Customer Onboarding: A Guide for Customer-first Companies

Today, customers are inundated with choices. When they select your product or service over others, it's crucial to ensure they continue choosing you. The key to achieving this lies in minimizing the time to value.  

Customer onboarding is the first step towards delivering on your promises and plays a significant role in the post-purchase or post-sign-up customer experience.  

In this blog, we will explore the intricacies of customer onboarding — from its definition and various models to its benefits and best practices, all illustrated with exemplary customer onboarding strategies from leading companies.

What is customer onboarding?  

Customer onboarding is helping new users get started with your product or service. The primary goal is to make customers comfortable and confident in using your product, equipping them with everything they need to succeed from the outset and leaving no room for potential confusion or ambiguity.

Customer onboarding typically involves several stages:  

• Initial setup: This phase configures the product or service according to delivery standards and the customer's expectations. This could include technical setup, account creation or integrating the product with existing systems.  
• Education and training: After the initial setup, customers are educated on how to use the product effectively for their unique requirements. This might involve training sessions, detailed guides, video tutorials and interactive demos.  
• Support and assistance: Customers should have easy access to support throughout the onboarding process. This includes providing clear customer service channels for asking questions, troubleshooting issues and seeking further assistance.  

With the rise of digital customer service, customer onboarding often begins with a personalized welcome message or email, followed by guided tutorials to help set up their account. In-app messaging usually facilitates this, making the process smoother and more intuitive.   

In the B2B sector, the onboarding team becomes a crucial part of the customer journey immediately after the sales handoff. This team is responsible for ensuring a seamless transition from the sales phase to the product's actual use, maintaining the enthusiasm and commitment that the sales team has built.   

Key stakeholders in customer onboarding include:   

• Customer success managers: They act as the main point of contact for customers, guiding them through the onboarding process and ensuring they derive maximum value from the product.  
   
• Product trainers: These individuals are responsible for educating customers about the product's intricacies, providing training sessions and creating educational content.  
   
• Technical support specialists: They handle technical issues during onboarding, ensuring a smooth setup and integration.  
   
• Account managers: Oversee the overall relationship with the customer, ensuring their needs are met and that they remain satisfied with the product.

3 models of customer onboarding 

There are three primary customer onboarding approaches, each with strengths and weaknesses. Choosing the suitable model for your business depends on your products, services and unique customer requirements. Understanding these models and how they align with your business will help you master your onboarding strategy and set the foundation for long-term success: 

1. Self-service onboarding 

Modern platforms are designed to be intuitive, enabling customers to start on their own. A prime example is how users sign up for platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn or Gmail. Users follow step-by-step prompts with a progressive onboarding flow that logically explains various functionalities and features, avoiding information overload.  

Self-service customer onboarding employs tutorials, FAQs and knowledge bases to help customers independently familiarize themselves with the platform. This cost-effective and scalable model makes it ideal for businesses with straightforward products and large user bases. 

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 2. Low-touch onboarding 

Low-touch onboarding combines elements of both self-service and high-touch approaches. It is suitable for products requiring some explanation but not extensive hands-on support.  

For instance, Slack uses a low-touch onboarding approach. New users receive automated messages that guide them through essential features, supplemented by a dedicated help center for more in-depth information. This model balances efficiency and support, making it perfect for small to medium-sized businesses with moderately complex products.  
 
Low-touch onboarding provides the necessary assistance while allowing customers to explore the product at their own pace.

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 3. High-touch onboarding 

Live chat support, live demos, screen-sharing sessions and regular check-ins characterize high-touch onboarding. It involves dedicated account managers or customer success managers who offer personalized training and support to new customers tailored to their needs.

High-touch customer onboarding ensures customers fully understand and utilize the product, fostering a deeper relationship and higher customer satisfaction. It is best suited for businesses with complex or high-value products that require a significant customer investment.  

🔍 Deep Dive: 6 Ways to Deliver High-touch Customer Service   

Key benefits of customer onboarding 

Now that you understand different customer onboarding models, let's delve into their benefits:  

• Increased customer satisfaction

Effective onboarding ensures that users feel supported and knowledgeable about your product's features and benefits right from the start. This proactive approach boosts net promoter scores (NPS) and overall customer satisfaction. For instance, Netflix's seamless onboarding process and personalized recommendations driven by intelligent algorithms enhance user satisfaction and encourage long-term subscription commitment.  

• Reduced churn  

Customer onboarding is crucial in shaping the initial post-purchase experience. It communicates to customers that their needs matter and that you are committed to their success. During onboarding, customers are still evaluating your product or service, making it a critical opportunity to showcase the value your offering brings to their business. A smooth, proactive onboarding process significantly reduces the likelihood of customer churn by setting positive expectations and demonstrating immediate value.  

• Enhanced user engagement  

Effective onboarding not only introduces customers to your product but also ensures they understand how to use it optimally. This understanding empowers them and by providing clear guidance and support during the onboarding process, you can increase user engagement. Customers who feel confident in their ability to use your product are more likely to explore its features, leading to higher levels of satisfaction and ongoing interaction.  

📚 Bonus Read: Customer Engagement: Benefits, Strategy & Examples

7 Steps for a successful customer onboarding process [+ Examples] 

Reports indicate that companies implementing a formal onboarding process experience a 60% increase in revenue year over year. On that note, let's explore how to ace customer onboarding through a step-by-step guide followed by best practices.     

1. Friction-free signup 

In the digital world, users have short attention spans and plenty of options. A lengthy signup process with multiple steps and forms can feel like a chore, leading them to abandon it altogether. Friction-free signup makes it easier and faster for users to get started. 

Friction-free onboarding cheat sheet 

🚀 Keep it snappy: Ask for only the essentials during signup. No need for their life story!    

📲 Enable single sign-in: Offer single sign-on (SSO) or even social login for one-click registration. It's faster and more convenient.    

⏳ Save time with pre-filled information: Utilize signup data to automatically populate relevant fields within the product. This way, users can jump right in without the hassle of unnecessary typing. 

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 2. Initial welcome 

Begin with a personalized welcome message or email that acknowledges the customer’s choice and sets the tone for a positive experience. Address customers by name and avoid sending generic messages. This initial communication is crucial for making customers feel appreciated and valued for their decision to choose your product or service.  

Airbnb exemplifies this approach with its onboarding process for new hosts. The company sends personalized emails and guides to new hosts even before they list their property. These emails include setup checklists and best practices, ensuring hosts are well-prepared and confident as they begin their journey with Airbnb.

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3. Offer an interactive product tour 

Having an interactive product tour helps you gain a unique advantage by bridging the gap between product features and user experience. This reduces the time it takes for users to learn the ropes, minimizing frustration and confusion during the initial stages of customer onboarding. In addition, here’s why you must give it a second thought if you don’t offer product tours yet.

📍 Interactive tours: It offers more than just passive observation. They allow users to actively engage with the product, clicking, hovering and interacting with elements within the tour itself. This level of interaction keeps users focused and invested in the learning process, enhancing their overall experience.

👍 Improved feature adoption: Product tours can showcase features clearly and interactively, encouraging users to explore and experiment with different functionalities. This can lead to increased adoption of features that users might otherwise overlook. 

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4. Initial product setup  

The initial product setup phase ensures customers can easily start using your product and experience its value quickly. During this phase, it's essential to help customers through the setup process by providing clear instructions for creating an account, setting up preferences and navigating your website or platform.  

Wistia, a leading video management software company, excels in this area with its proactive approach. During the initial setup, Wistia empowers new customers to set their preferences upfront regarding how they want to use the tool. Based on these preferences, the platform is configured to meet their specific needs, ensuring that customers can immediately start using the features and functionalities relevant to them. This approach minimizes the time and effort customers spend searching for the features they need, leading to a smoother and more satisfying onboarding experience. 

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5. Contextual help and resources 

Imagine a new user encountering a confusing feature with no guidance. They might get frustrated, abandon the process or form a negative impression of your product. Contextual help, like tooltips or in-app guides, appears precisely when users need it, smoothing out their experience and minimizing confusion. This keeps them engaged and focused on the value your product offers.   

Users who receive timely help and access readily available resources feel more confident navigating your product. This can lead them to explore features they might have otherwise overlooked.

🏄 Your customer onboarding is effortless, if... 

You offer in-app guidance  

Empower users with context-sensitive help menus or tooltips that they can access when they need them. These are like little pop-up signs that explain what a button does or how to use a particular tool. This way, users have control over their learning process, without interrupting their workflow or forcing them to search for answers elsewhere.

Your customers discover features organically  

 Don't just push information. While contextual help is essential, it shouldn't feel intrusive.  

Let users discover features organically through product interactions. Design your product with intuitive interfaces and workflows that guide users toward valuable features without overwhelming them with pop-ups and tutorials. 

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6. Collect feedback (And act on it) 

Maintain continuous engagement with customers to reinforce their understanding and usage of your product. Collect feedback during onboarding with simple pop-up prompts. These prompts, featuring questions like "Does this help?", encourage immediate feedback through "yes" and "no" buttons, allowing you to gauge customer perception in real time. 

Similarly, administer customer surveys right after they set up their account, asking about the ease of the onboarding process and any challenges they faced. This feedback helps you determine the customer effort score and identify any underlying gaps that need to be addressed.

🙋 Do you know 
 
Today, you can automatically convert customer satisfaction survey questions to a conversation that a chatbot can execute and ask relevant questions to gather feedback. Sprinklr’s omnichannel survey software powers these conversational surveys effortlessly on any messaging channel, boosting the survey response rate.

Moreover, you can also analyze user behavior accurately on your websites and apps and let proactive prompts handle the rest by surfacing relevant feedback questions to the user then and there.

Collect Customer Feedback Now

7. Continuous support and communication 

Once customers have been successfully onboarded, maintaining ongoing engagement is vital to reinforce their understanding and usage of your product. This continuous interaction ensures that customers remain confident and satisfied with your product, fostering customer loyalty. Equally important is collecting feedback throughout this process. Customer feedback provides valuable insights into areas for improvement, allowing you to refine and enhance the onboarding experience, thereby improving the product and customer satisfaction.

🏆 Community building

Building an online customer community around your product is a powerful strategy to enhance ongoing engagement. A thriving community allows customers to share their experiences, tips and best practices with each other. This peer-to-peer interaction not only fosters a sense of belonging but also provides a valuable resource for customers to learn and grow. Communities can be facilitated through forums, social media groups or dedicated portals. Check out the Sprinklr community! 

🔔 Regular updates

Regularly update customers on new features, updates and best practices to keep them engaged and informed. These updates should be communicated through email marketing, in-app notifications or webinars.

For example, consider how Semrush introduces new features. When Semrush rolls out an update, it provides detailed release notes, often accompanied by a blog post or video tutorial explaining the latest functionalities. This approach ensures that users are well-informed and can quickly adapt to changes, maintaining their productivity and satisfaction.

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How does AI ensure efficient customer onboarding 

AI not only streamlines the customer onboarding process for efficiency but also verifies the authenticity of new customers, making the process more productive.  

Forbes quotes Ari Jacoby, a prominent cybersecurity solutions provider, "AI can act as a silent guardian during the onboarding process, making sure companies are able to welcome genuine customers with open arms while keeping fraudsters at bay."   

Intriguing, right? Let's look at some ways AI helps onboard your customers effortlessly: 

- AI-powered in-app walkthroughs and guidance 

Imagine a user encounters a new feature during onboarding. A well-integrated chatbot can appear within the app, offering a contextual walkthrough or highlighting key functionalities in real-time. This provides engaging, in-app guidance that eliminates the need to switch between screens or refer to external resources.  

Chatbots can also analyze user behavior within the app and anticipate potential roadblocks. For instance, if the AI detects that the customer is struggling with setting up an email campaign, it can automatically suggest relevant tutorials, provide tips for creating effective email templates or even recommend features they haven't explored yet. This proactive support ensures that customers feel supported and confident using the product. 

• Intuitive resource discovery from the knowledge base 

During customer onboarding, particularly for complex platforms, an AI-powered knowledge base can significantly streamline the process. For instance, if a customer encounters difficulties setting up customized triggers and struggles to complete the process within the typical timeframe, AI can detect this challenge. It then recommends precise articles that address the specific issue while also guiding customers to related content. This not only helps resolve the immediate problem but also enhances the customer's ability to learn independently, fostering a more intuitive and self-sufficient onboarding experience. 

😊 Good to know 

Modern knowledge base software goes beyond just storing information; it automatically adds structured data in the schema to ensure your articles and resources remain optimized for search engines. This optimization improves discoverability, making it easier for customers to find the required information.  

Moreover, with advanced knowledge base software, you can capture real-time insights from customers during the onboarding process. This allows you to understand their specific issues and assess the usefulness of your knowledge-base articles.  

By leveraging these insights, you can continuously refine and enhance your content, ensuring it meets your customers' evolving needs and provides them with a seamless onboarding experience.

Deliver Super-fast Customer Support with AI-powered Knowledge Base 

Deliver Super-fast Customer Support with AI-powered Knowledge Base

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• Automated workflows and processes 

AI streamlines onboarding workflows by automating repetitive tasks, freeing up support agents to focus on more complex and value-added activities. This automation ensures that customers move through the onboarding process swiftly and efficiently.  

For example, the customer onboarding process involves multiple steps, including data migration, account setup and user training. AI-powered chatbots act as virtual support agents for many of these tasks, allowing onboarding teams to provide more personalized support and focus on high-impact activities that drive customer success. 
 

• Measure customer feedback and sentiment during onboarding 

Imagine you receive open-ended feedback during onboarding, such as "This process is a little confusing."  

Sentiment analysis can not only identify this as negative feedback but might also reveal underlying emotions like frustration or overwhelm. This actionable insight offers you a deeper understanding of the customer experience journey. It allows you to pinpoint confusing steps and refine your onboarding to address those specific points of friction.

How to measure customer onboarding efficiency  

Measuring the efficiency of your customer onboarding process is crucial for understanding its impact and identifying areas for improvement. Here are key metrics that can help gauge the effectiveness of your onboarding process:  

1. Time to first value (TTFV) 

TTFV measures the time it takes for a new customer to experience the value of your product for the first time. This metric is crucial as it reflects how quickly your onboarding process can demonstrate the product's benefits to the user. 

📐 How to measure: Track the duration from when a customer signs up to when they achieve a meaningful milestone, such as completing a setup process, launching their first campaign or generating their first report.  

2. User activation rate 

This metric measures the percentage of new users who complete a specific set of actions that signify successful onboarding. It indicates how effectively your onboarding process converts sign-ups into active users. 

📐 How to measure: Define key actions that indicate activation (e.g., completing a profile, connecting an account, making a first transaction) and track the percentage of new users who perform these actions within a certain timeframe.  

3. Feature adoption rate 

This metric measures how effectively customers use your product's key features post-onboarding. It indicates whether the onboarding process successfully educates users about the product's capabilities. 

📐 How to measure: Track new customers' usage of specific features over a certain period. Calculate the percentage of users who utilize these features.  

4. Customer effort score (CES) 

CES assesses how much effort customers need to put into completing the onboarding process. Lower effort scores indicate a smoother, more intuitive onboarding experience.  

📐 How to measure: Survey new customers, asking them to rate the ease of their onboarding experience on a scale (e.g., from "very easy" to "very difficult"). Calculate the average score to determine the overall effort level.  

5. Support ticket volume 

The volume of support tickets raised during the onboarding phase can indicate the clarity and effectiveness of the process. A high volume of tickets may suggest that the onboarding materials are insufficient or confusing.

📐 How to measure: Track the number of support tickets new customers submit during their onboarding period.  

6. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

A measure of how satisfied customers are with their onboarding experience. Direct feedback from customers provides insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your onboarding process. 

📐 How to Measure: Use surveys to ask customers to rate their onboarding experience on a scale (e.g., 1 to 5) and calculate the average score.  

Customer onboarding is a journey. Make it memorable with Sprinklr 

For new users, customer onboarding can often feel like navigating a maze filled with potential frustration and confusion. This critical phase can make or break their experience with your product. Yet, when done right, it transforms these pain points into opportunities for deeper engagement, loyalty and satisfaction.  

This is where AI steps in as a game-changer. Sprinklr Service suite leverages the power of AI to anticipate user needs, provide personalized support and streamline the onboarding process, making customer onboarding not just efficient but delightful. Here’s how:   

• Knowledge base software: Automatically optimized for search engines, ensuring users can easily find the necessary information. AI-driven insights allow you to improve your content continuously based on real-time feedback.  
   
• Omnichannel survey software: Collects valuable feedback across multiple channels, helping you promptly understand and address user pain points. By acting on this feedback, you can refine your onboarding process and enhance user satisfaction.  
   
• Community forum software: Fosters a supportive community where users can share experiences, tips and best practices. This peer-to-peer support network enriches the onboarding experience and builds a sense of belonging. 

For more information, schedule a demo with our experts today!