Your goal as a SaaS developer is to provide users with a product that delights. To fulfill this goal, your onboarding process is where you show customers that your service can answer their needs and create delight.
Step 1: Understand the customer journey
An engaging saas customer experience is built on data, not wild guesses. So, the first thing you need to do is journey mapping. Understanding your customer’s journey will reveal what needs to be fixed in your current process, meaning the gaps in the system and the route your users are taking. Having this data and acting upon it will reduce customer frustrations.
Step 2: Welcome your users the right way
A common customer perception is that once signed in, and you will interact with them. In other words, the ball is in your court. What and how you decide to play with it depends entirely on you, and it could determine the effectiveness of your onboarding process.
Consider usng SaaS email marketing and setting up a welcome email series. This will allow you to adequately present your solutions, their features, and capabilities and remind them that you are there in case they need help. Also, consider the video format when explaining how they can use or personalize your product to best fit their needs. SaaS email marketing is of a huge help and will allow you to get the job done right.
Step 3: Decide on your SaaS onboarding format
Three types of onboarding processes differ in terms of customer effort score and complexity level. By considering your product and correctly selecting the onboarding format that would best represent it, you could significantly improve the overall experience.
Self-service onboarding
Commonly used in social media platforms and apps, this method has a hands-off approach and is very straightforward. Generally speaking, this process involves a basic onboarding flow, allowing the user to explore the product independently.
Low-touch onboarding
Due to their moderate level of complexity, most SaaS companies choose this option and provide users with different onboarding tools like in-app product tours, step-by-step walkthroughs, tutorials, and checklists. While this alternative does offer a degree of customer support, it does not require a dedicated customer success team for each user.
High-touch onboarding
For products with an increased level of complexity, this model is recommended, as it allows users to gain a deep understanding of products through a customer-centric approach. With the help of dedicated customer success teams and one-on-one experiences, training sessions, and a kick-off call to thoroughly discuss the process, the expected level of customer satisfaction can be achieved.
Step 4: Implement, test & optimize
Nothing happens overnight. It takes time and patience. However, as you test your new customer experience SaaS approach, it is relevant to be mindful of the changes. This being said, focus on collecting customer data, interpreting them, and seeing what needs to be improved. Obtaining continious customer feedback will constitute a relevant tool in creating a genuinely effective onboarding process, leading to satisfied and secure customers.
