5 SaaS User Onboarding Best Practices According to Experts (+ Examples of Great SaaS Onboarding Processes you can Copy)

Looking for effective ways to provide a great first impression with your product?

One way to do this is through effective onboarding.

This post will look at the best practices of SaaS user onboarding recommended by experts. We will also look at some practical examples. 

Let’s get started.

What is SaaS onboarding?

Any process you build to promote quick adoption of your SaaS product is SaaS onboarding. 

From the time they sign-up to the moment they realise they can not do without your product. The entire experience is an onboarding experience.

Now that we have the basics out of the way- let’s see how we can improve SaaS onboarding.

4 signs your SaaS onboarding needs improvement

Imagine you did not pay any attention to user onboarding. 

A new user signs up for your SaaS product. The user sees a screen with a lot of  CTAs and buttons.

What does the user click first? 

And what if they clicked something and it simply- crashed? 

This was how many organisations did things before. Software products were left for users to figure out by themselves. 

But then sophistication became the norm, and users became less patient.

Leaving your customer at the whims of technology can lead to frustration. 

Here are a few signs your onboarding process needs improvement:

• Users are not happy to go through the sign-up process: If from analytics you discover new users do not complete the sign process, there might be a problem with your onboarding process.
• Users are not interested in buying your product: While all users will ideally love your product, most should start to pay for it after using it for a while. If your users go in the other direction or are just happy with the free version, there is a problem with your onboarding process. 
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC) rises: If your CAC rises, you may have a problem with your onboarding process.
• Users decide to leave after making the first payment: If your users run away after the first or second invoice, there might be a problem with your onboarding process.
• Number of Support requests: If your users are submitting a lot of support requests during or after the onboarding process, it means that the process is not clear or comprehensive enough – and needs improvement.
• Low engagement rate: If a lot of users complete the onboarding process but only a few engage with the product, it’s a sign that the onboarding process is not effective in helping users understand the value and benefits of the product.

Remember, onboarding is everything from when users signup till when they can’t do without your product.

So how do you set up a kickass onboarding process for your SaaS product?

5 SaaS onboarding best practices according to experts

1. Train your customer service team

2. Use surveys to understand your users

3. Use simple sign up forms to reduce churn

4. Take all concerned departments in the loop

5. SaaS user onboarding checklists

Your customers need to use your product. More than that, they need to see its value in solving their problems.

So how can you run a successful SaaS onboarding process? Given below are 6 expert tips to achieve this.

Train your customer service team

Christoph Schachner, Head of Growth at WeAreDevelopers says that your users will face problems when signing up for your product that your team will have to solve. And how well your support team helps them determine if they become paying users.

Christopher further suggests having your customer service team available round the clock. As well as using different channels, like live chat and phone calls, to communicate with your customers. 

So, for a smooth software onboarding process, provide your support team with adequate training about your product.

But it shouldn’t end there.

Also, train them about your organisation structure and how to use your existing tools to communicate with your customers effectively. 

Next, create a knowledge base about handling different customer queries. Share this knowledge base with your team as a resource.

You can also create a self-help centre where your customer can get answers to frequently asked questions about using your product. This will reduce the workload on your customer support team and make your users understand your product faster.

Use surveys to understand your users

Rob Kagan, Senior Customer Experience Strategist at Youreka, says that creating a survey for a new customer to fill out helps you. It helps you understand how the onboarding journey has gone for the customer.

Rob further explains the role of surveys in SaaS customer onboarding. 

He says creating a Jump Start Score shows a customer’s health after onboarding. 

Rob stresses that you can start to create this score. You can do this by listing all the possible indicators your team can think of. That might give insight into whether a customer is ready to go live.

This best practice for SaaS onboarding uses survey results to gauge customer interest. You can base the custom surveys on business objectives. 

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This idea helps you build a blueprint your customer service team can refer to. 

As Rob suggests, have your team brainstorm what a healthy customer looks like. Highlight the factors and create questions. 

As your customer responds, your team can tell which customers will convert.

Also Read: 10 Top SMS Survey Tools to Try Right Now

Use simple sign up forms to reduce churn

Simple user sign-up forms encourage users actually to use the product. 

Julia MacDonald from Ganas Ventures shares 6 things you can do to discourage SaaS app user churn. She suggests:

• Minimising the information the user needs to fill in. Ask extra questions later.
• Pre-filling sample answers. 
• Adding screenshots with instructions. 
• Showing a progress bar (as the user fills in the information). 
• Reminding the user what they can get after onboarding. 
• Rewarding users, for example, pre-creating projects they can begin with. 

This best practice for SaaS product onboarding reiterates simplicity. 

Take all concerned departments in the loop

Joanna Kurylo, Partner and Advisor at The Intellectual Digital Companies, provides his advice. 

Joanna says that onboarding for your SaaS product is never the responsibility of one department. 

A business exists to serve customers. So, the customer is the responsibility of every department. 

Get all relevant people in the same meeting room as you discuss customer onboarding. You can create customer onboarding documentation based on the marketing and sales objectives.

SaaS user onboarding checklists

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The CEO of Raaft, Miguel Marques, uses SaaS onboarding checklists. He proposes using checklists to keep SaaS user onboarding consistent.

This SaaS onboarding best practice is for the customer service team. It is imperative to have a workflow for every kind of customer. 

This means creating separate checklists of items. One for new customers and a separate one for those who are adapting.

Creating a checklist and referring to it will keep all the priorities aligned.

Use simple tools like Notion to create checklists.

Share it with your team. Ask them to go through it when performing their customer onboarding processes.

5 of the best SaaS onboarding examples 

Now, lets look at some of the best SaaS onboarding examples out there. 

You can replicate these for your SaaS product.

SaaS onboarding example #1: Trello

The Trello user onboarding presents a simple interface that enables you find all you need in one single board. 

Trello creates a unique spin on project management- providing users with visual cues.

For example, if you add a card, there is a visual cue to fill in the title.

Furthermore, opening a card will give you more visual cues as you fill in the card details.

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If your SaaS product is missing visual cues, add them to the fields your customers will fill. 

For example, consider adding pop-up directions to guide your user on sign-up. If you have added new features to your tool, add short snippets that pop up on mouse-over to help in user onboarding.

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SaaS onboarding example #2: Twitter

We are all familiar with Twitter. And that is the beauty of their SaaS customer onboarding process. It is familiar and useful for every user. 

The onboarding process is super simple for everyone.

The unique thing about Twitter’s onboarding process is the option to skip a step you don’t like. This makes the process faster for people who just want to tweet ASAP.

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SaaS onboarding example #3: Sprout Social

Sprout Social helps you manage all your social media accounts from one platform. It also provides analytics and tools to get the most out of your posts. 

Sprout Social uses an onboarding survey to gauge the experience level of its users. To help them use the app better.

Also, Sprout Social gives users a tour of all the app’s features so they can start using it immediately. 

Add tours and pop-up tooltips to your product. This will show your users how to navigate and start solving problems with your product immediately.

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SaaS onboarding example #4: Guru

Guru is a knowledge management software that helps organisations create resources using templates. 

As you sign-up, you can see a list of templates organised by topic. Clicking on these will immediately take you to a resource. 

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You can now edit this resource according to your organisation’s guidelines.

Guru does the heavy work for its users and provides a no-BS interface with all the templates their users can start using as they sign up.

Adding templates may not be right up your alley, but providing sample projects or data may be. For your SaaS user onboarding, this might help your users get immediate value from your product. Especially for products that offer monthly subscriptions.

SaaS onboarding example #5: Notion

Notion is a collaboration software that allows teams to write, plan and get organised. For its SaaS onboarding, it offers a “Getting Started” page. 

This page provides all the software’s core features, pages and tools. Plus, the tool also provides templates your users can work with. 

Everything Notion offers is simple from a UX perspective. Anyone can play, use pre-built pages, test functionality, and see the walk-throughs.

The simple design creates immediate value. It enables Notion’s users to exploit the app to their satisfaction. All the user needs to do now is to build use cases which Notion does by showcasing pre-built templates. 

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Make SaaS onboarding work for your brand

There you go.

5 best practices with 5 SaaS onboarding examples. You can replicate these for your SaaS product onboarding. 

Every software has its wow onboarding experience.

This is what you get with SMSCountry. We offer a simple messaging platform. It helps you send and receive personalised messages via text, chat, and audio. As well as OTPs.

Sign up for free credits, or schedule a free demo to check us out. Our team will get back to you ASAP.