11-Step SaaS Onboarding Checklist & Best Practices For Your App

Hoping to turn your app’s newbies into loyal users? Start with a fantastic onboarding process.Onboarding users isn’t just about making a good first impression. It’s also about understanding their needs and guiding them to the right conversion points.

A complicated onboarding process unintentionally drives away 74 percent of potential customers. At the same time, a simple and user-friendly onboarding makes them 50 percent more likely to stay loyal.

That’s why businesses focus on improving user onboarding. By guiding users to the right features, they help them see the product's actual value. Over time, they ensure that first-time users become loyal paying customers.

Want to impress users during onboarding? Use our SaaS onboarding checklist to make sure you cover everything.

Why an Effective Onboarding Process Matters

A smooth onboarding process can improve user experience and help retain them. HubSpot's study on The State of Customer Onboarding shows why focusing on how you onboard customers is essential.

Here are more customer onboarding stats that declare their importance.

• Over 90% of customers feel that companies could improve how they onboard new customers.
• Unsurprisingly, 82% of enterprise organizations say their onboarding strategy is critical in adding value to their business.
• 63% of customers consider a company’s onboarding program before they decide to make a purchase.
• Customers usually drop off during digital onboarding after about 14 minutes and 20 seconds.
• If the digital onboarding takes over 20 minutes, 70% of customers give up altogether.

11-Step SaaS Customer Onboarding Checklist

Looking for a SaaS onboarding checklist that covers all your concerns and customers' expectations? Quest Labs AI has you covered. Try our expert SaaS onboarding checklist with 11 steps.

1. Who Is Your ICP?

The very first step of a SaaS onboarding checklist is identifying your ICP. ICP, or Ideal Customer Profile, refers to the customer or business that gets the most out of your product or service. Moreover, they will stick around and enjoy the long-term value of your offer. For SaaS companies, it’s essential to figure out the ICP. That raises the question of how you can quickly identify them. You look at their industry, pain points, and goals. Still, wondering how identifying ICP benefits customer onboarding? Here’s how.

• Personalized Onboarding:

  Understanding ICP helps you personalize the onboarding journey to fit their needs and expectations. It makes the process smoother and more relevant.

• Increases Customer Retention:

  When you target the right users, they’re more likely to stay engaged. Moreover, they interact with your product and use it over a long time.

• Faster Time to Value:

  By focusing on your ICP, you can provide clear guidance to help them see the value of your product faster.

• Efficient Resource Allocation:

  It helps streamline your onboarding resources and efforts toward those most likely to convert. As a result, you can reduce unnecessary costs and time spent on others.

2. What Are Your Customers Looking For?

There's no doubt that customers use your app to solve problems or reach their goals. So, why not make it easier for them? Understanding their needs lets you personalize the new customer onboarding process to highlight the relevant features. This approach reduces any confusion and gives users a great first impression.

However, not all users have the exact expectations from an app. What if we say there is an easy way to understand each user's preferences? Try Quest Labs AI’s detailed user segmentation.

AI user segmentation helps businesses segment users based on their behavior and demographics. This precision makes it easier to understand each user's needs and personalize onboarding flows to fit them.

By spotting patterns and trends, AI can predict what users expect from the app. Therefore, you can offer personalized content and communication that matches each segment's expectations.

3. Is The Onboarding Experience Interactive?

The next step in a saas onboarding checklist is checking if the onboarding experience is interactive.

Users love interactive onboarding because it engages them in learning. Instead of watching videos or reading instructions, they prefer detailed guidance. As a result, customers can explore critical features in real time. This reduces confusion, speeds up learning, and improves the overall experience.

4. Can Users Explore Your Product At Their Own Pace?

User autonomy allows users to explore and interact with a product at their own pace. They can take their time without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. It lets users decide how and when to try out different features,

Still thinking users shouldn’t control the onboarding pace? Here’s why user autonomy is beneficial.

5. Are Helpful Resources Easily Accessible?

It's important for businesses to give users easy access to resources like guides and tutorials. These resources help users solve problems on their own. When users need answers, they should be able to quickly find what they need without contacting customer support. This approach makes the onboarding smoother and reduces frustration.

How can you offer adequate resources to customers?

6. Can Users Track Their Onboarding Process?

A progress bar shows users how far they've come in the new customer onboarding process. It displays what they've finished and what’s left to do. This helps manage their expectations and motivate them to complete the process.

When users can see their progress, they feel accomplished with each step they finish. It helps reduce uncertainty and makes the experience feel more organized.

7. Can Users Exit and Re-enter The Onboarding Easily?

The next step of our SaaS onboarding checklist is checking if users can return to the process after leaving it. Users may leave apps during onboarding for many reasons, such as getting interrupted or needing more time to understand features. Letting them pause and return later gives them the freedom to finish at their own pace.

The app should save the user's progress and let them restart from where they left off. It’s also essential to have a smooth transition between sessions. It creates a great customer experience, so users don’t have to redo anything. This helps avoid frustration and keeps the experience easy.

8. Does Completing the Process Reward Customers?

Rewarding users for completing onboarding creates a positive start for future interactions with the app. It motivates them to keep exploring and trying out more advanced features. Want to make the most out of rewarding user onboarding? Try our expert tips.

• Offer Discounts or Free Trials:

  As a reward, provide a time-limited discount or extended free trial. This approach helps encourage users to continue using the platform.

• Unlock Premium Features:

  Give users access to exclusive features or content. Special offers and rewards add a sense of exclusivity.

• Badges or Achievements:

  Introduce gamification elements like badges to encourage users to complete onboarding fully.

• Offer Customization Options:

  Let your users customize their experience as a reward for completing the onboarding process.

9. How Attractive Is Your Blank State?

The blank state of an app is what users see when no data has been added yet. The blank state appears when they haven’t completed any tasks or created content. Users come across the empty version of the app in the beginning stages. Try these must-needed blank state features to encourage users to explore the app further.

• Guided Action Prompts:

  Include clear, actionable prompts to encourage users to start interacting with the app.

• Visual Cues and Tips:

  Use icons and tooltips to guide users to the app's most essential features.

• Showcase App Benefits:

  Highlight critical benefits or features through visuals or brief messages.

• Product Tour or Tutorial:

  Let users take a quick tour to help them navigate through the app.

10. Are You Measuring The Onboarding Success Metrics?

Measuring onboarding success helps SaaS businesses see how well the process engages users and encourages product adoption. These insights are vital in improving the user experience and retaining them.

Here are the onboarding success metrics to constantly measure.

11. Can Users Share Feedback On The Onboarding Experience?

Collecting feedback after onboarding is essential to learn how users feel about the process. For instance, it reveals what went well and what challenges they faced. This helps businesses improve the onboarding experience and ensure it fits users' needs better.

Here’s why customer feedback is important for businesses.

SaaS Onboarding Best Practices To Never Miss Out

1. Easy Access to Customer Support

It is important to make it easy for users to reach customer support during onboarding. You can offer app chatbots, a help center, or quick access to FAQs. The easier it is for users to get help when needed, the more likely they are to finish onboarding successfully.

2. Personalized Email Drip Campaigns

Email drip campaigns send automated and personalized emails to users during their onboarding journey. These emails help guide users through the platform, highlight key features, and offer helpful tips. They also remind users of important steps they need to complete.

3. Monitor User Progress with Analytics

Using app analytics to monitor user behavior during onboarding helps track how users interact with your platform. You can see where users face difficulties, which features they skip, and how long it takes them to complete tasks. This data helps improve the process and create a better user experience.

4. Feedback Loop

Creating a feedback loop means gathering user feedback during and after onboarding. This helps spot areas needing improvement and ensures the process evolves to meet user needs. Keeping this loop active helps improve the onboarding experience to match real user expectations.

Create Onboarding Experiences Like Never Before with Quest Labs AI

Our SaaS onboarding checklist includes all the key steps for a smooth user onboarding. It’s designed to help you make your onboarding process shine.

Or you can just add Quest Labs AI's elements to your app. This way, you’ll make sure it meets all the standards effortlessly. Wondering how our no-code solutions can do that?

• Image Banners:

  Add image banners in your app onboarding to highlight key features or share important information.\n

• Get Started Screen: :

  Ensure the "Get Started" screen stays helpful after the first log-in. It also acts as a home base that users can return to anytime.

• App Carousel:

  Use a carousel to highlight different features, use cases, or success stories. It’s a great way to show how versatile and powerful your product is.\n

That's not all. We have more features to make user onboarding stand out. If you are still in doubt, why not book a free demo and talk to us?

FAQs

1. What is the meaning of SaaS onboarding?

SaaS onboarding helps new users get started with cloud-based software. It's all about showing them how to set up and use the software so they can enjoy its benefits.

2. What is SaaS onboarding completion rate?

On average, only about 19.2% of users complete the SaaS onboarding process. This means that many users start the onboarding but don’t finish.

3. What are SaaS customer onboarding best practices?

Here are 4 crucial SaaS onboarding best practices.

• Easy access to customer support
• Personalized email drip campaigns
• Monitor user progress with analytics
• Feedback loop