.avif)
A great onboarding experience can turn first-time buyers into customers for life. But a bad one? It can lose them in a moment of frustration. Your company’s onboarding process sets the stage for the entire customer experience, making it a critical step in the customer onboarding lifecycle. It's your chance to guide users and show them value before confusion takes over. This customer onboarding guide covers the essential steps for setting your users up for success and turning that initial purchase into lasting loyalty.
When it’s done right, it gives your customers the tools they need to fully experience the value of your products and services. When companies overlook the importance of customer onboarding, first-time buyers end up disappointed and seek better products from competitors.
Want to make sure your customers are satisfied? It’s time to set your new customers up for success. Below, we’re diving into the importance, benefits, and best practices of customer onboarding so you can deliver value and increase conversions.
Quick Takeaways
- 86% of consumers are more likely to stay loyal to a company that invests in welcoming, educational customer onboarding after they’ve made a purchase
- Quality customer onboarding leads to positive growth by keeping customers engaged, reducing churn rates, and boosting referrals
- Customer onboarding takes many forms: emails, on-site/virtual training, application-based intro flows, knowledge base articles, community forums, etc.
- 80% of customers stop using an application because they don’t know how to use it
When you create a quality process, you show new customers the value offered by both your company and its products.
What Exactly Is Customer Onboarding?
Customer onboarding refers to the process companies use to teach and demonstrate the value of its products and services to new customers. This process takes place after customers purchase a company’s product, but before they experience using it for the first time.
Quality customer onboarding processes provide clear, detailed instructions on a product or service’s best use. Customer onboarding is a part of the nurturing process, making sure new customers are well-acquainted with products before using them.
There are a few different ways companies can share information with new customers:
- A series of emails
- On-site or virtual training
- An application-based intro flow
- Knowledge base articles, videos, or other content that clearly explains how to get started
- Technical documentation
- A help site
- A call with a customer success manager
- Access to VIP customer service for one month
- Community forums where new customers can find help from other buyers
Companies need to demonstrate their product or service’s value as soon as possible since it will hook new customers and encourage them to become long-term clients.
Onboarding as an Ongoing Journey
It’s tempting to view onboarding as a one-time event—a checklist to work through right after a customer makes a purchase. But the most effective onboarding isn’t a single transaction; it’s the start of a continuous conversation. Think of it as an ongoing process of learning and support that evolves with your customer. This approach nurtures new users well beyond their first interaction, ensuring they continue to find value in your product long after the initial setup is complete. As they become more proficient, their needs will change, and ongoing onboarding helps them discover advanced features and new use cases, deepening their engagement and preventing them from feeling stuck or overlooked.
This long-term commitment pays off. Research shows that 86% of consumers are more likely to stay loyal to a company that invests in a welcoming, educational onboarding experience. Providing this continuous support relies on having a library of clear, accessible help content. When your technical documentation is created from a single source of truth using a structured content approach like DITA, you can efficiently manage and publish it across different channels. This means the same accurate information can power your knowledge base, in-app guides, and training materials, meeting customers with the right answer wherever they are in their journey.
Why a Great Onboarding Process Matters
Customer onboarding sets up new customers for success. By teaching customers how a product works before first-time use, companies can increase the likelihood of a positive experience, ultimately improving customer acquisition. Not only that but 86% of consumers are more likely to stay loyal to a company that invests in welcoming, educational customer onboarding after they’ve made a purchase.
This makes the customer onboarding process extremely important to increasing both customer satisfaction and conversion rates.
The Business Case for Better Onboarding
Increased customer satisfaction and conversion rates aren’t the only benefits of making a great first impression on new customers. A quality customer onboarding process will also:
- Keep customers engaged. When your customers experience the value associated with your products and services, they’ll be more likely to use them over and over again.
- Reduce churn. Churn, or the measure of how many customers stop using a product, is reduced when customers don’t feel frustrated or abandon your company for a competitor.
- Boost referrals. When customers experience the value of your product first-hand, they are likely to feel passionate about your company and refer other people in their network to your business.
By reducing churn and boosting referrals, customer acquisition costs are lowered and revenue is increased, ultimately leading to positive growth.
The High Cost of Poor Onboarding
When onboarding fails, the consequences are immediate and expensive. All the resources you invested to attract a new customer are lost the moment they give up. A confusing setup process creates frustration, pushing them to look elsewhere. In fact, research shows that 74% of potential customers will switch to another solution if they find the onboarding experience too difficult. This isn't just a lost sale; it's a direct hit to your bottom line and a signal that your initial customer experience is broken, eroding the trust you've just started to build.
Beyond immediate churn, poor onboarding leads to quiet disengagement. When customers don't understand how to use your product, they simply stop trying. A staggering 80% of customers abandon an application because they can't figure it out. They never see the value because the path to achieving it is unclear. This is where clear, accessible instructional content becomes critical. Without a solid foundation to guide them, users are left to fend for themselves, and most won't stick around. This slow fade is just as damaging as a quick departure.
Who Owns the Onboarding Process?
A common mistake is to silo the onboarding process within a single department, like customer support or success. In reality, successful onboarding isn't one person's job; it's a company-wide initiative. According to Gainsight, many teams need to work together, including Customer Success Managers (CSMs), technical teams, product teams, sales, and support. Even leadership plays a critical role by championing the process and allocating the necessary resources. When every department understands its part, the customer experiences a smooth, cohesive journey from the moment they sign up.
This collaborative approach ensures that the promises made during the sales process are fulfilled during implementation and beyond. The sales team sets initial expectations, the product team delivers the features, and the customer success team ensures the user achieves their desired outcomes. Without this alignment, customers can feel like they're being passed from one disconnected team to another, leading to frustration and a poor first impression. The goal is to create a seamless handoff between teams, making the customer feel supported at every step.
A Cross-Functional Team Effort
Think of onboarding as a relay race where each team member passes the baton to the next. The sales team starts by understanding the customer's goals and setting realistic expectations. The implementation or technical team then takes over to get the product set up correctly. From there, the customer success team guides the user, helping them find value quickly. All the while, the product team gathers feedback to improve the user experience, and the support team stands ready to resolve any immediate issues. This interconnected effort ensures nothing falls through the cracks.
The Role of an Onboarding Specialist
While onboarding is a team sport, it often helps to have a dedicated coach. Many companies designate a "customer onboarding specialist" to orchestrate the entire process. As WalkMe notes, this person is responsible for ensuring customers succeed during this critical first stage. They act as the main point of contact, coordinating with different internal teams and guiding the customer through key milestones. This specialist ensures the cross-functional effort is organized and effective, providing a single, consistent resource for the new customer to rely on as they get started.
Choosing the Right Onboarding Model
There is no single, perfect way to onboard every customer. The best approach depends on your product's complexity, your customer's technical skill, and your available resources. A simple, low-cost app will require a very different strategy than a complex enterprise software suite. The key is to match the intensity of your onboarding to the needs of the user. By choosing the right model, you can efficiently guide customers to their "aha!" moment—the point where they truly understand the value your product offers—without over-investing resources where they aren't needed.
Generally, onboarding models fall into three categories: self-service, high-touch, and low-touch. Each serves a different purpose. Self-service empowers users to learn on their own, high-touch provides personalized, one-on-one guidance, and low-touch offers a hybrid approach. Understanding the strengths of each model will help you design a process that scales effectively while ensuring every new customer feels confident and capable. Let's look at how to decide which one is right for your business.
Self-Service Onboarding
Self-service onboarding is designed for products where customers can learn and find value on their own with minimal direct help. According to Zendesk, this model is most effective for simpler products that are intuitive by design. However, "self-service" doesn't mean "no service." It means investing in high-quality resources that empower users to find answers independently. This approach relies heavily on excellent documentation, tutorials, and in-app guidance to create a smooth learning curve, allowing you to support a large user base efficiently.
When to Use It
The self-service model is ideal for products with a high volume of users and a relatively low price point, such as many B2C or SaaS applications. The onboarding experience can take many forms, including automated email sequences, in-app walkthroughs, community forums, and a comprehensive knowledge base. The goal is to make information easily accessible so users can learn at their own pace. This approach works best when the product is straightforward and doesn't require complex setup or integration, allowing users to get started and see results almost immediately.
The Role of Technical Documentation
For self-service to succeed, clear and comprehensive technical documentation is non-negotiable. It serves as the foundation of the user's learning experience, giving them the detailed information they need to use the product effectively. This is where a robust content strategy becomes critical. Using a platform like Heretto's Component Content Management System (CCMS) allows you to create structured, reusable content that can be published across multiple channels, from a help portal to in-app guides. This ensures consistency and accuracy, giving users a reliable source of truth they can turn to whenever they have a question.
High-Touch Onboarding
High-touch onboarding is a hands-on, personalized approach reserved for more complex products or high-value customers. This model involves dedicated staff, such as a Customer Success Manager or an implementation specialist, who provide one-on-one training, customized setup, and regular check-ins. It's a white-glove service designed to ensure the customer not only understands how to use the product but also how to integrate it deeply into their workflows to achieve their specific business goals. This intensive support justifies a higher price point and is essential for retaining key accounts.
When to Use It
A high-touch model is necessary when a product is complex, requires significant configuration, or is being adopted by a large enterprise. As Zendesk points out, it's crucial when the product demands significant customer engagement to be successful. If your customer is making a major investment, they expect a corresponding level of support to ensure they get a return on that investment. This approach builds strong relationships from the start and is fundamental for driving long-term loyalty and expansion within your most important customer segments.
Low-Touch Onboarding
Low-touch onboarding strikes a balance between the scalability of self-service and the personalization of a high-touch model. It typically combines automated tools with human support. For example, a new user might receive an automated email series with helpful tips and links to documentation, but they also have access to support via live chat or scheduled webinars. This model provides proactive guidance without assigning a dedicated manager to every account, making it a cost-effective way to support a growing customer base.
When to Use It
This hybrid model is a great fit for products that are mostly intuitive but have some advanced features that might require a bit of explanation. It provides a safety net for users, giving them resources to learn on their own but making help easily accessible if they get stuck. According to Gainsight, this approach is effective for products that can be understood with minimal guidance but still benefit from occasional human interaction. It allows you to offer a supportive experience that feels personal without the resource commitment of a fully high-touch process.
A Practical Customer Onboarding Guide
As you enhance your company’s customer onboarding process, there are a few best practices to follow to ensure a positive customer experience.
1. Get to Know Your Customer
When you know your buyer persona, you also know how to communicate effectively with your audience.
Be sure to understand and address your customers’ questions, concerns, challenges, and ideal solutions. When you know your customers inside and out, you can tailor their experience to meet not only their goals but also your own.
2. Set Expectations from Day One
Create a sales process that clearly explains the benefits associated with using your company’s products and services. This way, your customers know what to expect before making a purchase.
Did you know that 80% of customers delete an application because they don’t know how to use it? When new customers have accurate expectations, they’re less likely to become disappointed or frustrated if they hit a roadblock with your product. They’ll also know exactly where and how to find solutions to their problems.
3. Show Value, and Show It Quickly
Re-iterate the value of your products to keep customers excited about their purchase. By giving specific examples of how your products can satisfy their unique needs, you create excitement around a personalized experience. Kick-off calls, specialized training sessions, and access to exclusive services are great ways to get customers excited about their purchase.
4. Keep the Conversation Going
Throughout every stage of the customer journey, it’s important to keep communication consistent – but especially during customer onboarding. Make sure your new clients have access to accurate, up-to-date content, intentionally created for new users.
By providing helpful, customized documentation to your customer, you can communicate clearly and consistently about how new users can solve their problems. Answering their questions and encouraging engagement with self-service help content creates a sense of comfort for new users and makes a positive experience more likely.
5. Align Your Goals with Their Success
Every customer’s experience should be unique to their own needs. Creating a personalized experience encourages higher conversion rates, increased average order value, better lead nurturing, and boosted customer retention.
To create a personalized experience, ask your customers to define their own version of success, and then help them create measurable goals to satisfy their needs.
Personalizing each customer interaction heightens the chances of a positive experience. It also encourages customers to share their experiences with others, giving your business a bit of word-of-mouth marketing.
Phase 1: Welcome and Setup
The first interaction after a purchase is your chance to make a great impression and build confidence. This phase is all about making your new customer feel supported and clear on what happens next. A simple, automated welcome email can set the stage by outlining the onboarding plan and timeline. More importantly, giving them a single point of contact—a dedicated onboarding specialist or success manager—removes confusion and shows you’re invested in their success. The goal here isn’t to teach them everything at once, but to assure them they made the right choice and have a clear, guided path forward.
Phase 2: First Login and Education
Once your customer feels welcomed, it’s time to guide them through the product for the first time. The key is to connect features directly to their goals. Instead of a generic tour, focus on the specific outcomes they want to achieve. All your training materials, from videos and tutorials to detailed guides, should live in one central, easy-to-access place. This prevents them from having to hunt for information. By managing your educational content effectively, you ensure it’s consistent, up-to-date, and available on any device, creating a seamless learning experience that empowers the user from their very first login.
Phase 3: Achieving the First "Quick Win"
Momentum is everything in the early stages. This phase is dedicated to helping your customer achieve their first meaningful result with your product, often called the "quick win." This isn't about them becoming an expert overnight; it's about guiding them to complete a small, valuable task that solves an immediate problem. This "aha!" moment is powerful because it validates their purchase decision and demonstrates the product's value firsthand. By identifying what this key achievement looks like for your customers and proactively helping them get there, you build their confidence and motivate them to explore more of what your product can do.
Phase 4: Ongoing Communication and Transition
A great onboarding process doesn't just stop; it transitions into a long-term relationship. This final phase focuses on a smooth handoff from the initial setup to day-to-day use. Clearly communicate what future check-ins will look like and introduce the customer to their permanent support team or customer success manager. This is also the ideal time to ask for feedback on their onboarding experience to refine your process. A successful transition ensures the customer never feels dropped and knows exactly where to find help, empowering them to grow with your product for the long haul.
Putting Your Onboarding Plan into Action
A quality customer onboarding process can help your company see positive growth. By creating a positive customer experience for first-time buyers, you can increase conversions, keep customers engaged, reduce churn, and boost referrals.
Ready to get started? Heretto Deploy API allows businesses to efficiently create consistent, positive customer experiences. Start optimizing your business’s customer onboarding process today by requesting a demo, or visit Heretto’s deploy portal to learn more!
How Self-Service Creates Happier Customers
There’s clearly a connection between self-service technologies and customer satisfaction, but how strong is it? Check out our annual 2024 State of Customer Self-Service Report to learn more cutting-edge insights about the impacts that self-service has on customers and organizations alike.
How to Measure Onboarding Success
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. A successful onboarding strategy isn't just about a good feeling; it's about tangible results that show customers are engaged and sticking around. Tracking the right metrics gives you a clear picture of what’s working and where you need to make adjustments, transforming your onboarding from a simple checklist into a powerful engine for customer retention. This data-driven approach ensures your efforts are making a real impact on both customer satisfaction and your bottom line by helping you pinpoint and proactively address friction in the user journey before it leads to churn.
Key Metrics to Track
To get a holistic view of your onboarding effectiveness, you need to look at metrics that cover speed, engagement, and effort. These key performance indicators (KPIs) act as your guideposts, telling you how quickly users find value, how deeply they are using your product, and how much effort it takes them. Monitoring these numbers helps you build a business case for further investment in your onboarding content, like creating a comprehensive knowledge base to answer common questions. Here are the essential metrics to watch:
- Time to First Value (TTFV): Measures the time to a user's first "aha!" moment. A shorter TTFV indicates an effective process.
- Feature Adoption Rate: Tracks usage of key features. Low adoption can mean your onboarding isn't highlighting their value.
- Onboarding Completion Rate: The percentage of users who finish your onboarding. A high rate suggests the process is helpful.
- Customer Effort Score (CES): Measures how easy your product is to use. A low score indicates customers are struggling.
- Support Ticket Volume: A high number of tickets from new users points to gaps in your educational content.
Common Onboarding Mistakes to Avoid
Even with the best intentions, it's easy to make missteps that can frustrate new customers and undermine your onboarding efforts. These common mistakes often stem from an internal focus rather than a customer-centric one. Recognizing these pitfalls is the first step toward creating a more streamlined, effective, and user-friendly onboarding experience that builds confidence from day one. Avoiding them is crucial for reducing early-stage churn and setting the foundation for a healthy customer relationship. Here are four key mistakes to watch out for:
- Using a "One-Size-Fits-All" Approach. Your customers have different roles and goals. A generic process will miss the mark. Instead, segment users and publish personalized content that shows each user only what's relevant to them.
- Overwhelming Customers with Information. It’s tempting to show off every feature, but this leads to information overload. Break learning into small steps and focus on getting users to a "quick win" to build their confidence.
- Not Having Clear Goals. Your onboarding should be built around specific business goals, like reducing support calls, that align with your customer's definition of success. This creates a focused, purposeful flow for everyone.
- Failing to Connect Your Tools. A disjointed experience is frustrating. Ensure all your resources are integrated for a seamless flow of information, delivering consistent content from in-app help to a dedicated documentation portal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the real difference between customer onboarding and customer training? Think of onboarding as the guided tour you get when you first arrive somewhere new. Its goal is to get you oriented, show you the most important landmarks, and help you achieve your first "win" so you feel confident. Training is what comes next; it's the deep-dive education that helps you become an expert and explore all the advanced capabilities over time. Onboarding sets the foundation, while training builds mastery.
How do I choose the right onboarding model for my product? The best model depends on your product's complexity and your customer's needs. If you have a straightforward, high-volume product, a self-service model built on excellent documentation and tutorials is most efficient. For complex, high-value enterprise software, a high-touch model with dedicated specialists is necessary to ensure success. The key is to match the intensity of your support to the learning curve and the customer's investment.
My product is pretty intuitive. Do I really need to invest in onboarding? Yes, you do. Even the most intuitive products have features and best practices that aren't immediately obvious. Onboarding isn't just about preventing frustration; it's about proactively guiding users to your product's full value as quickly as possible. A simple welcome email, a short in-app tour, or a link to a getting-started guide can make a huge difference in turning a casual user into a loyal customer who understands all you have to offer.
When does the onboarding process officially end? It's more of a transition than a hard stop. The initial, more intensive phase of onboarding is complete once a customer has achieved their first key goals and feels comfortable using the product independently. After that, the process evolves into an ongoing relationship focused on continuous education and support. The goal is to ensure customers keep finding value as their needs change and your product evolves.
What role does technical documentation play in a self-service onboarding model? In a self-service model, your technical documentation is the core of the onboarding experience. It serves as the primary resource users turn to for learning, troubleshooting, and mastering your product on their own terms. This is why that content must be exceptionally clear, easy to find, and consistently accurate across all channels. Your documentation essentially becomes your silent, 24/7 onboarding specialist.
