Uncomplicate – Product onboarding framework
Uncomplicate by Freshworks brings you crisp and insightful videos which will focus on answering one tactical question around sales & marketing, support & collaboration, employee engagement, and growth.
The first touchpoint that any customer has with a business, is customer onboarding. This being the case, it is only natural that it is a highly-prioritized aspect of any business. It is also one of the aspects that many companies struggle to optimize.
This is what our speaker for today, Wes Bush, founder of Product-Led Institute, is helping us demystify, with a framework that we can implement into our onboarding practices.
“It really comes down to that first five minutes,” Wes tells us. “When it comes to improving onboarding for any company, you only have those first five minutes to make or break that relationship.” In fact, in those first five minutes, you can lose anywhere from 40%-60% of everyone who signs up for your product, and it is therefore crucial that you optimize that experience.
Wes takes us through a simple yet effective framework, with three steps that will optimize your onboarding.
The bowling alley framework
This simple method is split into three steps:
- Straight line onboarding
- Product bumpers
- Conversational bumpers
Straight line onboarding
The first thing that will help you significantly improve your first five minutes is boiling down on the minimum amount of steps that someone has to go through to really “strike out”, says Wes. “If you help them strike out in their very first experience, their chances of coming back to your product skyrocket.” And if you fail to do so, it becomes a lot harder for them to get back onto that straight line experience. So Wes tells us that it is absolutely imperative that we go through our onboarding experience with a fine-toothed comb, and keep only those steps that are absolutely necessary. Eliminate all the unnecessary steps so you give your customers a good experience.
Product bumpers
Remember the first time you went bowling? You most likely bowled a gutter ball and that’s bound to happen if you don’t know what you’re doing, right? The same concept applies to your onboarding. If people are using your product for the first time, they are not going to know what to do. “Think about how you can show them, how you can guide them through their experience,” Wes says. You can strategically get people to the point in the product where they need to be, so they can actually experience value.
Now a product bumper can only take you so far. The next, and final step, will steer your audience back to your product even if they lose track.
Conversational bumpers
It’s not uncommon that a prospect is distracted from your product. How do you bring them back? You can use email, SMS, and other such tools to get people and get them back onto that straight line. But the optimization and the golden nugget lies in not sending out the usual standardized mails, but personalized ones based on where the prospect is on that user journey.
So there you have it! Following these three hacks will make sure your customers have ‘aha’ moments in their onboarding journey. Do you think this bowling alley framework will work for your organization? Let us know in the comments below!
