Strategies to Reduce User Drop-Off During Onboarding

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.

💬 Last November I had a call with the CEO of an emerging health platform. She sounded very concerned -- "Our growth's hit a wall. We've put so much into this site, but we're running out of money and time. A big makeover isn’t an option, we need smart, quick fixes." Looking at the numbers, I noticed: ✅ Strong interest during initial signups. ❌ Many users gave up after trying it just a few times. ❌ Users reported that the site was too complicated. ❌ Some of the key features weren’t getting used at all. Operating within the startup’s tight constraints of time and budget, we decided on the immediate plan of actions-- 👉 Prioritized impactful features: We spotlighted "the best parts". Pushed secondary features to the backdrop. 👉  Rethought onboarding: Incorporated principles from Fogg's behavioral model: • Highlighted immediate benefits and rewards of using the platform (motivation) • Simplified tasks, breaking down the onboarding into easy steps (ability) • Nudged users with timely prompts to explore key features right off the bat (triggers)    👉 Pushed for community-driven growth: With budget constraints in mind, we prioritized building an organic community hub. Real stories, shared challenges, and peer-to-peer support turned users into brand evangelists, driving word-of-mouth growth. 👉  Started treating feedback as "currency": In a tight budget scenario, user feedback was gold. An iterative approach was adopted where user suggestions were rapidly integrated, amplifying trust and making users feel an important part of the platform's journey. In a few months time, the transformation was evident. The startup, once fighting for user retention, now had a dedicated user base, championing its vision and propelling its growth! 🛠  In the startup world, it's not just about quick fixes, but finding the right ones. ↳ A good UXer can show where to look. #ux #startupux #designforbehaviorchange   

The biggest mistake I see SaaS brands make with their onboarding: Focusing too much on features and not enough on outcomes. Your customers need to know what your product can help THEM achieve. Some tips to improve your onboarding process: ✅ Identify the key activation points that lead to long-term retention These are the moments when customers experience significant value from your product. Understanding these critical moments and guiding your customers towards them early in the onboarding process is crucial. ✅ Remove any unnecessary friction in your signup and setup process. Simplify every step to ensure a smooth experience from the start. Evaluate your signup forms and setup instructions. Are they straightforward? Can any steps be automated or eliminated? The easier you make it for customers to get started, the more likely they are to stay. ✅ Provide clear, outcome-oriented guidance at each step Instead of just showing how to use features, explain the benefits these features bring. For example, rather than saying “Use our analytics tool to track metrics,” Say “Use our analytics tool to gain insights into your sales performance and make data-driven decisions.” This helps customers understand the real value your product offers. Your onboarding should be laser-focused on helping customers reach their first success as quickly as possible. Early wins are crucial for building confidence and demonstrating value. You already have a key outcome your onboarding process aims to deliver. Now, ask yourself: How can you streamline that process even further to make it seamless and effective? Make your onboarding process more outcome-driven and customer-centric & you will significantly increase your customer retention and satisfaction. By the way, what challenges are you facing with your current onboarding process?

I come across a number of product onboarding mishaps, especially for those launching a self-serve offering: 🚫 The product is too confusing w/o sales or success helping out 🚫 There's too much of a blank slate 🚫 It's unclear 'what's in it for me' as a user 🚫 There's no personalization for specific use cases, jobs to be done or levels of intent Yaakov Carno adds another mishap: there's not enough "healthy" onboarding friction. He worked with Databox (~$8M ARR) on 20+ product improvements over the last 6 months, ultimately improving activation from ~30% to >40% of new users. Don't miss the story in Growth Unhinged: https://lnkd.in/e_KAyrrs The TL;DR: 1. Instead of just reducing friction, try increasing *motivation* -- giving people a reason to take the next step. 2. Remember that users are often beginners. Avoid jargon and use onboarding to educate them. 3. Activation is more of a score than a binary yes/no. Conversion increases dramatically as the score goes up. 4. Reverse trials can improve activation by removing barriers to trying premium features. Reframe these as 'gifted opportunities' without any commitment or cost. 5. An opinionated 'getting started' checklist can sometimes go a long way. Can't wait to hear what y'all think! #plg #product #selfservice #onboarding

It's your job to support Activation. Don't just "get out of the way"... When opening your app for the first time, users have little information about how it is and how it works. First, use onboarding to educate them about your app's value and learn about them (your conversion rate will thank you). But, after that, if you just drop them on a dashboard and multiple tabs, a lot of them will be overwhelmed or distracted. You should leverage product design to customize the experience and guide them, particularly at the beginning. Here is one of the #growthgems I shared in Growth Gems #105, from Ana Oarga (Co-founder & Product Strategy at Just Mad): -- 💎 𝘿𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙣 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚: 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘰 (𝘦.𝘨., 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 → 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯), 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘦 (𝘦.𝘨., 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴, 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯), 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘴𝘦 (𝘦.𝘨., 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮, 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵), 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 (𝘣𝘢𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘴, 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘴, 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘴). -- This is the Reforge playbook as well: first, you define what activation is for you. Then, you use the UX/design levers at your disposal to support activation to find the right balance. User journeys are complex, everyone has a different level of intent, and there is no single path. But you have to start somewhere, and simplifying things during the first-time user experience is a good starting point. Want more advice on activation? 👉 Check out Growth Gems #105 for more insights https://lnkd.in/ejBaUudS ___ 👋 I'm Sylvain Gauchet. Click my name + follow + 🔔 so you don't miss out on the #growthgems I share.

Waaaaaaay too many PLG companies do the absolutely bare minimum on onboarding. Signup, get 5 emails over 10 days, and that's about it. Job done! I get why. Too many people think of onboarding like a content download. This format (sort of) works for a content download because you will hit them with many emails in the future to suck them in, but not at all for onboarding. They are in the moment. They are in an evaluation. You are under a deadline (unlike content downloads) and you HAVE to put in the work. The best way to do this is to roll out: 1️⃣ product activity based onboarding. Move away from time-based onboarding and trigger everything off their adoption of the product. You'll send less emails, onboard at a faster rate, and with much higher conversion. 2️⃣ add branching. Industry, company size, are they owned by sales or note, etc. Go a little extra further and use this in personalization, for example if they are owned by Sales/CSM have the onboarding emails come from their rep. Do these two and you're almost guaranteed to have better onboarding than all your competitors and greatly increase conversions. Here's how we do it: https://lnkd.in/eKkyTA_y

You're making a terrible mistake in your SaaS landing page. I call it the "lazy onboarding". It's no news that capturing emails in a landing page is a great technique. Some companies use it. Some don't and take you to a sign up flow instead. In a conversion landing page, you definitely want to at least test how a sign up input performs. But SaaS companies have a deeper problem: their onboarding flow. SaaS onboardings ask for a bunch a data. Email, password, some personal data, credit card. You name it. And most SaaS products without freemium models offer free trials. Yet I get tired of seeing landing pages that either: A) have a long sign up form with a lot of inputs B) take you to a new tab to onboard you Avoid A. It's a ton of cognitive load for your user. All you need is their email. Avoid B. It's even more cognitive load. You take your user out of context and push them into a process they weren't expecting. Don't be lazy. Be smarter. You can ask for an email address and take them to the product immediately afterwards. They can start playing around with the product right in the moment. Name? Password? 2 factor auth? Credit card? Plan selection? Leave that for later! Activate the freakin trial. If you need authentic emails, send them a validation link. Use the right copy to capture attention at all times, and you're set. "But Juan, this is hard. Complex flows. Lots of UX work to do. Devs will complain." Talk to your team. Let the data speak for itself. No one will complain if there's a great product in the making. And doing this means building a great product. -- PS: Want to improve your website's conversion rates? Join our community of SaaS founders and teams and get conversion rate optimization, product design and no-code insights. 👉🏽 https://jams.agency/join/

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 — 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱   ✅ You rolled out the platform. ✅ You created a knowledge base. ✅ You hosted a few walkthroughs.   And yet… ❌ People still 𝙖𝙨𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 ❌ Teams still 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 ❌ Customers still 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙥𝙩 𝙞𝙩   The problem isn’t the software. It’s the 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲.   Too often live software training is: 🚫 Led by SMEs who 𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣’𝙩 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙨 🚫 𝙁𝙤𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙣 𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨, 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙨 🚫 Delivered once, then 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣 🚫 Passive, 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙥𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡   If you want adoption that lasts, try this instead: ✅ 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁        💡 Test. Learn. Improve. Aim for useful, then iterate.   ✅ 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁         💬 Facilitation drives engagement. Lecture drains it.   ✅ 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗷𝗼𝗯-𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴         🧠 Generic demos don’t build skill. Real-world examples do.   ✅ 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄-𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹         🔁 Recaps and office hours reinforce what matters most.   ✅ 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀         📊 If you're reducing support tickets, train to reduce the actual questions people ask.   When training is designed for 𝙗𝙚𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙧 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚, not just knowledge transfer — adoption follows.   💬 Curious how your current onboarding holds up? Start here:       ❓ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙚 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁?   Ready to transform your training from a drain to a growth engine? 📞 Let's chat about a clear pathway to proficiency for your business. Picture by ChatGPT #Training, #Onboarding, #Enablement, #LearningAndDevelopment, #ChangeManagement

Most community onboarding programs are trash. They’re designed from the point of view of the people running the community, or even worse, the software platform itself. A recent research paper demonstrates how a self-mapping method flips onboarding on its head, placing members’ POV & experience at the heart of the community. Researchers studied how online peer support communities could alleviate social isolation and loneliness affecting 61% of US adults. They discovered peer community programs could effectively combat loneliness, depression, anxiety and improve health-related quality of life among diverse lonely adults. The study used the Wisdo Health* platform for the online program, and their self-mapping onboarding exercise was key. The initial experience helped new members feel seen and ensured long-term involvement In this initial exercise, users selected if they've "been there" or are "there now" for 25 to 35 common community-sourced challenges and milestones in their chosen community group. On average, members chose 20 of these "been there" or "there now" milestones in each sub-community they joined. Since members joined an average of 6 sub-communties, this onboarding exercise provided 120 detailed & relevant data points that could be used to personalize the experience. Just as important, as members made each choice, they could see how many others on the platform made the same choice. This helped them feel like they belonged and would find emotionally supportive connections. This study shows how innovative onboarding exercises can help new members find their niche and feel connected from day one. Check out the full paper in the comments. Hopefully it can help inspire new ways to encourage members to map out their interests and goals, and give them the tools to discover their people.

Can MORE friction actually drive MORE activation? This isn’t a trick question, I promise. The answer is: When you’re strategic about personalization in your onboarding flow. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “But we need FEWER onboarding questions, not more! Asking people to do too much will cause them to give up!” Well, you’re partly right. If you ask them questions about things that don’t seem relevant to their experience, then probably yes. If you ask for sensitive information without a good reason, again, yes. But if you ask questions that will help personalize and customize their journey? If you show them that you’re creating value for them through the process? Then there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. Don’t believe me? Consider this: LinkedIn: 8 steps Figma: 8 steps Simple: 30+ steps Miro: 7 steps That’s how many steps these apps ask users to go through during onboarding. Much more than the 3-4 popular wisdom suggests is the ideal number. Asking the right questions helps these products create a better experience, segment and target their users, better understand their ICP, and weed out people who would have Instachurned anyway. In today’s carousel, I’m breaking down why providing a little more friction upfront can actually increase activation and provide a better experience to your users. What about you? Where do you fall on the less vs more debate? ---- Follow me, Katie Deloso 🎬, for daily stories, tips and tricks for producing your sticky product. #saas #productledgrowth #plg #productdesign #onboarding