5 Simple Steps to Optimize Your B2B SaaS Onboarding Process

In B2B SaaS subscription businesses, user onboarding is a turning point for new customers.

An outstanding onboarding experience can make the difference between a successful SaaS business and a failing one.

When done well, SaaS subscription onboarding can improve user confidence, reduce churn rate, increase user product adoption and retention rate, reduce demand for customer support, and increase user value.

A recent study reveals that 74% of potential customers will switch to your competitor if the onboarding process is not optimized.

Besides, according to the same study, 96% of B2B SaaS businesses utilize at least one onboarding tool:

Essentially, good user onboarding introduces users to the product and shows them the value your product offers to them.

But getting B2B customer onboarding right can be a tough task since software products aren’t always easy to learn.

So how do you improve your SaaS onboarding process?

In this article, you’ll learn practical tips for optimizing your B2B SaaS subscription onboarding process.

Let’s get started.

1. Understand Your Customers’ Desired Outcomes

To nail your B2B SaaS customer onboarding process, you need to understand what customers want to achieve with your product. 

For instance, according to Attrock, the main reason businesses invest in robust subscription management software is to streamline their subscription management processes and maximize revenue potential.

Understanding your customers’ goals and objectives for using your software solution helps you understand the value-driving actions they should take.

Here, you will need to talk with your most successful customers, trial users, and prospective customers. Using in-app surveys can be a great idea in that case.

2. Make the Signup Process Frictionless 

How simple or complex is your product’s signup process? Does your product have a lengthy signup process? Do customers drop off in the middle of the registration process?

Your customers’ first interaction with your software is not when they upgrade to your premium plan for the first time but when they initially sign up for your product’s free trial.

You must make the user’s first impression of your product amazing because it will set the tone for what the customer should expect when using your product.

You must make the sign-up process as simple and easy as possible by shortening the signup form.

Ask only the most necessary information during the signup process and give your customers immediate access to the software.

3. Add Value to The Customer as Quickly as You Can

Another practical strategy to optimize your B2B SaaS subscription onboarding process is to provide a quick win to users as soon as possible after they sign up for your product.

Delivering immediate value to users can help to improve customer retention and increase product adoption.

A good example of software that delivers a quick win during the onboarding process is from BuzzSumo.

The moment you sign up, BuzzSumo enables you to get started right away by entering a URL, topic, or keyword to start analyzing content.

In this case, BuzzSumo makes users experience the Aha! Moment as soon as you sign up to their platform.

Another way to add value to your product users is to create tutorials and guides. For instance, Younium has created an in-depth guide on subscription management for SaaS businesses that lets businesses understand the value they can get by leveraging a subscription management tool.

Even before the customer can invest in this subscription management platform, they already know the value they can get by using the software.

4. Segment Your Customers

Gone are the days when companies didn’t know much about their target customers. Technological advancements have made it easier for companies to gather valuable information about their customers for easy targeting.

Segmentation in the B2B SaaS subscription world isn’t optional anymore—it’s a must.

To optimize the customer onboarding process efficiently, you must segment users.

Remember that SaaS products often have different use cases that match different user personas.

Thus, delivering a generic customer onboarding experience for each of the user personas is a recipe for increasing the customer churn rate.

A great user segmentation example during the onboarding process is demonstrated by Canva.

Even though the tool is perfect for everyone, it has different use cases—you can use it for work, personal or educational purposes.

The tool offers customizable templates for each use case.

So when you sign in to the platform, you select your use case and the platform will display relevant templates.

5. Help Trial Users to Overcome the Learning Curve

B2B SaaS software solutions can be difficult to learn how to use, especially for first-time users.

Besides, most software products start with a blank slate which makes it hard for new trial users to understand how to use the tool when they first sign up on the platform.

When new trial users sign in to the product, they should understand where to go, and what to do to start using your tool. Otherwise, most of them will give up and switch to another solution.

Here are handy tips to help trial users understand how to use your product.

  • Include a welcome screen on your tool’s dashboard
  • Prove demo data like template previews, example campaigns, etc.
  • Create a simple in-platform guided tour centering around the first three or four vital steps users need to take when starting to use your product
  • Add a simple onboarding checklist

Important: Want to start a B2B SaaS subscription business but can’t figure out where to begin? This post by SmallBusinessHQ compares two popular business formation services that can simplify the process for you.

Conclusion

Converting free trial users to paid customers in B2B SaaS subscription-based business models is hard. So what should you do?

Follow these simple steps to optimize your B2B SaaS Subscription Onboarding processes and improve retention and product adoption rate.

If you’re still stuck, get in touch with us, and we’ll help you out.