Top 7 Ultimate Strategies for Customer Onboarding for SaaS Companies
- Ivy Lobo
- Jun 4
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 1
In this blog, you'll develop a solid grasp of the customer onboarding strategies necessary to retain more customer sign-ups. Learn how to tailor your content to meet specific customer demands, and be sure to take the internal onboarding checklist with you for future whiteboard sessions.
Before you even plan your customer onboarding - Think about how would your customers reach their first win?
Too far a step for the start of the blog right - Exactly!
Keep your customer onboarding step-wise in customer progress. Rest, you will find the answer further in this blog. Keep going on.
Use the Table Of Content to Navigate the Guide.
What is Customer Onboarding?
How to create a Successful Customer Onboarding Strategy For SaaS Companies?
Top 7 Ultimate Strategies For Customer Onboarding (SaaS Companies).
Final Take Away
What is Customer Onboarding?
Customer Onboarding is the process of guiding new customers to become more acquainted with your products and services. It serves as an effective method to help customers feel at ease as they seek their desired solutions.
An outstanding customer onboarding experience includes detailed tutorials, straightforward guidance, and continuous support to steer customers in the right direction, as well as celebrating their milestone achievements.
According to HubSpot, the two common reasons why customers churn are: They don’t understand your product. They don’t obtain any value from it.
These are precisely the issues that onboarding aims to prevent, making it essential to implement effective onboarding strategies to retain customers and decrease the churn rate.
Customer Onboarding Example # 1: Wyzowl
Customer Onboarding Example # 2: Slack
Customer Onboarding Example # 3: Shopify
How To Create a Successful Customer Onboarding Strategy for SaaS Companies?
You’ve crafted a masterpiece (your product) for your audience. Customers need some guidance when they begin using your product.
It’s your responsibility to develop onboarding programs that prioritize the customer experience, starting with the question: “Can they understand your product?”
The positive aspect is that your customers already like you and trust your product - that’s why they purchased it. Your task is to maintain that experience.
You can achieve this by ensuring the product experience matches the quality of your sales process and fulfills the promises made in your marketing efforts.
So, to create a seamless customer experience, here are a few touchpoints to plan your customer onboarding program:
Prepare an Internal Onboarding Checklist
Automated Personalized Email Templates.
Task Managers.
Gamification Sync.
Customer Support Chatbots.
Daily Check-in.
Training Customer Support Team.
Single Channel Communication b/w Teams.
Content for Training Resource
First Onboarding Agenda
Welcome Resources
Align Customer Success Team (Daily Check-ins)
Implementing these practices will establish a strong foundation for customer onboarding and alleviate the challenges of friction points.
After setting up your groundwork, it's essential to delve into your initial efforts to craft a seamless experience. This requires strategic resources and insights to avoid delays in addressing customer friction points.
Top 7 Ultimate Strategies For Customer Onboarding for SaaS Companies
1. Understand Your Customers.
The moment you decide to think about your customers, you might end up categorizing them according to their ranks or positions, swot analysis, geography, or even age criteria. And at last, you will end up with more data that doesn’t conclude anything apart from what you already know.
Essentially, understanding here means - Seek their expectations, their winning aha-moment, their choices, how they feel while using your product (Is there any extra effort?)
Here are few quick questions you must if you’re unsure how to start:-
What is your customer’s first win?
Is there any friction in your sign-up process?
Is your product or service complex for customers?
What devices do your customers prefer?
What is your customer’s final goal?
Is there too much attention asking content on your customer’s screen?
Over 90 percent of customers think that companies “could do better” when onboarding new customers -Wyzowl
2. Show Them What To Expect.
Your customer has a perception of your product, and your sales process should outline the specific qualifying criteria for each customer during the onboarding phase. By preparing customers for potential challenges, you demonstrate that you are supporting them every step of the way.
The clearer the picture you present to your customers, the better equipped they will be and less likely to abandon your product.
3. What Are Your Competitors Up to?
Staying competitive involves being aware of all the options available to your customers in the market. It doesn't have to be a case of "it worked for them, let's try it." Instead, it's about seeing things from the customer's perspective and realizing you need to meet those demands.
Embarking on this competitive journey will position you ahead of many SaaS companies.
Here is the framework template to get you started with your competitive analysis:
4. Layout a roadmap for Customers. (Personalized Value)
In the recent sales analysis, Totango found that out of total web visitors, only 2% sign-up for the free trial, and within 2% - Only 15-50% becomes paid customers. This means, If you’re getting 1000 visitors, then you’re likely to have 30-100 prospects.
Here are few reasons pointed out by Crackitt for the low conversion rate (post free trial) :
They lost interest in SaaS products.
They couldn’t envision future value. (to continue after trial period)
The customer is considering a competitor SaaS solution.
Your customers must feel the personalized value your product offers. They need a journey, a vision of success, steps of progress, and a clear road map!
To craft a personalized road map for your customers, gradually and selectively segment your content. Tailoring your solutions to their needs in small steps makes it easier for them to succeed.
Offer clear instructions before each task and encourage them to complete one task at a time. Provide ongoing support to ensure your customers never feel abandoned.
Remember to celebrate small victories—recognizing their efforts after each milestone motivates them to achieve even more.
5. Design Customer-Centric Content.
How do you capture your customer's attention? What are the most appealing UX designs? Which templates are ideal to use? If these questions are part of your content checklist, it's time to reconsider your content objectives.
Your marketing efforts have successfully led customers to sign up for your product. Now, they need a clear understanding. Avoid the allure of mere attractions and align your content goals with providing unique solutions for your customers.
Let them define success, assist them with AI chatbots, create measurable milestones, and establish benchmarks to enhance their efforts.
6. Stay in Touch With Your Customer.
After your customer begins using your product, maintain communication with them via emails to recognize their daily progress and offer assistance if they need help with content-specific matters.
Here is how Hubspot stay in touch with their customer during the initial stage:
Step-1 : Onboarding Survey.
HubSpot utilizes the initial customer survey to gather essential details about customers, such as the size of their company, the team intended to use the tool, the industry type, and more. This data enables them to tailor their platform to meet the specific needs of the customer.
Step-2 : Navigation to Set Clear Expectations.
A clear vision for customers to anticipate the future. This decreases the churn rate and enhances customer retention.
Step-3 : Sample Data to Get Through The Blank-Slate.
HubSpot provides transparency for customers by explicitly detailing how and where each sample data can be used as a resource.
Step-4 : A Subtle Push to Verify Email.
HubSpot employs the time-value framework to implement the verification push. They deliver value and allow customers time to comprehend it before taking the specified action.
7. Don’t Forget to Ask. (Feedback)
Implementing an email strategy for requesting feedback, creating surveys, and welcoming new users will consistently put you one step ahead of your customers' anticipated friction points.
Have a look at how Groove handles its email campaigning while onboarding new customers:
The objective is to welcome and inform recipients about the follow-up emails, highlighting that they are directly from the CEO.
You can send 2-3 targeted emails per week to new customers and 1-2 emails to existing customers to keep them engaged with the process.
Keep in mind that the goal is for your customers to find value in their inbox, not just to notice your email. Strategically plan your feedback to make your customers feel encouraged every time you contact them.
Final Conclusion:
Your approach to customer onboarding doesn't need to be based on an article or blog (even this one). It should be designed around the interaction between your product and your customers.
This blog serves as a guide to enhance your understanding or clarify any confusion.
Therefore, take the time to coordinate your customer success, marketing, sales, and service teams towards customer-focused initiatives.
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