor coaching classes based mostly on the person’s persona and use case. That is vital as a result of a workforce supervisor will possible use your product otherwise than an affiliate.

Assist leaders combine your resolution

Likelihood is, your customers are already utilizing numerous options. Join with enterprise leaders and assist them combine your resolution into the remainder of their expertise stack.

Supply self-service choices

Create a self-service information base with solutions to continuously requested questions. Make it simply accessible in order that customers can troubleshoot any points on their very own earlier than reaching out to buyer help.

Arrange weekly calls

Schedule weekly calls all through the onboarding course of to test in along with your customers and reply any questions they may have.

As soon as customers turn into more adept along with your product, you may transfer to quarterly opinions to debate their targets and how one can assist.

Taking these steps will present your customers that you just’re invested of their success. 

Observe onboarding metrics

There’s all the time room for enchancment. However it’s essential perceive what’s working and what’s not earlier than making any modifications.

Hold a detailed eye on metrics like completion charges, utilization time, and time to worth, and use the information to tell iterative enhancements to your onboarding course of.

For instance, a low completion charge signifies that customers are dropping off earlier than they end your onboarding course of. When you establish the issue, you may start engaged on an answer.

Rework your gross sales course of and shut extra offers

By making a stable onboarding course of in your consumers, you may assist them expertise significant worth and present them that they’ve made the precise choice. 

Keep in mind that buyer onboarding is all the time a piece in progress. Collect knowledge out of your analytics and customers and make iterative enhancements.

Are you wanting so as to add extra prospects to your onboarding course of?

Join a demo to see how Gong’s buyer success software program might help you shut extra offers. See what’s working (and why) so you may replicate these ends in your gross sales course of.