How User Onboarding Helps Boost Customer Success

You’ve read the title,

You’ve seen the image,

You’ve got the pun…Right?

Right now, you areprobably thinking that I’ve killed the joke by explaining it; if I should’vejust let you have your own experience, maybe you could’ve appreciated it.

Luckily,this “leave me alone” scenario is only valid if you’re a comedian in the showbiz, and your product is a joke.

On the other hand, if your business model is aSaaS, for example, leaving your customers alone after they signed up for your product is theexact opposite of what you need to do.

At this point, before we delve into thedetails of what you can do as a SaaS provider, let’s try to gain our users’ pointof view.

But never forget this: yourusers look to you for guidance since you can help them solve their problems andsucceed in their objectives.

What is Customer Success?

In the broadest sense, customer success is the state where your customers achieve their desired outcome through their interactions with your company. So that if they can get what they require by using the product you offer, in a way that you systematize making them feel successful, you hit the customer success.

Make sure you check out our article The Ultimate Guide to Understand Customer Success for a detailed description.

How to Achieve Customer Success?

Since today’s successful users will become your future promoters and advocates, if you put customer success into operation accordingly you can benefit from it as a growth engine.

In light of this information, a company’s missionhas two essential layers;

1. To understand what is required for its customers to be successful and make sure that’s possible,
2. To orchestrate the process of moving them towards that success.

How to Boost Customer Success?

These are the actions you should take:

• Know your customers & learn what their expectations are.
• Establish a solid communication channel with them to guide them during their product experience.
• Anticipate challenges and questions they might have throughout their time as your customers.

That all said, let me get closer to the heart of the matter…

• Figure out what the customer onboarding process means!

What is Customer Onboarding?

Customer onboarding is the process you assist your new users to experience the actual value of your product or to get to a point where they see the value potential first-hand. Since this is the stage your users realize they can truly benefit from your product – that this is their “aha” moment, you should figure out what has to happen to get them there, to get them on board. Only after that, you can design this process and set them up for continued customer success.

That means your user onboarding design requires particular features to guide users from setup to experiencing their first. Let’s see how each of them reinforces customer success in a particular way.

For more information on the matter, check out our article User Onboarding 101.

How User Onboarding Helps Boost Customer Success?

There is no denying that the best way to boost customer success is to design a smooth user onboarding process for them. Therefore, make sure to onboard your users the right way because only this way you can help your company to retain them by building a long-lasting relationship.

1. Expectation

By onboarding your users, you set the tone for what to expect from yourbusiness throughout their time as yourcustomer.

2. Impression

A successful onboarding process shortensyour new users’ time to value. And you must show them the valueimmediately. Only after their initial win, your users can transform their first interaction with the product into a successfulexperience.

3. Interaction  

An interactive process design drives users to take purposeful action to onboard autonomously while training them on how to use your product and understand its benefits. Hereby you can ensure the success to your customer thereby catalyzing their experience.

4. Communication

Onboarding your users isa great way to gladden them, get them familiar with your product and answer anyquestions advisedly. By making yourselfavailable through every possible channel and by offering guidance, resource, andsupport, you can get them to succeed and activate faster.

5. Anticipation

User onboarding is a process that you anticipate user challenges and proactively provide solutions to those obstacles even before they arise. This is one of the fundamentals of your design and a forceful value proposition that you guarantee your user’s success.

The best way to boost customer success with user onboarding is to design the best user onboarding process possible.

But how do you design the perfect user onboarding process? Check out our detailed guide How to Structure a Successful User Onboarding Experience for a complete guide to answer this question.

Another way to design a better onboarding process is to use 3rd party tools such as UserGuiding - a code-free user onboarding software. With such tools, you can create your first onboarding process in a few clicks.