Onboarding – getting your customers successfully started with your SaaS platform – is the most critical phase for any SaaS company. Whether your platform is designed for self-service, partial guidance, or fully managed support, onboarding exposes the quality of your product, documentation, user guides, and everything from coding and testing to UI and UX design.
Why Onboarding Is Key to SaaS Success
The onboarding process is where customers assess and reveal potential challenges. Does the platform integrate well with other systems? Does data migrate as expected? Is the platform as intuitive as promised? These initial impressions often determine whether customers stick around or churn.
Churn and Onboarding: The Connection
Research shows that 80% of new customers who churn do so because of a poor onboarding experience. If the process is too slow, unclear, or misaligned with customer expectations, the likelihood of retention drops significantly. A seamless onboarding experience, on the other hand, can increase long-term retention rates by up to 50%.
Your churn rate directly reflects the quality of your onboarding. A problematic onboarding process often stems from a platform that is either incomplete or not well-suited to the specific needs of the customer being onboarded.
Listening to Your Onboarding Team
The onboarding team plays a pivotal role in identifying gaps in your platform. By involving them in testing and debugging, you can significantly improve the quality of your platform. This approach often yields better results than solely relying on product managers or prioritizing features requested by the loudest customers.
Balancing these competing demands is challenging. As a founder, you will often face constraints in time, resources, money, or customers. However, managing these constraints effectively is crucial for building a sustainable platform.
Overselling Is a Death Sentence
An oversold platform—one that promises more than it can deliver—is destined to fail. While it’s normal for early-stage SaaS companies to push the limits of their capabilities, the gap between reality and customer expectations must remain manageable.
Onboarding quickly reveals whether promises made by sales align with what the platform can deliver. Discrepancies lead to dissatisfied customers who not only churn but also spread negative word of mouth.
Building Trust Through Transparency
A successful onboarding process isn’t just about the platform; it’s also about setting realistic expectations from the start. By clearly communicating the platform’s capabilities and providing a well-structured onboarding process, you can build trust and ensure a positive experience for new customers.
How to Improve Onboarding and Reduce Churn
1. Streamline the Process: Ensure your onboarding steps are clear, intuitive, and aligned with customer goals.
2. Provide Resources: Offer comprehensive documentation, video tutorials, and live support.
3. Monitor Progress: Use analytics to track customer behavior during onboarding and address pain points proactively.
4. Gather Feedback: Regularly ask customers for feedback to refine the onboarding process.
The Role of Investors
As investors, we are here to help you succeed. Contact us to join a network of like-minded SaaS founders and access the resources and support you need to optimize onboarding and beyond. Reach out to Kim Østergaard, Founding Partner at OneProgram, at kim@oneprogram.com or call +45 42 555 555.
By focusing on onboarding, you can turn your SaaS into a platform that not only attracts customers but keeps them engaged for the long haul.