At Inline Manual, we define user onboarding as the process through which users are introduced to a service over time, to ensure they reach the goals you promised them when they signed up. You need to guide users to the benefits you promised ASAP. In this presentation, we look at the big picture of user onboarding. We also give practical advice you can apply right now to your SaaS application using in-app guidance with Inline Manual.
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Webinar slides: What is user onboarding?
1. SaaS Success:
What is user onboarding?
Watch the recording here “What is User Onboarding?”
With Heather McNamee
Customer Success at Inline Manual
https://inlinemanual.com/blog/what-is-user-onboarding
2. Check out the full guide on our blog: What is User Onboarding?
7. User onboarding
How you guide users to
become more powerful or
capable by using your
application, to increase
adoption and retention.
8. The onboarding concept
Staff onboarding:
Improve employee retention by
increasing employee engagement
Speed up time to productivity
Checklists and signed compliance
agreements
9. What’s changed?
BEFORE
Software distributed on disks
Classroom training.
Printed manuals.
Documentation.
NOW
BYOD bring your own device.
SaaS software.
Just in time training.
In-context.
10. What do you
want out
of user
onboarding?
Improve conversion of trial
users.
Reduce churn - After sales
service
“Land and expand” -
improve feature adoption,
upsell.
15. Take away?
Onboarding is continuous
Initial configuration
Colleagues join teams
New features added
Consider the lifecycle
Customer adoption.
Product lifecycle. (next)
20. Acquire product.
Doesn’t require user data.
Start communicating through the
application.
2016 - Completely change the assumption of the application
What changed?
2011 - Install script as quickly as
possible.
2014 - Import users as quickly as
possible.
2016 - Experience power of Intercom
as quickly as possible
21. Take away for SaaS?
Change is the constant
Audience will change.
Application will adapt.
Onboarding goals evolve.
Start Small. Start now.
Listen to customers.
“SMART” goals.
Evaluate and respond.
26. In-app guidance compared to documentation
Documentation is the map.
- Lacks orientation
- Can overwhelm
Guidance is the tour.
- Important landmarks
- Expert knowledge
- Must-see highlights
34. Funnel Analytics
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4
Where are users dropping off? How
many users make it to the later
steps?
Improve the walkthrough.
Increase motivation.
Clarify the offer.
Make the steps clear.
40. Apply the tools
● Reduce support requests?
○ In-context Articles and
walkthroughs.
● Upgrade or convert?
○ Launchers to highlight
features
● New feature adoption by loyal
users?
○ Trigger based on login. Offer
them a walkthrough.
Hello! I’m Marek, co-founder of Inline Manual. I’m going to talk with you about first time users - and what works to make sure they get value out of your software as soon as possible.
Few words about us, Inline Manual.
We‘re self-funded and bootstrapped business.
We developed Inline Manual originally in 2012 to solve a common problem. As web development agency, after we built web applications, we needed a way to train our clients for a smooth handover. We knew there had to be something better than painful PDFs with screenshots or screencasts. So, we came up with an idea of interactive inline help which evolved into a full service. Anyone can create their own guides for their customers on top of their web application.
To start we’ll look at User onboarding in context. Then we’ll look at all of the tools you’ll be using, and what they are best at. Then we’ll focus on what you can do within the application.
Onboarding is something you will constantly be tweaking
User onboarding is not “set it and forget it”
The purpose of user onboarding is to help users be more powerful.
And in that way, they will adopt your application, refer it, and continue to grow with it.
The concept came from human resources “Employee onboarding”
The difference is that HR has a captive audience.
They can force users to complete a tutorial or training, because they have to.
It’s good to think about how software training and onboarding has changed in the last decade.
These changes affect how your users expectations have changed.
What do you want out of user onboarding?
To improve conversion.
To reduce churn?
To upsell? To land and expand?
If you’re coming from a marketing background the classic Marketing Funnel will be familiar to you. It doesn’t take into account however what happens POST purchase!
User onboarding happens all throughout the decision making process.
The Bass diffusion model describes the process of how new products get adopted in a population.
Bass found that his model fit the data for almost all product introductions
Your product lifecycle will affect how you approach user onboarding. Are you in a new market with a new product attracting innovators? Are you in an established market where you have late adopters, trying established applications?
Let’s look at this example from Intercom.
In 2011, intercom’s onboarding process included this info right on their front page. A tech savvy community of developers saw how “easy” it was to add this into their application.
Overtime, their audience changed. People were coming from Marketing teams who wanted to evaluate Intercom. Letting them import users from CSV made it possible. But the assumption was still the same.
In 2016, they completely changed the assumption. Now they don’t need user information at all.
Key takeaway? Change is constant with SaaS applications.
Your application is not static, your audience isn’t even static.
Processes. Easy purchase and sign up.Smooth process
Application design.User experience. Align features with needs
DRIP email campaigns. Engage users. CTAs, reinforce message
DocumentationMap of the territory. Clear purpose to each page
In-app guidanceReduce friction(show next)
Your development and user experience team are focused on users needs throughout the application.
They cannot account for users prior experience, and needs for tailored guidance.
Even the best UIs cannot overcome the real feart users have.
Using a walkthrough you could guide your users through some of the trickier steps to offer assurance and encouragement at each stage. The nice thing is, it won’t clutter up your UI for users who are more confident. That’s how you can make your UI more empathic with in-app guidance.
You may be using email already. Perhaps scheduled over time. Or triggered by action or inaction.
What if you could also draw users back into your application, and deliver on a promise. AND track how they respond?
Good documentation is thorough like a map. It’s required. However it doesn’t solve all the problems users have.
CLICK and then guidance is the tour. It’s time-saving, it’s worth paying more for.
split attention principle in multimedia learning.
Integrated instructions.so that working memory resources do not need
to be used for mental integration.
Here’s Virtua Gym. This is onboarding for theB2B clients. Totally different from their B2C clients. This is a goal-driven guide.
Where the advance is integrated into the application.
Hotjar reveals the online behaviour and voice of your users. By combining both A) Analysis and B) Feedback tools, Hotjar gives you the 'big picture' of how to improve your site's user experience and performance (conversion rates).
Other tools such as Mouseflow
With funnel analytics measure a user’s progress through the tour by looking at the completion of each step.
Make efforts to improve the experience or communication at that stage.
Here we see another welcome screen, this time by Freshdesk.
You’ve seen lots of variation with design and style because of the flexibility we have.
You can use the style editor, or input your own custom CSS.
As you’ve seen you can embed media such as images, or video hosted on platforms like YouTube or Wistia.
This welcome screen is a nice pattern to set up.
With new users you’re showing them around, with your long term users you can announce new features or opportunities and offers.
Great way to start, and great way to continue.
And you can provide click-by-click walkthroughs where people learn while getting something done.
Here we can see an element is highlighted and to take the next action they can click the element, or they can skip the tour. It’s always nice to let people opt out.
But that is why the Widget is helpful. They can get back to topics they didn’t need before.
You’re giving them the tools to reach their goals.
This keeps motivation high to complete the task.
Keep users hooked into your app by reminding them of the benefits with their rewards.