Design a Great Customer Onboarding Process

Vishnu Gopal

Why?

Customer Onboarding = From the first time customers get in touch with

your product to the time when they signup/login, to when they start using the product.

Customer Onboarding = 1. Landing page. 2. Signup Page.

3. “Shortest path to a functional wow”

Landing page

1. Can your landing page be discovered organically by search

engines?

Example: you are building a meeting app.

Does your website mention “meetings app” prominently in the landing pages? Will Google ever redirect organic

visitors to your product?

Be as specific as possible. Mention your target customer segment & use cases too.

See InvisionApp.com website.

2. Does your landing page’s first fold have relevance?

First fold = the visible part of the page without scrolling.

Within the visible part of the page, does the landing page adequately convey “why I as a customer should be

interested in the product?”

Why I should be interested in this product should be

super obvious.

3. Does your landing page build credibility?

Do customers get the impression after viewing your landing page that other people also use/like your

product?

Is the team behind the product trustworthy?

Pro tip: please do not use SV.CO logo to build trustworthiness.

Use your customers’ logos.

If you don’t have customers, use internal product stats.

example: when Scripbox.com first started, they used data from back-testing their algorithm as credentials.

4. Signup has to be as frictionless as possible.

Frictionless = as easy/fast as possible.

So Facebook/Google/Mobile number signups over email

signups.

Examine the way Slack does signup.

5. “Shortest path to a functional wow”

Functional wow = the time taken for a customer to see landing page, signup and then start using the product to get results.

Example: for Zoom.us on Mac, shortest path = clicking URL,

downloading app, video-conferencing.

Example: for Google Hangouts on Mac/Chrome, shortest path = clicking

URL, instant video-conferencing.

One newish idea: deferred signup. You signup when it’s required. See moqups.com

So todo: submit a revised product with a great onboarding

experience.

See Rubric for more pointers.