5 Ways to Reduce Churn with Customer Onboarding

Churn is simply the case when your existing customers stop using your product. It is a nightmare for every business. Therefore, businesses spend hefty amounts to reduce churn.

Here is an example.

At one point, Zoom experimented with its customer onboarding process. Customers who bought their product were not given a demo, no onboarding process, and were not sent any educational material or emails.

This resulted in a disaster. Zoom's engagement dropped and the customer churn rate skyrocketed.

Zoom conducted a survey to identify the issue. Most users responded, "I don't see any benefit in using Zoom."

The same story can happen with your product.

Your new customers can get frustrated and give up using your product when they don't know how to use it. And if they give up, they might never come back.

That's why effective customer onboarding is so important to reduce churn.

If you wonder how to reduce customer churn with onboarding, here are the top 5 ways.

5 Strategies to Reduce Churn with Customer Onboarding

Here is how you can increase customer retention with onboarding:

1. Personalize the Customer Onboarding Experience

Personalizing the onboarding experience is an effective way to reduce churn. Make your customers feel that you understand their unique needs and are invested in their success. This way, they're more likely to stick around and continue using your product.

Here is how you can personalize onboarding for a lower customer churn.

Gather information

Start with understanding your customer's needs, preferences, and goals. You can collect this information using customer surveys or live chats to track their behavior. Some companies even call their customers in person to know their preferences. You should do this right after the customer signs up for your product.

Customize content

Use the information gathered above to customize the onboarding content. Make sure your content meets the customer's specific needs. For example, you can provide more in-depth training for a particular feature a customer is interested in. This will lead to better customer engagement and higher customer satisfaction. Thus, the customer retention rate will go up.

Use a CRM software

CRM software stores everything you need to know about your customers. It can also help you provide customized content based on that data. Such strategies can, in turn, reduce customer churn.

Follow-up

Make sure to follow up with customers and check in to see how they're doing. This can help you identify the challenges they might be facing. You can then provide any additional support if needed.

2. Shorten Time-To-Value

Shortening time-to-value helps customers adopt your product more quickly. Hence, it can reduce customer churn drastically by improving retention.

One cool example of a SaaS product shortening time-to-value is ChatGPT. When you sign up for the product, it instantly takes you to the dashboard, where it provides you with prompts that you can use and feel amazed by the AI capabilities.

Here is how you can shorten time-to-value for your SaaS product.

Provide a quick win

Show your customers how your product can help them achieve their goals immediately. Provide a quick win that demonstrates the value of your product. This can be as simple as completing a task or using a basic feature.

Simplify the onboarding process

Make the customer experience during onboarding as simple as possible. Remove any unnecessary steps that might cause frustration. This can help customers realize your product's value quickly, resulting in retained customers.

Communicate regularly

Stay in touch with your customers throughout the onboarding process. Regular communication can help them feel supported and engaged. It can also help you resolve any challenges they might be facing.

3. Make Onboarding Interactive

Interactive onboarding can make a big difference in reducing churn rates. Interactive elements break the monotony of text-based content and make the customer journey more interesting.

You can use interactive content like videos or quizzes for a lower churn rate.

Here are some ways to achieve successful onboarding.

Use multimedia

Include videos, infographics, and images in your onboarding process.

Offer interactive quizzes

Test customers' product knowledge by asking relevant but easy questions. This can help them retain information. Quizzes also ensure your customers get the most out of the onboarding process.

Provide interactive demos

Allow customers to try out your product in real-time. It will help them understand your product more quickly and make them more likely to stay.

Gamify the process

Use badges and progress bars to make the onboarding process more engaging and motivating. This will add an element of fun and motivate your customers to complete the onboarding process.

You can reduce customer churn with onboarding by using these techniques to improve customer engagement. This way, customers will feel more involved in the onboarding process.

4. Utilize a Customer Onboarding Software

Seamless onboarding software can help you reduce churn rate drastically.

Many customer onboarding software automate the onboarding process. Their personalization features allow you to create a tailored experience for each customer.

Such software offers helpful resources such as FAQs and customer service. These resources can assist customers in resolving any issues they may encounter.

You can also address potential roadblocks proactively by tracking customer success and gathering feedback. All of this helps customers achieve success with your product or service. Thus, your churn rate is likely to remain on the lower side.

5. Gather Feedback and Improve

Measuring an onboarding program's success is critical to reducing customer churn. It helps identify what's working and what's not.

Feedback allows you to address customer challenges. It can also help you regularly improve the onboarding experience.

You can track customer progress through various metrics to measure the success of an onboarding program. These metrics include time-to-value, activation rates, and feature adoption. They provide insight into how quickly customers realize the product value and how well they use it.

You can also gather customer feedback through surveys or interviews. Your goal is to understand their satisfaction level and identify areas for improvement. You can then work on these areas to achieve higher customer loyalty.

How to Calculate Churn Rate

We've pointed out the churn rate several times in this article. If you need help calculating the churn rate, here is the formula.

Churn Rate = (Lost Customers ÷ Total Customers at the Beginning of Time Period) x 100

To calculate your churn rate percentage, choose a specific period and determine the number of customers who stopped using your products or services during that time. Divide this number by the total number of customers you had at the beginning of the subscription. Finally, multiply the result by 100 to obtain your churn rate percentage.

For example, if your business had 300 customers at the beginning of the month and lost 30 by the end, your churn rate will be: (30÷300) x 100 = 10%

How Much Churn is Acceptable

It's normal to lose some customers over time, but how much churn is considered acceptable? According to an expert named Lincoln Murphy, having a churn rate of 5 to 6 per cent per year is okay, while anything less than three per cent is really good.

By knowing your churn rate, you can understand what your brand is doing well and where it needs improvement. It also helps you predict how many customers might leave each month. Understanding why they're thinking of leaving lets you take action to prevent it from happening.

How to Retrieve the Customers Lost to Churn

Here are some strategies you can use to reclaim your lost customers.

Understand churn reasons - Analyze why customers are leaving your product, address their pain points, and develop targeted strategies.

Personalize your approach - Reconnect with people who have stopped using your product by using their names and referring to previous interactions. Be friendly and approachable during the interaction

Compelling offers - Grab attention with irresistible incentives tailored to customers' needs, such as discounts, free trials, or exclusive access.

Exceptional support - Train your customer success team to value customer satisfaction by being responsive, empathetic, and proactive in resolving concerns.

Reinforce product value - Highlight updates and improvements, emphasizing how your current product offerings or new launches solve customers' problems.

Exclusive content - Provide industry insights, educational resources, or VIP access to create a sense of exclusivity and encourage re-engagement.

Targeted email campaigns - Address customers' specific concerns with personalized messages, relevant content, and clear calls to action.

Leverage social media - Engage with churned customers on social media platforms, sharing relevant content to reconnect and foster familiarity.

• Seek feedback, make improvements - Request and act on customer feedback to enhance their experience, thereby rebuilding trust and loyalty for churn reduction.

Bottom Line

The onboarding strategies we've discussed here are among the most effective ones that help reduce churn rate. What's interesting is that you can ensure everything we've discussed by opting for a customer learning platform.

Trainn is one such platform that can help you reduce churn drastically.

Trainn's onboarding software helps you personalize your onboarding experience based on different customer objectives.

The platform also allows you to offer self-serve onboarding for low ACV users. This allows you to focus more on high-value customers.

Click here to learn more about customer onboarding using Trainn.

Get in touch with us to get going.