Creating Effective Onboarding For E-commerce Users

When I was head of growth, our team reached 40% activation rates, and onboarded hundreds of thousands of new users. Without knowing it, we discovered a framework. Here are the 6 steps we followed. 1. Define value: Successful onboarding is typically judged by new user activation rates. But what is activation? The moment users receive value. Reaching it should lead to higher retention & conversion to paid plans. First define it. Then get new users there. 2. Deliver value, quickly Revisit your flow and make sure it gets users to the activation moment fast. Remove unnecessary steps, complexity, and distractions along the way. Not sure how to start? Try reducing time (or steps) to activate by 50%. 3. Motivate users to action: Don't settle for simple. Look for sticking points in the user experience you can solve with microcopy, empty states, tours, email flows, etc. Then remind users what to do next with on-demand checklists, progress bars, & milestone celebrations. 4. Customize the experience: Ditch the one-size fits all approach. Learn about your different use cases. Then, create different product "recipes" to help users achieve their specific goals. 5. Start in the middle: Solve for the biggest user pain points stopping users from starting. Lean on customizable templates and pre-made playbooks to help people go 0-1 faster. 6. Build momentum pre-signup: Create ways for website visitors to start interacting with the product - and building momentum, before they fill out any forms. This means that you'll deliver value sooner, and to more people. Keep it simple. Learn what's valuable to users. Then deliver value on their terms.

Your first 90 days with a customer can make or break the entire relationship. I've seen it happen too many times: - Great sales process - Solid product demo - Strong contract value - Excited stakeholders Then onboarding happens. And everything falls apart. Why? Most companies treat onboarding like a checklist: - Setup call ✓ - Product training ✓ - Technical integration ✓ - Documentation shared ✓ But here's the truth about onboarding: It's not about your process. It's about their success. After managing hundreds of onboarding sessions, here's what I've learned: The best onboarding isn't standard. It's personalized. Think about it: - Every customer has different goals - Every team has different challenges - Every organization has different paces - Every stakeholder has different priorities Your onboarding needs to reflect this. Here's what works: 1. Start with clear expectations - Define success metrics upfront - Set realistic timelines - Map out key milestones - Align on responsibilities 2. Build a dedicated team - Assign specialists who understand their industry - Create cross-functional support - Have clear escalation paths - Enable quick problem-solving 3. Monitor health signals - Track early usage patterns - Watch engagement levels - Note stakeholder participation - Measure progress velocity 4. Automate the right things - Regular check-in reminders - Progress updates - Resource sharing - Usage alerts But here's where most companies fail: They don't plan for challenges: - Low customer engagement - Complex technical integrations - Unclear success metrics - Resource constraints - Scalability issues The solution? Build feedback loops: - Collect input at every stage - Adjust plans based on signals - Iterate on materials - Improve processes continuously Remember: Onboarding isn't about getting customers to use your product. It's about helping them achieve their goals through your product. The first 90 days set the tone for everything that follows. Make them count. What's your approach to customer onboarding? What challenges have you faced? ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1993+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]

6mo ago → 70% of users skipped onboarding. How we reduced this to 22%: A bit of context: - Our activation sucked (~25%) - People got to the ‘Aha-moment’ too late — Some never got to it at all — Others gave up before they got to it So we asked ourselves: "How can we front-load the 'Aha-moment' and get people to experience it as early as possible?" So we launched the "Playground": → Fully interactive demo on homepage → All features from the Studio → No signup needed Early data showed it was working: → Prospects familiar with Studio before demos → Website traffic (+100% on release week) → Signup% (2% → 5%) But this didn’t improve activation: People needed to get value from our product. We’re a playful team. But we know some people have sh*t to get done. We have 2 different "types" of signups: 1. Explore the product (to see if worth switching) 2. Set up their first event and landing page Everyone thinks of onboarding as linear. But by definition: that won’t work for everyone. Introducing: Flexible funnels We have a lot of gamers on the team. So that’s where we looked for inspiration. Games let you roam free (even through tutorials). This gives users a sense of control. And discovery. So we created a new onboarding flow: (See gif below) And the first results are promising: → 55% of people explore the Studio → 22% of people set up a webinar Only 22% of people skip (mostly post-demo signups). What prompted us to make the change? We thought about what would help users. Instead of pushing them down the path we wanted them to follow.

Think your onboarding process is smooth and simple? Here’s what it actually feels like from the customer’s side. This is a real-life example I'm currently in the middle of: ✅ Sign up for new service we're really excited about and are eager to get started with quickly. ✅ Receive email with 9 "simple" steps to get started. Looks easy enough at a glance! ✅ Carve out time in the afternoon to work through them. 🚧 Immediately hit a wall: I can't proceed until Daniel Zarick signs the contract. Stuck until that gets done. ✅ Contract finally signed! Okay, I'll work through the next steps later this afternoon after my calls. 🚧 Next step is granting access to some tools. But which email address should I grant access to? Ping the team to ask and wait for a reply. 🚧 Need to provide "a few voice of customer examples." We've got thousands. Unclear what they're looking for. Ping them again to ask for clarity. 🚧 Need to schedule a kickoff call. No meeting link provided. Should I be reaching out to find time? Will they let me know when they're ready for me to schedule? I set aside an hour to tackle this list. The result? I completed ONE out of NINE tasks. 😲 And just like that, we're delayed by a day. At least. What looks like a "simple list of things to do" on paper quickly becomes a complex web of dependencies, permissions, and unclear expectations. To truly enable your customers from the get-go: ✅ Provide all necessary context upfront—don’t make them ask for clarity ✅ Clearly define each step: what's needed, who’s responsible, and by when ✅ Give them the tools and instructions to actually complete the steps in one go Remember: Every moment of customer confusion is a loss of momentum and a potential delay in your onboarding timeline. And that's why we built Arrows: https://lnkd.in/guZwtrNS

Your onboarding assumes users are in thinking mode. But users open your app in an emotional mode. Kahneman showed us we have two brain systems: System 1: Fast. Emotional. Automatic. System 2: Slow. Logical. Effortful. Here's the problem: Most app onboarding is designed for System 2. - Long explanations - Multiple choice questions - Feature lists - Complex permissions But your new users are running on System 1. - They're just scrolling through some social feed - They download on impulse - They open your app while distracted And you hit them with a cognitive workout. That's why 70% of users abandon after one session. Not because your product is bad. Because you're asking System 2 questions to System 1 brains. Here's what works: - Show don't tell - One clear action per screen - Instant gratification before friction - Emotional hooks before logical value props Get users to their first win fast. Then gradually transition them to System 2 decisions like subscriptions and permissions. System 1 gets them in. System 2 keeps them paying. Design your onboarding in that order.

In my experience, well over 30% of required user onboarding steps are rubbish. Asking for too much information too early is a conversion killer, and I observe it in almost every SaaS company I work with. Your goal should be to get your user to value in the shortest time possible. To get there: First, write down every granular step your user has to take to realize value: everything from filling in their first name to email verification and getting to value for the first time. Then ask yourself: • Is this a must-have step? • Is it something you can introduce later? • Can we remove this step altogether? If it isn't really necessary, get rid of it ASAP. Then, move on to steps that are either optional or can be introduced later. Once you do this activity, you can typically SUBTRACT 30-40% of steps from your onboarding flow. This will help a ton more users experience the value of your product. Yet, there's one thing that you should be ADDING to your onboarding. I know what you're thinking - that's crazy Wes but hear me out... You must ADD profiling questions. These are the first few questions you typically see once you sign up for a new product. Most companies don't do this well. The best profiling questions do two things really well... 1) Identify Your Ideal Users Profiling questions allow you to understand who’s signing up. This can give you insight into what percentage of your total sign-ups are your ideal users—those most likely to convert or stick around. For instance, just asking "what best describes you?" and having options like Founder/CEO or Individual Contributor can help you understand if this is an ideal signup or not. 2) Fast Track Onboarding By knowing more about the user upfront, you can tailor their onboarding experience, making it faster and more relevant. For example, asking a user "what's their ideal starting point? Whether that be sending out an invoice or running payroll can shave off countless steps in an onboarding journey. However, it’s important not to overwhelm your users with many questions. Remember: users haven't experienced value in your product yet, so they will leave your setup process at any point if they feel like it's too much work. Aim for no more than 3-5 profiling questions for most products. Although adding profiling questions can be seen as adding more friction, in the long run, it should reduce friction because users can quickly access the part of the product that is most relevant to them. Do you use profiling questions in your product yet? Let me know in the comments. 

The #1 misconception about Customer Onboarding: It is not a process. It is an outcome. Running it like a process is exactly why so many customers never fully adopt the product no matter how great the onboarding felt. Here is what running it like a process looks like: ⛔️ A checklist of generic items with boxes to tick ⛔️ A product walkthrough disguised up as onboarding ⛔️ A timeline built around your schedule and not the customer's goals ⛔️ Success defined as "onboarding complete" and not "customer achieved first value" ⛔️ An end date that arrives whether the customer is ready or not All of these version feel like customer onboarding. But none of them guarantees the customer succeeds. A customer who finishes onboarding without achieving their first meaningful outcome is not onboarded. It's churn that becomes visible after 12 months but started 9+ months before. Here is what successful onboarding looks like: ✅ Start with the goal - what specific outcome does the customer need to hit before onboarding is complete? ✅ Identify the capability gaps - what do they currently lack that is stopping them from getting there? ✅ Build the enablement around closing those gaps, not around showing features ✅ Measure progress against the outcome, not against the checklist ✅ End onboarding when the customer hits the milestone, not when the calendar says so The customer onboarding needs to answer one question: "Did the customer achieve the outcome that proves the product is worth keeping?" Are you still treating your customer onboarding as a process? PS: Build the skills and knowledge to nail customer onboarding --> https://lnkd.in/dar3mbHa

Most companies spend months perfecting their product UI, then throw together onboarding in a weekend. This is backwards. Your onboarding IS your product's first impression. It's where users decide if they trust you enough to change their workflow. Our initial onboarding was basically "here's the docs, figure it out." But now we redesigned onboarding like a product feature: - User research on where people got stuck - Built interactive tutorials that actually work with real data - Added progress indicators and clear next steps - Made it feel as polished as our core platform The result? 3x improvement in day-7 retention. Your onboarding experience should have the same design rigor as your core product. Because if users don't make it through onboarding, they'll never see how great your actual product is. What's one thing you wish every product explained better during onboarding?

Great products don’t just work well. They onboard well. Here’s what I’ve noticed working with onboarding teams: Even if your product is world-class, if onboarding drags… customers lose interest. Some delays are unavoidable, but there’s always room to simplify. Manual steps → automation → better experience. Think about the products we use daily: Phones, tablets, websites. No one asks “How do I start?” Onboarding is invisible. That mastery makes adoption effortless. For startups or niche products, it’s harder. But every product can: • Automate parts of onboarding. • Provide clear docs & guides. • Let at least some users get started without human help. 3 quick checks to audit your onboarding: 1. Time-to-First-Value: How fast can a new customer actually use the product? 2. Manual → Automated: What’s still being done by hand that could be automated? 3. Self-Serve Ready: Could a new user succeed with only docs/videos, without human intervention? If these three line up, you’re on the path from survival → stability → scalability. How does your team approach onboarding? Would love to hear.