How To Make User Onboarding Simple And Easy

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Somewhere along the way, your business might notice a higher churn rate. User onboarding is an essential factor, when trying to be successful.

Even though there may be multiple causes driving such negative results, ultimately, it is because your users do not understand the benefits and features of the product or service you offer. 

This means that you did not implement a good onboarding strategy, which is the process through which you guide users to explore and learn how to use your product.

When you fail to start or improve such a strategy, you’ll face high abandon rates, followed by critical reviews and a bad reputation. In order to avoid this and help you along the way, we have listed in this article some of the best ways to make user onboarding simple and easy and the most relevant mistakes to avoid.

Let’s get right to the point. 

What is user onboarding?

User onboarding refers to the process of guiding new users to understand your product or service and make them discover its true value.

The onboarding process starts when a potential customer signs up for your product and continues through their first realization of how it benefits them.

 

 

Why is user onboarding important?

The onboarding process is extremely important since it allows your customers to understand how your product works and can benefit them. 

In the absence of such a process, and as a result not teaching your users how to properly use your product, you will see an increased rate of user abandonment, revenue churn, and negative reviews.

A good user onboarding, on the other hand, will allow you to enjoy the following relevant benefits.

Better customer satisfaction and engagement

The more consumers know about your product or service and its main features, the more likely they are to use it often, possibly daily.

In turn, you’ll experience an increase in customer satisfaction and engagement, which leads to better visibility and authority in your field.

Improved retention rate

The more consumers understand how to use your product, and the more benefits they see from using it, the less likely they are to abandon it. As a result, your retention rate will improve, contributing to higher sales and revenues.

Happier customers and brand loyalty

A consumer who is not capable of understanding the functionality and benefits of your product will be unsatisfied and go elsewhere.

On the other hand, if you let consumers know and appreciate your product, it will make them happy and satisfied, which will possibly lead to increased brand loyalty, giving your company a secure revenue stream for years to come.

7 ways to make user onboarding simple and easy

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Following are the seven best ways to make user onboarding simple and quick. 

  • Use a user onboarding tool

Implementing a user onboarding tool is clearly one of the best ways to simplify and ease the onboarding process.

If you know what is an onboarding tool, then you know how powerful it can be to help you teach your new users about your product while they’re using it for the first time.

As an example, you can target your flows based on user behavior and attributes to deliver a more relevant and timely onboarding experience.

Additionally, it will enable you to deploy a combination of full-product tutorials, modals, and less-intrusive tooltips and hotspots to get users engaged with your product and help them realize its value.

  • Welcome new customers with guides and tutorials

By educating users from the beginning, you’re more likely to convince them to stay and spend more time using your product or service. You can do this by creating guides and tutorial videos that you can send to your users after they sign up or subscribe, whether it is a free trial or a paid subscription.

In these guides and video tutorials, you should discuss the first steps and actions that beginners need to take in order to use your product correctly. Furthermore, they should provide an overview of all the features that your product offers.

  • Inform users about what to expect

The first thing you need to keep in mind when presenting your product and guiding your users through getting to know it is honesty. Making false promises or creating false expectations will make users lose trust in your product, your business, or your brand in general. 

Therefore, if you want to avoid this, make sure to always be honest about your product’s characteristics, and perhaps list all the pluses and minuses. 

Additionally, it is a good idea to indicate to whom this product will be most appropriate and to whom it will be less suitable.

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  • Create product tours to point out the features

Even though guides and video tutorials can be helpful for users to learn about your product, it may be difficult for them to both learn and use your product at the same time.

This explains why creating product tours could be extremely useful. 

The tours tend to show users step-by-step how to perform some actions or achieve some results. 

Then they will be able to use it more easily. Meanwhile, you’ll offer a memorable and impressive experience that will create a positive first impression in your users’ minds. 

  • Interview and survey your users to find out why they’re using your product and what they expect

A regular survey and interview with users and customers will allow you to always improve your user onboarding strategy and make it simple and easy for users.

Perhaps you could ask why their company or profession needs your product or service, and what they hope to achieve by using it.

As a result, you can customize the onboarding process to be easier and simpler for different types of customers.

  • Gamify your user onboarding

In addition to product tours, gamifying the user onboarding experience can make the onboarding experience easier and simpler.

As an example, you might want to create highly immersive learning experiences through VR-based gamified learning environments or employ gaming elements, such as leaderboards, points tables, and badges, to motivate a competitive spirit among new hires.

As a result, you will be able to provide your users with a memorable and relevant experience that they will remember and recommend to others.

  • Reduce the number of steps in your onboarding

Even though you might be tempted to provide a detailed onboarding process, that could prove to be boring to your users, to the point where they will be discouraged from going through it thoroughly.

Without the onboarding process, they will not understand how to use and benefit from your product, so they will abandon it and leave.

To avoid this from happening, it would be a good idea to keep your onboarding process short and concise so as not to annoy users.

5 user onboarding mistakes to avoid

Having learned what you need to do to make user onboarding easy and simple, it’s also a good idea to know what not to do.

We have outlined below five mistakes you should absolutely avoid during user onboarding.

  • Do not overpromise

When you are onboarding users, one of the first mistakes to avoid is making exaggerated or untrue promises about the features or results your product will provide.

Basically, once users use it, and see what you promised doesn’t correspond to reality, they will feel betrayed and will lose trust in your company.

Obviously, this will result in them leaving your product and never coming back.

Hence, do not overpromise, and describe your products in terms of their true benefits, without inventing.

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  • Do not abandon users after they went through onboarding

The onboarding process is only the beginning of the customer journey. As a result, after onboarding users, you shouldn’t abandon them.

As customers become experts in using and benefiting from your product, the onboarding process should go over and over again.

It’s still a good idea to provide training and onboarding even if that happens, for example when you add new features that they’re unfamiliar with.

  • Not helping and supporting users the right way

User onboarding is more than just articles and videos. Your customers might actually need additional help in understanding your products and solving their doubts or issues.

If this occurs, you must be ready to provide additional assistance and support to users.

Only then can you ensure that your new hires are happy, and you can onboard them in the right way.

  • Not measuring your onboarding properly

By not measuring your onboarding, you will never know whether it is effective or not. Thus, you will not be able to know if you need to improve or change anything.

The best way to prevent such a situation is to measure regularly all of the metrics directly related to your onboarding process, such as retention rate, churn rate, engagement rate, and so on.

  • Do not onboard users like they’re customers

The onboarding process is geared towards new users who have no idea how your product works or all its features.

Thus, you should never make the mistake of treating your users like experienced customers.

When it comes to the user onboarding process, don’t take anything for granted, and make sure to include all the necessary steps and information, even if they seem very basic or elementary to you.

Conclusions on User Onboarding

As you may have gathered from reading this blog post, user onboarding is critical to the success of your product, service or business in general. We have listed some of the most effective ways to make user onboarding simple and easy, along with some of the most common mistakes to avoid.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. Hopefully, you found it informative and helpful. 

If you want to read more, check out this article about generating an unlimited amount of leads for your business.

Author

Flavia Silipo is a skilled SEO copywriter and digital marketing specialist with over two years of experience. You can find her on LinkedIn.small business coach

How to Plan and Host a Successful Lunch and Learn Event

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Lunch and learn events are presentations or training sessions that take place during lunchtime and where the employer picks up the food bill. Lunch and learns last about 30 to 45 minutes and represent an opportunity for employees to improve their skills and learn something new. If you’re thinking about hosting a lunch and learn event, the following 7 tips will help you put together a successful event. 

1. Schedule Your Lunch and Learn Event

Although lunch and learn events are casual and don’t need to be as structured as formal training sessions, that doesn’t mean you should leave everything to chance. You still need to plan the topic, presenter, attendees, materials, and the food in advance. 

In most organizations, lunch and learn events are conducted on a regular basis; for instance once a week or once a month. How often you will host such events depends entirely on you and your goals, but make sure that your lunch and learns utilize the attendees’ time wisely. Be sure that you are not constantly taking up their lunch periods and when you do, it is for a good reason.

2. Choose Relevant Topics

Once you have got a schedule in place, the next step is to determine what you are going to talk about. Lunch and learns can cover a variety of different topics, ranging from career-enhancing tips and financial health to personal goals and stress management.  

The best route is to ask your employees what topics they’d be interested in. You can solicit suggestions directly or by conducting an online survey. By choosing the right lunch and learn topics, you’ll make sure that your colleagues are eager to attend and that they will walk away with valuable insights from the event. 

3. Find Educated Presenters

Your presenter can make or break your lunch and learn event. If they are unrelatable or dull, attendees will quickly lose focus. For this reason, it is very important to find a person who understands the goals and needs of their audience. small business coach

Very often, the best presenters come from within your organization because these people are familiar with the company’s operations, understand the challenges your employees are facing on a daily basis, and know how to motivate them.

 

4. Know the Number of Attendees

The first thing to decide is whether your event will be open or for targeted people. Be sure to send invitations on time and ask people to RSVP quickly so that you know how many of them will be attending and plan accordingly.

If you are also inviting remote employees, make sure to include the video conferencing link in the email invitation.

5. Choose a Suitable Venue 

When choosing a venue for your lunch and learn event, opt for a space with eating facilities. You can host the event in the company’s café or canteen or choose an off-site venue such as some best restaurants in Hollywood. If you go off-site, be sure to find out if the place is noisy and whether it can accommodate your employees; near a hotspot rental to ensure that you will still have access to the internet and book it in advance. In addition, take into consideration whether you will need to set up tables and chairs or if you will need space to move around. 

If you have remote employees, be sure that the venue is equipped to broadcast the event. At the very least, it should have reliable WiFi. 

6. Promote the Lunch and Learn Event

In order for your lunch and learn to be successful, you need to take some time to advertise it in advance and allow attendees to make scheduling plans. Promoting the event is a great way to get your employees excited about the event. Use sign-up sheets, email reminders, Slack notifications, company calendar updates, and posters to help keep the lunch and learn top of mind. 

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7. Pay Attention to Food

Finally, be sure to pay special attention to the food and beverages. Ideally, the food you serve should be good enough to take an employee away from their own lunch period. Try to be creative with food choices and think beyond pizza. Consider options like sandwiches from the nearby deli, a make-your-own salad bar, or veggie lasagna from a local caterer to add to the message that this is not the same old lunch and learn.

If providing a full lunch meal for an entire team of employees is not financially possible, even free snacks can encourage people to come, especially if you have a great presenter and an attractive topic. 

Final Thoughts on Lunch and Learn Events

Even though lunch and learns can be an investment of both time and money, they are a great way to encourage a love of learning among your team members. The tips in this article will help you run a successful lunch and learn event without a lot of extra resources. small business coach

5 Ways Business Owners Can Celebrate Small Business Week

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5 Ways Business Owners Can Celebrate Small Business Week in 2023

This year, Small Business Week takes place on May 2nd to May 8th. Small Business Week (SBW) is a time to recognize the importance of small business owners and entrepreneurs and their contributions to society. In the United States, the majority of Americans’ livelihoods can be attributed to small businesses, either through owning one or working for one.

Due to the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, it’s important to take some time to celebrate your efforts as a small business owner and the adversity you have overcome. As we move into a post-pandemic landscape, it can be helpful to use SBW as an opportunity to reflect on the past year while also planning ahead. Here are a few ways that you can celebrate SBW this May.

 

1. Foster relationships

One of the most important considerations as a small business owner is the relationships you have. While it’s always critical to have a good relationship with your customers, remember to also foster relationships with your employees and business connections. Making a point to acknowledge those that assist with your day-to-day business operations can set you apart and depict that you’re willing to put the extra effort in to show your appreciation.

Connect with your customers during SBW:

Finding ways to continuously connect with your customers can help your organization’s overall growth. Don’t be afraid to reach out to previous clients to ask for feedback or see if there are ways to improve their overall experience. Furthermore, brainstorming ways to say, “thank you” during SBW can give you the opportunity to bring back customers and promote retention. This can either be done by providing a special discount or promotion, featuring customer stories on your social media channels or even sending out “thank you” emails.

With your employees:

While your customers are certainly key to maintaining your business, remember to also keep in mind the importance of your employees in your overall structure. SBW is a time to celebrate your accomplishments but also to acknowledge the work that your employees put in. When your employees know they are valued, they will continue to put forth effort, which in turn promotes the overall success of your business. Consider handwritten notes, publicly acknowledging their talents and contributions, or catering a breakfast or lunch as a way to nurture these important relationships.

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With your connections:

Another important element in maintaining a successful business is having connections outside of your day-to-day relationships. The pandemic put a halt on public gatherings, making networking extremely difficult. You may have some connections that you haven’t spoken to in over a year. Use SBW as an opportunity to reach back out to them and spark up conversation in a relationship that may have fizzled out. This is also a great opportunity to network with new connections and get your name out.

2. Further your education during SBW

As a small business owner, you are probably aware of the importance of evolving. Depending on your industry, keeping ahead of the competition could be imperative to maintaining a successful business model. One way to do this is to find ways to further your education, whether this is in a structured or unstructured environment. There are many ways to do this, such as industry specific extended learning opportunities or finding a business coach. Implementing feedback and expanding your knowledge are two vital components in growing your business. This SBW, you can even start small by taking some time to read motivational, business-specific literature to build momentum.

3. Evaluate safeguards

After this past year of uncertainty, it is evident that you can never be too prepared. As a small business owner, you are most likely the fundamental person responsible for keeping your business afloat. While this notion may come with a significant amount of pressure, remember that there are ways to protect both yourself and your business. This is why it’s important to regularly revisit both your personal and business finances and ensure that you have adequate safeguards in place.

For example, one consideration that gets overlooked is ensuring you have enough life insurance coverage set up. Even though a life insurance policy is an added cost to your bottom line, remember that this is an essential coverage to have, particularly if you have dependents who rely on your business income to meet current obligations. Furthermore, if you used any family assets to financially secure a portion of your business, having this safeguard in place protects your family from paying these debts off if you were to pass away.

4. Revisit goals

As a small business owner, you may have set both personal and business goals along the way. When you are faced with adversity and substantial change, sometimes these goals can get put on the back burner. Use SBW as an opportunity to revisit goals you may have set and find ways to work towards achieving them. Furthermore, if you have had to adjust your strategy, try setting new business goals and initiatives. Continue to reflect and ask the right questions to promote growth and hone-in on your long-term plans.

5. Prioritize self-care

While being a business owner comes with freedom and flexibility, there is also a great deal of responsibility involved. Not only are you responsible for both your personal and business success, but you are also responsible for employees and their livelihoods as you grow. This can lead to an insurmountable amount of stress overtime, especially during times of uncertainty. Recognizing all that you are taking on and allowing time to reflect and decompress is important for your mental well-being and decision making. This can be difficult to do, especially when you are wearing many hats, but use SBW as a chance to practice self-care as a business owner. Whether this is taking a vacation, treating yourself to a nice dinner, splurging on an item you’ve had your eyes on, or going on a short day trip, making time for yourself can be the difference between feeling motivated rather than experiencing burnout.

If you experienced adversity and hardship in 2020 as a small business owner, use SBW 2023 as an opportunity to reflect and re-engage. Remember that the success of your business starts with you so finding ways to celebrate your accomplishments and hard work along the way is vital in building momentum as we move into a post-pandemic landscape. With planning, preparation and goal setting, you can set yourself up for success in the months (and years) ahead.small business coach