Develop a good Onboarding for your clients

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The original definition of “Onboarding” is the process by which a company welcomes a new employee. This process is divided into three levels: emotional, physical and professional.

This process helps to ensure that the “newbie” is not thrown at a desk with his computer (sometimes not even that) and has to figure out who is who, where the coffee machine is and, most importantly, what his daily job is going to be.

Putting company policies at their service, a “facilitator” who introduces them to the company culture, departments, and processes, makes the new employee feel comfortable, knows where they have to move in the company, where the cafeteria is, etc. and when they have doubts, they have that facilitator at all times to help and guide them.

The importance of the Onboarding process
Now extrapolate this introduction system to your business. It doesn't matter if it's digital or physical. It doesn't matter if you have a website, app, business or company.

When a customer arrives at your “home”, it is time to attract them to come in, so you should have a system that accompanies them from the moment they arrive until they buy your product, your service. They need you to guide them through the process and show them what you offer in a quick and effective way.

What do we have to take into account in the Onboarding process?
The first thing you have to do is develop a strategy. Where you want to guide your client and what you are going to offer them. If you have already developed your buyer persona (you should have it as we always say when we talk about Inbound Marketing ) you will see that the message cannot be the same if it is a new client, if it is a recurring one, if, for example, they are looking for an introductory course to a discipline or looking for a higher education course. Therefore, it is important that you take into account some basic points when developing the onboarding:

Make a brief introduction of your business explaining the most important automotive email lists points of your service or product.
Ask in a simple way what the client is looking for.
Once you know what they want, guide them quickly and easily through the content they need.
Because everything must be focused on the client achieving their objective.

If, for example, you have a website, you can guide them with pop-ups:

onboarding-step-by-step

If on the other hand you have an app:

Once a user has launched an app for the first time, they are presented with a few quick screens describing the value of the app and/or some basics on how to get around.
This simple, static introduction serves as a welcome for first-time users. It should never be more than a few short sentences accompanied by simple graphics: no one wants to read a long instruction manual.
It is advisable to provide a progress indication as well as an exit or skip option for your users. This way, they will know how much of the introduction they have left to read and will not feel trapped.
Slack Onboarding Example

Onboarding-slack

Duolingo Onboarding Example

onboarding-duolingo

In both cases, we must avoid bombarding the user with small windows all at once. We must think about which functionalities are most useful to know on the first visit, guiding the user from one action to another and not explaining or showing things that are too obvious.

First impressions are really important and this is the most critical time to get it right – there may not be a second chance. As we have discussed above, many users abandon an app or product after the first time they open it or stop going to a business after they have tried it for the first time.

There are even customers who don't even get to go in...

Let your customers talk to you, survey users about their experience so they feel that they are important, that you care about them. This will help you improve and eliminate anything that may be annoying.

Addition of new features
This is a bit of a mix of new user onboarding and progressive onboarding. When you launch a new feature or make a major change to the experience, let your users know what the best thing about it is and how to use it. You can take an example from what Facebook does when it adds a new feature: it marks where it is with a blue balloon and explains what it is and what it does.

Tell your customers about your new dishes, your new assortment, your new menu...

Understand your customer
Using user surveys or analyzing the usability of a website can give you important indicators. If, for example, a high number of customers abandon the onboarding process, it may mean that it is tedious or too personal.

If you have a digital product, don't eliminate the onboarding process after the first time. Your customer may come back later and no longer remember the basic functionalities and need to refresh them. Offer them an option to repeat the process.

Don't make forms too long and personal. Start with the most basic questions and evolve as your client progresses with you. For example, don't ask for a credit card to sign up for a service if you have a free trial period of X days. Do it after that period ends.