Delivering value, fast.
How to make sure those key workflows are front and centre for users to appreciate.
Authors
This is part two of our six-part series on optimising onboarding for B2B SaaS. Have a look at the other articles in the series:
Part 1: B2B SaaS Onboarding - an intro
Part 2: Delivering value, fast
Part 3: Showing, not telling
Part 4: Evaluating now, learning later
Part 5: Discovering features
Part 6: Personalising the process
T
he onboarding process is a great, and often overlooked, opportunity for customer acquisition or conversion. If the customer signs up to begin with, it means they took the time to check you out. Now’s the time to show value fast – you don’t want to lose them now.When users first open the interface for a new product or the landing page for a SaaS app, they want to know what it can do, whether it can do the things they need to do, and will it fit their business needs. They don’t necessarily know how to use it yet (and we’ll come back to this point about discovery later).
Their first task will probably be to create a new account to start using the tool...
But how many times have we seen companies present a dashboard that firehoses the user with 30 features right from the off, because there’s just so much cool stuff?
In reality, this hides the app’s value behind too much noise.
Start simple
Our research uncovered that many users, after sign-up, prefer to start with a basic level of features. Then, once they’ve mastered the ‘simplified mode’, they’re ready for more custom and advanced capabilities over time.
In our research, we’ve learned that people want to see the actual tool, not feel overwhelmed with information.
So here are the three takeaways for product owners to make key workflows easy:
1. Deliver value, fast
2. Make the product sticky
One way to deliver value is to make the product sticky, and you can do this by knowing your customer’s toolset and business environment, and creating links to established processes. This way, your tool won’t cause friction with your user’s business processes.
One thing that some great, product-led companies are doing, that we identified in the research, is an immediate assessment of initial user needs and intentions. Asking the customers for their goals right away, and knowing what they’re coming to the website to discover, sets them up for success right away. Simple questions like asking the user what their title is, and what they want to do, leads to their freshly created account matching the user’s needs. And now we’re on the road to delivering value.
3. Sell without sales
Use classic B2C sales tactics like monthly pricing plans, where users can cancel at any time. You can either ask for the credit card from the start, or let people use the tool and ask for payment details later.
You’ve got a talented and busy sales team. But they can’t be everywhere. By making free trials part of your onboarding process, you get zero touch sales.
In the next article, we’ll go deeper into the concept of the user interface as the tutorial.
