You may hear the term user onboarding a lot in the world of software, but for every team, it has different meanings. Some may define it differently, while others may give you another definition of it. 

If you think about it, you can’t have excellent user onboarding if you aren’t on the same page with everyone else on your team. So, what is a user onboarding tool, and how can it help you? Why should you invest in it? 

Well, there’s no need to worry because we will show you exactly what it is and why you should consider investing in it in this article. 

Let’s dive right in! 

What is a user onboarding tool? 

The user onboarding tool was initially created to improve the user onboarding process. In short, it is helping new users understand how your product or service will help them achieve their goals. Hence, you’re proving to them that your product is worth it, and by doing so, you motivate them even more to use your product. If you fail to do this in a short period of time, then they will run away from your product. 

Truthfully, even if you were to buy a product, you most likely won’t continue using it if it doesn’t provide any value for you. 

Reasons why your company should invest in a user onboarding tool

Increases customer adoption 

People will always buy products to solve a problem and not create one. The faster your users get used to how your product works in solving their problems, the happier they will be with your company and come back for more. 

Sadly, many managers don’t pay much attention to the user onboarding process, which is a big mistake. The overall product experience all starts with a quick learning phase. The longer it takes for a customer to learn how to use your product, the faster they will leave. A user onboarding tool ensures to make the learning phase quicker than usual. 

If we analyze in-depth, a good user onboarding will take users from the “peak of expectations” to the phase of enlightenment. Moreover, when they move to this phase, this also means that they will refer your product or service to their friends, family members, and even work colleagues. 

User onboarding tools you can use 

Since you should focus on allowing your users to learn about your product as fast as possible, you must make a good first impression. User onboarding tools can do the trick in this case, and a company such as Appcues that operates as a user onboarding tool itself has its own list of tools that will help us better understand which ones we should use. Here is Appcues list of best user onboarding tools:

• Appcues: What is unique about Appcues itself is the fact that it allows you to build an onboard experience without having to code. This means that marketers can focus on the user and not have to worry about contacting any developers in the meanwhile. 
• JavaScript and jQuery: Now, this is more manual, so if you have the required resources and experience to code user onboarding, then you can do this all by using JavaScript and jQuery’s tool. 
• Proof: Proof’s user onboarding tool connects with social proof, which is a psychological influencer when making decisions. The proof allows you to showcase social proof on your site regarding sign-ups that others have done or the use of a product demo. In short, social proof is a huge influencer for people because people will trust word of mouth more than anything. 
• Clearbit: Clearbit’s tool is all about collecting email addresses from users. Moreover, it’s always good to have them in order to personalize experiences. The more data you have, the more personalized you can make the user experience. Clearbit is good at offering you important data such as job title, location, industry, and much more. 

Increases revenue 

Many marketers will think that using a user onboarding tool will be more expensive than the daily costs they undergo. In fact, this isn’t true; investing in a user onboarding tool will reduce costs. Every decision you make regarding your business will impact the total costs. 

Poor user onboarding will only increase costs because customers are running away from your product or service if you really think about it. So, what does this mean? It means you are losing revenue because if you don’t sell, then, of course, there aren’t any ‘reduced costs’ included with this. 

Moreover, a poor experience initially comes from the marketing, and even when your marketing level is great, avoiding using an onboarding tool isn’t a good idea. So, keep testing and see what works! 

The impact on other departments 

If your product is difficult to use and customers are having a tough time learning how it solves their problems, you have a big problem with your sales & marketing department. You can offer your product for free, but if it doesn’t solve a problem or is challenging to use, nobody will be buying it, of course. Moreover, this will impact the costs on your Sales & marketing department. 

You may be asking how costs will go up? 

Well, when your product doesn’t sell, you may be thinking that you have to invest more money in marketing in order to increase conversions. Well, this is an issue because the root of the problem isn’t there, and that is where you will be increasing costs. 

A good user onboarding experience and tool allows you to avoid this and advantage your competitors. Costs will be lower than ever for you, and the best part is that it shows your uniqueness in the market. 

Allows you to close the value gap 

The value gap, in other words, is the perceived value of the user vs. the actual value they receive. Poor user onboarding experience means that your user will see more of your product’s value when reading the copy you wrote vs. the actual value they receive when using your product. 

Most companies will fall into the trap of promising too much and not delivering the value. When you are doing this, your customers are raising their expectations to a very high level, and this is where you can easily fail. The higher customer expectations, the more you have to focus on delivering suburb value when using it. 

Over time, when you fail to deliver upon expectations, your users will lose trust in you, and this is where the value gap will get higher. The bigger the value gap gets, the more difficult it is to close afterward. 

So, the good thing about using a great user onboarding tool is the ability to close this value gap. As we mentioned before, when the customer learns quickly how to use your product, this value gap will stay closed, and this is a quick win for you!  

In other words, the main goal of a user onboarding tool is to close the gap as quickly as possible. 

What are the most vital elements of an exemplary user onboarding process? 

So, now you know the reasons why you should invest in an onboarding experience. However, before you start setting anything up, you should know what the most important elements that build a great user onboarding process are: 

• Sign-up form: This is the first interaction with your user before anything else. Make your sign-up form easy and straightforward, so that your users can get into the flow quickly. 
• Welcome email: your user is onboard, and you need to welcome them about it. Now, what can you do to excite them even further? 
• Tutorial videos: videos can be a great way of engaging your users from the beginning. Although, don’t forget to make your tutorial videos simple and easy, or else you will fail at this part. 
• Follow-up emails: can be educational emails that will further assist them on whatever they need. 
• In-app messaging: 24/7 support that will give constant guidance for the user and help them with whatever they need. 
• Follow-up calls: this can be a good way of offering extra support and checking out if your user is familiar with everything. 
• Event-based emails: users know how to use your product and see success. Are you sending out emails to help them continue succeeding even more? 

Wrapping it up

Well, that’s about it for this article. Hopefully, now you understand how vital a user onboarding tool is for your company and what it means to use one. In other words, you must use it to make a great first impression of your company. 

We recommend you carefully read through each of the sections and firmly analyze how you can use it to the advantage of your business. Use all the resources you have in order to excel, and you should be good to go!