Now more than ever, first impressions matter, especially when introducing new users, customers or employees to your business in today’s competitive marketplace.
A robust, well-thought-out, and carefully designed onboarding funnel can make a big difference in how quickly and seamlessly people start using your product or service. An efficient onboarding process is not only good for the user experience, it also leads to better retention and customer satisfaction.
If you want to build an onboarding funnel from scratch or improve an existing one, check out this guide:
Understand the purpose of an onboarding funnel
An onboarding funnel is the process designed to guide new users through a series of steps to better understand and use your product or service. From a new hire to your company to a customer using your app to a subscriber to your service, your goal is to make them feel comfortable and confident.
Typically, the funnel starts with a “welcome” or “introduction” stage, and then moves through key stages that educate users, encourage engagement, and ultimately enable success. Ultimately, the funnel should help less confused people learn faster, recognize value sooner, and stay satisfied.
Step 1: Define your goals and metrics
Before we dive into your onboarding process, determine what you’re trying to achieve with your onboarding funnel. What do you want your new users or customers to achieve in the process?
Some of the common goals include educating the user on the key features of the product and familiarizing them with the product itself, encouraging initial engagement or action such as completing a profile, and preparing people for success on the long term.
Once you’ve set these goals, you need to define the metrics you can use if your funnel is successful. This includes onboarding completion rates, time to first value, user retention rate, and churn rate. Read more here https://thefinancialbrand.com/news/bank-onboarding/account-opening-onboarding-tips-85354/.
Step 2: Map the customer journey
To do this, you need to understand the customer journey: the journey a user takes from their first interaction with your brand to becoming fully engaged. That’s all part of planning the journey: thinking about where they started, where they need to go to experience the value of your product, and what challenges they might face.
Plus, you’ll discover how to help users every step of the way. The process of mapping thus creates a user-centric and needs and expectations based on the demand onboarding experience.
Step 3: Segment your target group
Not all users are equal, and enforcing one-size-fits-all onboarding doesn’t work for everyone. Consider segmenting your audience based on their experience level, purpose, or product type, for example.
You may have different funnels for different departments when onboarding new employees. For example, onboarding marketing may be different from sales or IT. Likewise, a software product may have a different process for onboarding beginners and advanced users. The more personalized you can make the member onboarding experience, the better. This helps increase the chances of your success.
Step 4: Design the onboarding funnel stages
Now that you know who your audience is and where they are in their journey, you can build out the stages of your onboarding funnel. The welcome phase is the phase where the brand and tone of the onboarding are introduced.
A welcome email or an in-app message that informs a user what to expect. The next step is educating users about the essential features of your product or service so they can quickly understand how things work. And this is where product tours, how-to videos, and even step-by-step guides can be particularly helpful.
The next important step is to stimulate the first interaction. This could mean asking users to do something important, such as making a purchase, creating an account, or creating a profile. Your goal is to bring people into contact with your product or service in such a way that they feel good about it more quickly.
Sustainable support is the last step. Users should still get help even after they start using the product to ensure they stay interested and continue exploring the more advanced features. At this point you can get the help you need through follow-up letters, in-app prompts, or through customer service.
Step 5: Automate where possible
By eliminating the need for human intervention, automation can streamline your onboarding process and ensure users receive timely information. You can give every user the same experience by automating key touchpoints, such as welcome emails, progress notes for onboarding steps that aren’t yet completed, or in-app messages that appear when certain actions are taken.
Automation not only makes the experience better for users, but it also gives your team more time to work on important tasks instead of managing new users every day.
Step 6: Collect and iterate on feedback
Even the best Clickfunnels onboarding funnel requires regular refinement, so it’s crucial to gather user feedback and continually improve the process. After users complete the onboarding process, ask for feedback on whether it was clear and helpful and whether there were any confusing or unnecessary steps. This user input is invaluable when making adjustments to streamline the process and improve clarity.
In addition to user feedback, analyzing data from your onboarding metrics can reveal areas of user drop-off so you can make more informed adjustments to improve the onboarding experience.
Step 7: Measure and optimize
Once you’ve implemented your onboarding funnel, regularly monitor its performance against the metrics you defined earlier. Look for trends in user behavior, such as points where users may abandon or get stuck in the onboarding process.
Use this data to optimize the funnel by adjusting the order of steps, simplifying instructions, or providing additional support as needed. The goal is to create a smooth, enjoyable onboarding experience that helps users achieve success with your product or service as efficiently as possible.