Top 5 User Onboarding Examples

There are two key moments for a business when it comes to getting the most value from a customer:

• When the customer first signs up for the product.
• When the customer first recognizes the value of the product — the 'aha moment'.

These stages impact the customer's overall experience with your product. They are the key drivers of product adoption and your future relationship with the customers.

In fact, a well-thought customer onboarding process increases the customers' desire to pay by 8% to 17%. What's more interesting is that if you focus on delivering value, their willingness to pay goes up by an additional 10%.

Get ready to create an onboarding process that helps you improve upsell and product adoption!

5 Most Effective User Onboarding Examples of 2023

The following are the best user onboarding examples you should have a look at before you create your own process.

1. Slack

Slack's onboarding process focuses on making the user feel welcome and confident with the app. With Slack's AI assistant, aka Slack Bot, it is a breeze for users to get onboarded and complete the profile.

Users are then taken through the Slack interface, which includes channels, direct messages, and other features. The platform encourages users to explore the interface and most importantly, invite team members.

In fact, Slack really wants users to invite their whole team to use the platform. Hence, if users try to continue without inviting their teammates, Slack will interrupt and ask them to do so. This is because Slack is most useful when used as a team. Also, this enables Slack to have more people join the platform.

Key Takeaway: The main lesson from this example is to make sure to assist users get acquainted with the product. You can learn from Slack on how to use the product to encourage users to work together with their team.

2. Duolingo

Duolingo has the best onboarding process in the B2C software industry. There are two main reasons behind it.

• First and foremost, the process is designed to be fun. It focuses on making language learning feel like a game. This approach not only makes the process more enjoyable for users but also helps to keep them engaged over time.
• Second is its high level of personalization. Users can select their preferred language and set daily learning goals.

This leads to two desirable outcomes. One, it helps make the onboarding process more personalized. Two, it ensures that users are able to progress at their own pace.

Duolingo welcomes new visitors by guiding them through a simple translation exercise of their choice. This helps visitors get a feel of how easy and quick it is to learn a new language.

The platform also uses progress bars to show users how much they have accomplished. Once visitors have completed the exercise, Duolingo takes the users forward in the learning phase.

Key Takeaway: The key lesson from Duolingo's onboarding strategy is to focus on keeping users engaged and happy. This can be achieved by personalizing the learning experience and allowing flexibility. It is important to make the introduction to the app quick and easy. Including progress tracking is recommended to help users stay motivated and keep coming back.

3. Moosend

Moosend is a software platform that focuses on email marketing and automation. The platform uses email to help new users get acquainted with the product. It has created a series of seven emails that are engaging and easy to understand.

The emails include clear instructions and links to Moosend Academy. Here, users get access to a series of videos that explain the platform's key features. This improves product adoption and offers great customer support.

Moosend starts by telling new users what to expect from the email sequence. It encourages them to explore the platform to discover and learn more about its features. The best part of Moosend's strategy is that it offers a free trial. This lets new users try the product and its many features before committing to a purchase.

It is a great strategy to include emails in the onboarding process. Especially when email is the essence of the product that Moosend offers.

Key Takeaway: The key takeaway from this example is that using emails during onboarding is important. This becomes even more crucial when it relates to the main purpose of the product. Sending helpful emails can greatly help users understand and engage with the software, leading to overall success.

4. Dropbox

Considered among the best customer onboarding examples, Dropbox's onboarding process is designed to be personalized as well as proactive.

For example, when a user signs up, Dropbox uses information about their needs to create a tailored onboarding experience. For instance, if the user has already uploaded some files to Dropbox, they'll be shown how to access those files.

Dropbox also provides a product demonstration video to show users how to use the product features. This helps users become familiar with the product in a guided manner and thus, promises a great user onboarding experience.

Also, if a user faces any issues during the onboarding process, Dropbox provides proactive support through in-app messaging and email.

Key Takeaway: There are quite a few things that businesses can learn from Dropbox's example. First, it pays to make the onboarding experience personal. Second, offering clear product demos improves adoption and reduces the likelihood of support tickets and churn. Third, proactive support ensures users are satisfied and have a smooth transition into using the software.

5. Trello

Trello's onboarding process is interactive and focuses on customer education. The company has built the onboarding flow guide directly into the product. It uses cards that illustrate how things work.

When a user signs up, Trello encourages them to create their first board and cards. Users are provided guidance and feedback throughout the process. This unique approach classifies Trello as among the best product onboarding examples.

Trello also provides example boards that give product tours. The platform offers tips and best practices as well for using the product effectively.

Trello also offers educational content such as a Getting Started Guide and a Trello 101 video series. These are designed to help users learn how the product works and how they can make the most out of it.

Key Takeaway: What is unique about this example is that it focuses on training users during the onboarding process. Trello's strategy is all about using interactive elements, providing example boards, and offering educational resources. Using these can help you greatly improve user understanding, engagement, and mastery of your product.

Best Practices for User Onboarding

Based on the user onboarding examples discussed above, here are some best practices for creating your user onboarding strategy.

• Prioritize user needs: Understand and address what users want. Gather information about their preferences and goals to personalize their experience and show your product's value. You can use questionnaires or even talk to users to understand them better.
• Provide step-by-step guidance: Guide users through your product features clearly and in an orderly fashion. Use interactive elements like cards or tours to help them understand how things work. Utilize everything from tool tips to in-app chat to interact with users.
• Foster engagement and enjoyment: Make onboarding fun and engaging. Use games and interactive exercises to keep users motivated. It is essential that they keep enjoying the process so that they do not drop out. Time users and make it a competition against themselves with progress bars.
• Offer personalization and flexibility: Give users the freedom to customize their experience. Create a process that adapts to different needs and learning speeds.
• Showcase product demos: Use videos, walkthroughs, or examples to demonstrate how to use the product effectively. You can use customer education platforms like Trainn to do this. It can help you share tips and best practices to enable users to make the most out of their investments.
• Provide proactive support: Be proactive in assisting users during the onboarding process. Offer help through messaging or email, and quickly address any issues or questions.
• Track progress and provide feedback: Show users their achievements and give feedback or rewards as they reach milestones. This will help keep them motivated to explore and use the product. The users can be given an option to showcase their rewards on social media. This would act as extrinsic motivation for them.
• Offer educational resources: Provide guides, tutorials, or videos to help users learn to make the best use of your product. Make these resources easily accessible and comprehensive for users at different stages of their onboarding journey.

Ready to Create Your Onboarding Strategy?

Good user onboarding is never constant. To see long term contextual onboarding experience succeed one must keep evolving.

Companies do this to ensure they remain relevant and useful. Therefore, our good onboarding examples may have different approaches by the time you read this blog.

We don't suggest you just replicate the user onboarding strategies that we have discussed here. Instead, you can take them as a reference to create awesome user onboarding flows as per your ideal user personas, requirements, and business goals.

Also, while creating onboarding content, always prioritize using videos as explainers. They work best for guiding users and demonstrating exactly how to use the different product features. You can use Trainn for this purpose.

It is a no-code customer learning platform that allows you to educate customers with ease. The platform not only offers customer onboarding and training solutions but training solutions for partners and sales representatives as well. So, check out the Trainn platform and sign up today!