When a user purchases a product from you for the first time, it is expected of you to introduce that product to the customers and tell them about its features and how everything works. This is known as the first run onboarding experience. An effective onboarding experience plays a key role in determining if the user will continue to use your product in the future. It is estimated that SaaS companies typically lose 75 percent of their new users within the first week of usage without a well-executed onboarding experience.
A complete first-run onboarding experience considers the entire user journey starting from the sign-up process until they start using your product regularly. The primary objective of conducting an onboarding experience is to help your clients transit from new users to loyal users of your product. An efficient first-run onboarding experience consists of several components, such as an easy sign-up process, introductory content, customer care services, etc.
An efficient first-run onboarding experience is essential for the success of a SaaS company. Here are some of the points that demonstrate the importance of the First Run Onboarding experience:
Here is a 4 step process that you can adopt to create a great first-run onboarding experience:
As a product owner, it is important for you to identify all the critical steps that a new user has to take to use your product efficiently. This helps you to discover all the glitches in the platform beforehand. Hence you can fix those glitches before a customer experiences them.
It is recommended to prepare a welcoming kit for new users either in the form of emails, video tutorials, in-app tutorials, etc. This gives the new users to opportunity to learn about the platform as soon as they sign up.
Now, you need to select an onboarding model that will help you to retain loyal users. The three types of onboarding models that you can choose from are as follows:
The final step is to test and improve the first-run onboarding experience based on quantitative and qualitative data. You need to analyze if the current onboarding elements are producing the desired results. If not, you can conduct surveys or communicate directly with your users to learn how you can optimize the existing onboarding process.
Below are some examples of the best first-run onboarding experience that you can learn from:
1. Slack
Slack is a popular team messaging application that has a great onboarding experience for its users. During the sign-up process, each step consists of an image that shows user inputs from the previous step. The application has its own AI (artificial intelligence) bot that conducts a product walkthrough for new users and educates them on how to use the application.
2. Grammarly
Grammarly is a writing tool that helps users to check for grammar, spelling errors, choice of words, etc., via in-line suggestions. The application offers a demo document that enables its users to understand the features by using them first-hand. Most of the noteworthy features are indicated using pulsing icons that catch the eyes of the users.
3. TikTok
TikTok is one of the most popular social media applications with a smart first-run onboarding experience. It guides all its new users on how to improve the app experience using its inbuilt features. It postpones the sign-up process for the users until they decide to like or comment on a video. This way, users can get a chance to use the application first-hand before they are asked to sign up.
4. Calendly
Calendly is an online application that is used to schedule appointments and meetings without the hassle of exchanging emails to find a suitable time between two parties. The tool collects minimal data from its users to get them started. It also has a resource center that consists of e-books, blogs, video tutorials, etc., for the users to learn more about the tool.