28 Customer Onboarding Stats to Supercharge Retention & Revenue in 2023

Imagine this – you‘ve poured countless hours and dollars into attracting new customers. They finally sign up for your product or service, excited to get started. But then… crickets. They can‘t figure out how to use key features, don‘t see the value and churn within days or weeks, likely never to return.

Scenes like this play out constantly, and the culprit is often a subpar onboarding experience. In the race to acquire new business, companies too often neglect the critical step of actually getting users set up for success.

Big mistake. As the stats will show, customer onboarding is the single biggest lever you can pull to boost retention, revenue and customer lifetime value. Instead of a cost center, it can become your most powerful growth engine.

The good news is, by making onboarding a top priority and following best practices, you can turn the tide and set your customers (and business) up to thrive.

To help you make the case and craft an unbeatable onboarding program, we‘ve compiled the most impactful customer onboarding stats for 2023 – benchmarks, trends and insights you can‘t afford to miss.

The Business Impact of Effective Customer Onboarding

Let‘s start with the big picture – why should you care about customer onboarding? Here are some of the eye-popping stats on its ROI and revenue potential:

  • Improving onboarding can increase revenue by up to 60% by accelerating time-to-value and conversion rates. (Hubspot)

  • Customers who experience a positive onboarding are 4x more likely to stay loyal to a brand or service. (Wyzowl)

  • 63% of customers say onboarding is a deciding factor in whether they will make a purchase from a company. (Wyzowl)

  • 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for 3+ years if they had a great onboarding experience. (ClickBoarding)

  • 32% of customers would stop doing business with a brand they love after just one bad experience. (PwC)

The financial impact is crystal clear. Companies that nail onboarding can drastically reduce churn, increase spend, extend lifetime value and create an army of brand advocates. And in today‘s subscription economy, keeping customers engaged over time is the only path to sustainable growth and profitability.

Benchmarks for Customer Onboarding Success

Now that you‘re sold on the importance of onboarding, let‘s look at where most companies currently stand and what customers expect from the experience:

  • The average onboarding completion rate across industries is only 30-40%. (Omnisend)

  • For complex B2B products, onboarding a new customer takes 90-120 days on average. (Rocketlane)

  • Over 90% of customers believe companies could improve their onboarding programs. (Wyzowl)

  • 74% have watched a video to learn how to use a product or service. (Wyzowl). Top formats include explainer videos (65%), interactive guides (54%) and demos (47%).

  • 88% of users say they are more likely to stay loyal to a company that invests in welcoming & educational onboarding content. (Wyzowl)

  • 72% expect personalized onboarding based on their use case and goals. (Wyzowl)

  • 55% want to be onboarded via a self-serve knowledge base vs. phone or video call. (HubSpot)

  • 1 in 4 would abandon an online purchase if not given an instant answer to their question. (Forrester)

This data presents a huge opportunity. Most companies have mediocre onboarding completion rates and aren‘t meeting customers‘ expectations for fast, intuitive and tailored experiences across channels. Those that can raise the bar will vault ahead of the competition.

Mapping the Ideal Customer Onboarding Journey

So what should the ideal onboarding flow look like? While it will vary based on your product and customer base, research shows these are the key elements and best practices:

  1. Welcome & set expectations – Upon signup, immediately greet customers with a personalized welcome message. Set clear expectations for next steps and timeline.

  2. Gather key info & goals – Use progressive profiling and integrations to minimize friction while allowing customers to self-select their use case, pain points, etc. Use this info to serve up relevant content.

  3. Deliver quick wins – Get users to experience the "aha moment" and see value ASAP. Point them to key features, templates, settings to achieve their goals faster.

  4. Provide self-serve guidance – Empower users to help themselves with an immersive, multi-format knowledge base. Think video tutorials, contextual tips, tooltips, interactive product tours, tooltips, etc.

  5. Check in proactively – Don‘t wait for customers to reach out. Use automated emails, in-app messages and live chat to proactively offer help and educate. Trigger based on user behavior.

  6. Solicit ongoing feedback – Continuously gather NPS, CSAT, CES feedback to catch potential issues early and identify power users. Close the loop on any negative sentiment.

  7. Expand & advocate – Don‘t stop at initial activation. Suggest next-level features, use cases and best practices to increase adoption. Encourage satisfied customers to act as references and case studies.

The onboarding journey should feel cohesive, contextual and value-packed from start to finish. Every touchpoint is a chance to reduce friction, drive "aha moments" and make users feel supported.

Proven Customer Onboarding Plays from Top Companies

Need inspiration? Let‘s look at how some of the most successful companies approach user onboarding:

  • Duolingo: The language learning app is a master of gamified onboarding. Upon signup, users take a placement test to personalize their learning path. Bite-sized lessons and instant feedback keep motivation high.

  • HubSpot: The marketing automation platform welcomes users with a slick product tour highlighting key features. Based on goals, it recommends key templates and setup tasks. Automated tips and live trainings baked into the UI keep new users engaged.

  • Canva: The design app sets itself apart with highly visual, interactive onboarding. A series of quick tutorials gets users comfortable with the basics. Templates and sample designs inspire creativity.

  • Slack: The chat tool makes a great first impression with a fun welcome message from the founders. It then guides users to key actions like inviting teammates, customizing settings and downloading the mobile app. Well-timed hints and a Bot keep things running smoothly.

Duolingo personalized onboarding
HubSpot product tour

What these onboarding flows have in common: they are highly engaging, interactive and tailored to the users‘ goals. They deftly balance automation with a human touch to make users feel valued and set up for success from day one.

Barriers to Better Customer Onboarding

With so much upside to optimizing onboarding, what‘s holding companies back from doing it well? Common challenges include:

  • Lack of alignment: Onboarding often falls through the cracks between marketing, sales, product and CS teams. Without clear ownership and goals, the experience is disjointed.

  • Steep learning curve: For complex B2B products especially, getting customers to proficiency is a heavy lift. It‘s tempting to bombard users with all the features vs. guiding them to specific goals.

  • Bandwidth constraints: Many teams lack dedicated onboarding headcount. Account managers and CSMs are spread thin and stuck doing repetitive 1:1 training.

  • Fragmented tech stack: Customer data often lives in silos across your CRM, marketing automation, product analytics, etc. This makes it difficult to serve up timely, relevant onboarding.

Overcoming these hurdles requires executive buy-in, cross-functional collaboration and smart investments in process and technology. Done right, onboarding becomes a company-wide initiative to maximize customer lifetime value.

The Future of Customer Onboarding

As we head into 2023 and beyond, customer onboarding is poised for major disruption and innovation. Emerging trends and technologies to watch include:

  • Hyper-personalization: AI and machine learning will allow companies to analyze user behavior and serve up individualized content, product tips and offers in real-time. Think Netflix and Amazon-level recommendations.

  • Immersive UX: The rise of AR/VR will usher in a new era of hands-on, interactive onboarding. Users can access on-demand product simulations and virtual assistants without leaving their workflow.

  • Omnichannel orchestration: Onboarding will become a fluid experience across mobile, web, email, chat, voice and more. All touchpoints will be synced to allow seamless handoffs and context.

  • Ecosystems and integrations: Products will come pre-built with key integrations and bots to accelerate time-to-value. Think one-click setup, cross-app data sharing and native tutorials for common use cases.

  • Blended AI+human support: Bots will handle the bulk of repetitive onboarding tasks and questions, freeing up human agents to provide VIP consulting on complex issues. The lines between self-serve and live support blur.

AR/VR onboarding experience

While daunting, this future vision represents a massive opportunity for forward-thinking companies. By automating and humanizing onboarding at scale, you can turn more users into lifelong customers and evangelists.

Putting These Customer Onboarding Insights Into Action

No matter your company size or industry, it‘s clear investing in customer onboarding is non-negotiable for success in today‘s experience economy.

How can you apply these learnings to level up your onboarding program? Start with these steps:

  1. Map the journey: Document your current onboarding flow and gather user feedback via surveys, interviews, etc. Look for points of friction or drop-off.

  2. Define goals & KPIs: Set tangible targets for onboarding completion rate, time-to-value, product adoption, CSAT/NPS, etc. Get exec buy-in and align teams around moving the needle.

  3. Build the dream team: Assign clear ownership of onboarding and consider dedicated headcount. Train sales, marketing, product and support on key messages and tactics.

  4. Personalize content: Segment your user base by persona, use case, lifecycle stage, etc. Create targeted onboarding tracks with relevant goals, content and CTAs for each.

  5. Scale with tech: Evaluate your tech stack and invest in tools to automate key onboarding tasks, unify data and trigger real-time interactions. Think product analytics, in-app messaging, knowledge base, etc.

  6. Test and iterate: Onboarding is never "one and done". Continuously A/B test variations in content, timing, channels, etc. to optimize the experience. Keep a pulse on evolving user needs and expectations.

By putting yourself in your customers‘ shoes and proactively guiding them to value, you cultivate loyal, successful users who will stick around for the long haul.

Go Deeper on Customer Onboarding

Hungry for more? Check out these additional resources to become an onboarding master:

Here‘s to a future where every company makes customer onboarding a top priority and every user gets the white-glove treatment they deserve. Your retention rates and revenue will thank you!

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