New Customer Onboarding Checklist for B2B SaaS Companies

According to a survey by Precursive, 82% of enterprises consider their onboarding approach to be a significant factor in delivering value.

What is more interesting is that 86% of customers are likely to remain loyal to a business that provides onboarding content that welcomes and trains them after they have made a purchase.

These two statistics are enough to support the claim that customer onboarding is vital for every SaaS business. However, not every business knows how to onboard their customers successfully. Some may overspend resources whereas others fail to onboard effectively.

As a business that onboards hundreds of customers every week, we understand the need for efficiency and accuracy in customer onboarding.

A connection can be made or broken by your customer onboarding process, or lack thereof. Consequently, make sure you're always performing a thorough job of onboarding your consumers to reduce the likelihood of a failing customer connection before it truly begins.

To assist you in this regard, we have devised a customer onboarding program specifically designed for B2B SaaS businesses.

7-Step Customer Onboarding Checklist

This SaaS customer onboarding checklist covers seven key areas to ensure a smooth and effective customer onboarding process.

1. Set Up Automated Email Sequences

To get started, it is important to have an onboarding email sequence in place. This helps you communicate with your customers even if they no longer use your product.

At a minimum, you should set up automated emails that are triggered based on customer behaviour and time.

For example, if a customer starts using a new feature, you can send them an email 3 days later to check in and provide more information. You can do this easily using an email marketing tool and setting up the right triggers. These triggers can be assessed based on customer interactions.

2. Understand Customer Goals

To serve customers better, it is vital to understand their needs and goals for using the product.

You can simply ask the customer about it via a welcome email, which is part of your automated email sequences. Consider asking about specific business objectives, such as increasing revenue or improving efficiency.

Also, ask if they have any specific requirements for the product. For example, they may need certain integrations or customisation options.

Onboarding template Checklist

• Create a welcome email.
• Create automated email sequences.
• Know business objectives.
• Check for specific requirements.

3. Set-Up In-App Tips

When a customer signs up for your product, you want to grab their attention. You want them to keep them using your product for as long as possible.

To achieve this during customer onboarding, you need to make them familiar with your product. So, in addition to a simple installation process and user-friendly interface, you should use in-app messages to guide customers through the product. This gives a step-by-step learning path for your customer.

There are different types of in-app messages you can use. Here is a checklist you can follow.

Checklist

• Display small windows that pop up over the product's interface.
• Provide automated tooltips that walk customers through each step of onboarding.
• Provide built-in tooltips that appear when clicked or hovered over.
• Enable automated chat messages.
• Provide in-app checklists that guide customers to the next onboarding step.

All the above steps will help to keep the customers engaged from step 1.

4. Train Your Customers

Training materials help the customer get started with the product quickly. These materials should be easy to understand and cover the product's most important features.

Also, make sure that the training is tailored to the customer's specific use cases. This will make learning more fun for them.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that you should offer quick wins for your customers in their learning experience. This means that they should be able to enjoy your product features early on your customer onboarding experience map.

The best foot forward to ensure the best customer training is to opt for a customer education learning management system (LMS) like Trainn. It can provide you with a centralised hub for your training materials. You can even create explainer videos within 5 minutes.

Checklist

• Create training courses.
• Personalise training.
• Offer quick wins.
• Use a customer onboarding LMS solution.

5. Gather Customer Feedback

Conduct regular check-ins with the customer to ensure that they are satisfied with the product and service.

To collect feedback, simply ask users about how they feel about your product in a timely manner. You can even offer a feedback form for this.

Feedback lets you ensure that the customer is still happy with the product and that any issues are addressed promptly. This also allows you to make improvements based on customer behaviour. This will directly help improve your customer success initiatives.

Checklist

• Offer feedback form.
• Make customer service available 24/7.

6. Provide Ongoing Support

Provide ongoing support and resources to help the customer achieve their goals. These resources ensure that the customer continues to enjoy the product effectively and achieve their goals.

You can provide users with access to a support team, knowledge base articles or your customer education LMS for this.

Checklist

• Offer support team.
• Offer articles for better product utilization.

7. Identify Opportunities for Cross/Up-Sell

As the customer becomes more familiar with the product, there may be opportunities to expand their use and offer additional features or services.

Identifying these opportunities can drive more revenue for your company. The customers, on the other hand, will enjoy your product suite.

Checklist

• Offer complementary products.
• Offer new solutions.

Tools That Help You Onboard Customers

To make your customer onboarding process effective, you will need specific tools. Here are the most useful ones.

Inline Manual

Inline Manual is a no-code customer onboarding platform that allows you to create interactive product walkthroughs, tips and support articles directly within your application.

You do not need any coding skills to create all of the onboarding documentation and tutorials, which can be created in just a few minutes. With a single dashboard, you can manage and control all of your onboarding content.

Auth0

Auth0 offers authentication and authorization as a service, which makes the login experience smoother for your customers.

They can log in easily using their preferred third-party app like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Alternatively, they can simply sign up for your product using their email and password.

Trainn

Trainn is among the best customer onboarding LMS solutions. The software includes customer onboarding flows charts, interactive tutorials and performance analytics.

Trainn's customer education software helps you provide users with a learning hub. This helps in improving adoption and reducing churn. You can sign up for free here.

Bottom Line

Customer onboarding is a must for B2B SaaS businesses. In a way customer onboarding can be used to optimize user experience. In order to keep users motivated to use the product, SaaS businesses have to show product value and make customers feel cared for.

The relationship with your customers doesn't end with customer onboarding. Having a good client onboarding process will almost certainly result in satisfied, loyal customers. To ensure that you are effectively onboarding—and keeping—your clients, use our checklists and make any necessary adjustments.