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Welcome to our latest edition of the newsletter! A common struggle that many startups face is how to define an onboarding process that increases the chances of success of showing the first Time-to-Value to the customer/user and being able to increase product adoption and usage.

Customer/User onboarding is one of if not the most critical stages in the customer journey, as this will have an immediate impact on their perception of success and will define if your product or service can achieve your customers’ Desired Outcome.

So if you are looking for ways to improve the onboarding experience of your product (which should be always), this guide will come in handy.

Imagine this scenario: a customer/user has decided to start using your product with the idea or the expectation that it will solve a specific problem for them, but the integration or the steps needed in order to experience the product for the first time are not straight forward, they’re confusing, there’s a lot of back and forth and what was supposed to be an exciting launch can’t even take off.

After some delay, they finally manage to take off, but there’s another problem now…the mapping directions are confusing and they can’t find the key added value features that will actually solve the main pain points for them, with some luck, the more patient users will eventually find a few of the main features and might be even able to adopt them, but what happens to the other majority of the users? Well, the likelihood is that they either moved on or are on the lookout for another solution that could potentially solve their problem.

So what is the best way to avoid this from happening?… Let’s find out!

Focusing on the 3 Pillars of Onboarding

1) Ease of Integration

An easy integration is important during the onboarding because it can help new users get up and running quickly and easily. If the integration process is too complex or time-consuming, users may give up and not use the product at all.

A difficult integration that requires a lot of effort and/or time on the customer’s side to get it ready will give an impression that your product is difficult to work with and will take even much more effort and time to start seeing the value.

Tip: Always think about how can the integration be smoother, faster, and simpler. In rare cases that a more complex integration is required, make sure to have a clear communication on the timeframes and why is it worth following all of the steps that have been put in place.