Frictionless Onboarding

What is frictionless onboarding?‍

As the name suggests, frictionless customer onboarding refers to acquiring new clients for a company without any ‘friction’ or hurdles. In other words, frictionless onboarding is experienced when a new user and the company start doing business with each other without any complications. The complications could arise from either party if their goals or expectations are not fulfilled in the business agreement.

A frictionless customer onboarding process helps acclimatize new customers with the business representatives of the company and vice versa. The primary objective of the frictionless onboarding process is to ensure that the business team members and the new customers reach a joint agreement smoothly. If the client onboarding process is carried out efficiently, it can help companies to develop long-term business relationships with their customers. The process will help to transform the transactional relationship into a more collaborative one. ‍

The frictionless user onboarding requires effort from multiple business units of a company. For instance:

1. The sales and marketing team need to explain the product or service offered by the company.
2. The finance team needs to register the sale and create the invoice.
3. Various customer support teams need to carry out the initial setup for the product or service (if you subscribe to a new fiber internet plan)
4. The R&D team needs to discover more pain points in the customer onboarding journey and the corresponding solutions.
   

Why does it matter for a clean user experience?

A smooth customer onboarding experience is essential for a positive user experience because of the following reasons:

• It provides the first impression for the rest of the consumer journey. It is probable that if the user didn’t enjoy the onboarding experience with a company, they would not participate in the rest of the customer journey leading to a loss of sale opportunity.
• A good onboarding experience aims to boost customer loyalty for the products and services offered by the company. It helps in long-term customer retention, which further boosts business growth.
• According to a Hubspot guide, the main reasons clients churn are either the product doesn’t offer any value to them or they do not understand the product entirely. A frictionless onboarding experience educates new clients about the features of the product offered by the company and how to use those features. It also helps them to realize the value of the product.
• Besides customer retention, it will also help the company attract new customers. This is mainly because of good user feedback from the customers. The company can also post user testimonials on its website or create an online user community to better market its products and services.

Hence, optimizing the user onboarding process is highly recommended to ensure a better user experience. ‍

Frictionless Onboarding in SaaS ‍

You can use the following steps to promote frictionless onboarding in a SaaS company:

• Identification of pain points: A positive onboarding process strives to eliminate any pain point that might cause issues in the relationship-building process. Hence, the first step must be identifying all the friction points by conducting surveys and seeking feedback.
• Simplify the registration process: Customers prefer applications or online platforms with a simple signup process with minimum steps. SaaS companies can also allow new users to signup using their Google account directly.
• Maintain an omnichannel strategy: An omnichannel approach can help the company to improve its consumer satisfaction rate. This can be done by developing online chatbots to discuss queries, offering e-signature options for ease of use, and maintaining a FAQ page to inform the clients more effectively.
• Use effective identity verification tools: Companies must ensure data security, privacy, and a smooth onboarding process. Old ways of logging in (alphanumeric passwords) are becoming less popular among the new generation of users. It is recommended to use biometric technologies (like facial recognition or fingerprint scan) and multi-factor authentication processes for the identity verification and login process.
• Accelerate the identity verification process: Customers hate to wait too long for the identity verification process. So, companies should invest in accelerating the verification process as soon as possible to ensure better customer onboarding.
• Provide extra benefits for referrals: Companies use referral programs for existing users to market their products to new users. A study shows 81 percent of consumers are likelier to interact with companies with reward programs. Offering extra benefits for each successful referral to existing and new users is recommended.
• Continuous improvement of existing processes: Companies must update the existing onboarding process with the latest identity verification technologies, more straightforward registration approaches, etc.‍

Examples:

Here are some excellent example case studies of the best customer onboarding experiences:

1. Netflix

The consumer onboarding journey with Netflix is made super easy for its customers. They can follow the simple steps and instructions to complete the entire onboarding journey within just a few minutes.

New users need to create an account using the signup process, post which they are required to set up a payment method and choose the subscription type. Once this is done, they are requested to select a few titles of movies and TV shows that they like to watch from a large selection. This step helps Netflix’s algorithm recommend similar content to its users and improve their user experience.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot is an online CRM service provider that helps startups and fast-scaling companies to improve their customer experience. This SaaS platform asks all new customers to fill in a basic questionnaire to understand the user's expectations and needs. It also seeks information about the client’s job role and the company that the client is working for. This step helps HubSpot customize the customers' online workspaces and dashboards according to their requirements. Product Managers of HubSpot can also use this data to understand what motivates and persuades the users to take action.