Customer onboarding has the most significant impact on your business and your bottom line. This is mainly because it’s the very first interaction customers have with your product. And you have to make it memorable to make a lasting impression and compel your customers to stay loyal to your brand.
In this blog, we will discuss customer onboarding challenges, brands with the best onboarding processes, the best tools, and more.
So, let’s dive into customer onboarding and how to do it right.
What makes customer onboarding challenging?
- Nearly 60% of companies claim they are unsatisfied with their existing customer onboarding experience for their product. This is mainly because the customer onboarding process is too long and painstaking. The customer needs to use the product immediately. Otherwise, they will not follow through with the entire process of onboarding.
- 8 in 10 customers claim to have deleted an app because they couldn’t use it properly. Even if you have made a great product, improper or inadequate training of your customers to use your product features may frustrate them. That would cause your customers to undermine the value of your product. They would think that your product couldn’t meet their needs and expectations.
Brands With The Best Onboarding Processes
1. Walmart (Virtual Try-on)
Walmart introduced a virtual try-on feature called “Be Your Own Model,” based on Artificial Intelligence. This feature allows you to try on different clothes through the app before making the purchase.
To get started, the app will ask you whether you want to try it on “yourself” or “a model.” If you have selected yourself, then all you have to do is take a picture of yourself by propping your device at waist height.
You also need to ensure that your whole body is visible and hold your pose in front of the camera and upload it on the app. The app will only ask you about your height and voilà! You are ready to virtually try-on new clothes. Thus, this new feature provides shoppers with a more personalized shopping experience.
2. Slack (Slackbot)
Slack is definitely one of the most sought-after apps with the best customer onboarding process. Slack features an automated chatbot, namely Slackbot, that assists new users to create their own workspace and even helps in being invited to one. It runs in a pre-configured Slack channel.
So, on your first log-in, Slackbot is there to give you a warm welcome and ask you some basic questions to break the ice. However, it also reminds you that you are talking to a bot, not a human.
The Slackbot also offers tips and guides that can help users gain basic know-how of creating a new channel, uploading and sharing files and docs, sending and receiving messages, and inviting team members and guests to their channel. It’s easy to chat with Slackbot as it doesn’t overwhelm users with redundant information but only those which would help them get familiarized with the tool.
3. Duolingo (Get Started Without Sign-Up)
Duolingo stands apart from others when it comes to its customer onboarding process. It doesn’t require you to sign up to use its service right away.
Their strategy for customer onboarding is quite unconventional. When you use the app for the first time, it prompts you to commit to a common goal you want to achieve. Then, it asks certain questions to deliver a personalized experience.
There is a progress bar feature that motivates you to complete a lesson, hence, keeping you engaged with the app. Once you start to get to hang off the app, complete a lesson, or try to avail of additional features, it subtly prompts you with a signup.
The customer onboarding process of Duolingo ignites the customers’ interest from the start without asking for any information at all. It gives the customer time to familiarize themselves with their product, keeps them engaged with the gamification, and asks them for registration at the very end.
4. Toggl (Product Tutorials)
Toggl is a time-tracking tool known for having many features that make the customer onboarding process seamless. When you first log in, it offers two options: start product tutorials in a step-by-step manner or explore the features on your own.
Toggl starts the tutorial with the integrated tooltips that give an overview of how to use the product, set the name of your newly tracked task, and ask you to end tracking your time.
Once you have completed the tutorials, the app will congratulate you for achieving the milestones. It also says there are more steps of learning to go.
The app, while teaching you how to use the product, also gives you control over whether to resume or pause the onboarding process. And the best part is that it allows you to skip the tutorials at any time. So, you are not obligated to finish the tutorial on using their product.
5. RingCentral (In-App Resource Center)
RingCentral, the popular UCaaS provider, has a unique approach to customer onboarding. It has a feature called Resource Center that makes self-service to resources readily available for you, so you can learn how to improve your virtual meeting experience seamlessly.
The Resource Center offers a single platform where the app offers you the following features for a smooth onboarding process;
- Get started: It helps you with how-to videos of all features of the RingCentral app. You can learn here the basics like how to schedule meetings, switch devices, send online faxes, and more.
- What’s new: It’s where you can learn all release notes and all the latest features, bug fixes, and improvements of RingCentral.
- Help: It’s where you can get help by using the Search bar to find topics and questions. It also has a list of step-by-step guides. You can also use the filter option to narrow down your search to specific features—message, video, or phone & SMS.
- Feedback: You can submit your feedback, share suggestions and ideas for improvements, and report to fix technical issues.
RingCentral also provides its users with the option to “Join our community” so that they can collaborate and get advice from fellow users. Users can also explore the RingCentral blog to learn a wide range of topics such as conference call etiquette, customer experience trends, and more.
