Retention is the new growth, but how do you get there? The answer is onboarding. Onboarding lets you connect the dots for your customers at key moments, so they find more value in your product. And, customers who see added value will buy your product time and time again. In a recent webinar, Intercom's co-founder Des Traynor and product manager Patrick Andrews explain why onboarding is your next big growth lever and provide an inside look at our newest release – Product Tours. Read on to learn: • Why customer onboarding is your next big opportunity. • Best practices to successfully onboard new customers. • Keys for using onboarding to increase adoption and retention. • The future of onboarding and an introduction to Product Tours.

2. Your hosts
Des Traynor Patrick Andrews
Co-Founder
Intercom
Senior Product Manager
Intercom

3. ● Why customer onboarding is your next big opportunity
● Best practices for successfully onboarding new customers
● Why onboarding should be a continuous process
● An introduction to Product Tours
What we’ll cover

4. Why customer onboarding is
your next big opportunity

5. Media /
A.R. / P.R.
YOUR
WEBSITE
Website design
Product marketing
Customer case studies
A/B testing
etc.
SIGN UP
ACTIVE
USER
?
Advertising
Blogging
Virality
Word of
Mouth

6. YOUR
WEBSITE
SIGN UP
ACTIVE
USER
THE SUBJECT OF
TODAY’S WEBINAR

7. An average product loses
77% of new users after 3 days

8. Quick! We need more water; I don’t care what it costs.

9. Would you rather 1 million signups in 4 days
or
1 million active users in 16 months
Here’s a question for all of you:

10. 1M sign ups in 4 days

11. 1M active users in 16 months

13. So...
a product with great retention is a healthy product and
onboarding is the key to retaining customers.
Let’s talk about onboarding.

15. Why is it SO hard?

16. Design is hard when you’re trying to make
one interface achieve more than one goal.

17. Your first time users…
Designing onboarding is hard because...
- don’t know your UI.
- don’t know where to start.
- aren’t yet convinced this is the product for them.
- don’t use the same terms as you do.
- have 11 tabs open, including 3 of your competitors.
- may or may not have a very specific task to do.
- has a whole team they’ll need to convince as well.
- are likely to get distracted.
- are likely to get demotivated.

18. Designing onboarding is hard because...
HELP ME DECIDE IF THIS IS
THE PRODUCT FOR ME
HELP ME UNDERSTAND
YOUR USER INTERFACE
AND LANGUAGE
HELP ME GET STARTED
USING YOUR PRODUCT
HELP ME SELL MY TEAM ON
ADOPTING THIS PRODUCT
HELP ME GET MY DATA
INTO THIS PRODUCT
HELP ME SEE WHAT’S
SO SPECIAL ABOUT
THIS PRODUCT
HELP ME REMEMBER TO
FINISH SETTING THIS UP
AND MORE...
HELP ME INTEGRATE
YOUR PRODUCT WITH MY
CURRENT WORKFLOWS

19. Build what you sell,
sell what you build.

20. Source: Kathy Sierra (headrush.typepad.com)

21. YOUR PRODUCT MARKETING YOUR PRODUCT UI

22. Best practices for successfully
onboarding new customers

23. Signed up, started a trial and converted recently – How did they know? What did they need to see?
First, interview some groups of people
Signed up, started a trial and cancelled recently – What went wrong? What was missing? Would
anything have changed their mind?
Currently on a trial with your product – What open questions do they have? What else are they doing?
What were they doing before they came to your product?
Signed up and then ghosted – What were they looking for? Are they an actual prospect?
If talking to customers is hard, you’re in the right webinar.

24. Part of your goal is to convince
your customers to continue to
adopt your product.
Why should they?
To do this, you need to maximize
their reasons to switch, and
minimize the reasons to stay with
their current solution (if any).
Work out your WHY

25. You can’t onboard everyone
People have to:
1. Need your product
2. Want your product
3. Be capable of using your product
Having clarity on the jobs and conditions you’re
onboarding under lets you design with precision.
Be wary of the perils of maximization.
Decide who your onboarding is for

26. Understand your customers’ definition of success and break
down the barriers to get them there at just the right time.
Always onboard with context

27. One size fits none onboarding.

28. For complex products, you may need to tailor onboarding to user intent.

29. Q: What do your ‘most successful’
users achieve in their first ‘X’ days?
Make sure you’ll know if an onboarding
change helps with this or not.
If your metrics are proxies, ensure you
have a counter metric too.
Define your ‘active’ users and measure them

30. Onboarding should be a
continuous process

31. 1. Onboarding should adapt to where the customer is in the lifecycle

32. 2. Onboarding should adapt to your continuously changing product

33. January
Conversation routing
Mobile help center
Article search in Messenger
February
Slack integration
Native UTM tracking
New packaging
Meeting scheduler
Better qualification
March
Product refresh
Restrict reassignment
Link to conversation part
Conversation Ratings API
April
Messenger 4
Content Showcase App
Article Search app
Stripe Subscriptions app
Shopify app
Get a Demo app
Google Calendar app
Product Hunt app
MailChimp app
Google Meet app
Statuspage app
Campaign Monitor app
Aircall Now app
Data Attributes API
May
GDPR
Launcher location
Notes in Inbox profiles
Account ownership
June
Apps in messages
Salesforce app
Teammate activity logs
Export conversation metadata
Improved tag reporting
Articles link preview image
Time on Page for UAMs
Apps in lead qualification
Automatic disqualification
Advanced lead qualification
Launcher visibility rules
July
App Store
Article inserter app
Ask a question app
HubSpot app
Marketo app
Discovery mode
Mobile home screen
Bulk actions in Inbox
August
Custom Bots
Webhooks and APIs
Conversation
transcripts
Zoom Webinars app
Content showcase app
September
Custom bot identity
Duplicate Custom Bots
Toggle gifs+attachments
Sales reports
Control groups
Revenue reports
Clearbit Reveal app
October
Answer Bot
Video Bots
Google Analytics app
Updated scheduling apps
Track visitor actions
Customize conversation context
Qualification data in Custom Bots
November
Priority in Inbox
Custom Bots for users
TLSv1.1
Accessible Messenger
Office hours in reports
API versioning
Redesigned webhooks
Control Operator delay
Help Centre header text
Improved Inbox reports
December
Pinned apps
Apps in email
Pipedrive app

34. 3. Always be onboarding

35. Reality check
We know this is hard.
It requires continuous planning, design,
engineering and team coordination.

36. Your roadmap is already full

37. An introduction to Product Tours

39. Create interactive guides to
walk new signups through
the steps to get started.
With Product Tours you can...

40. Spotlight new features.
With Product Tours you can...

41. Make your onboarding
contextual with powerful
audience targeting.
With Product Tours you can...

42. “After implementing Product Tours we
found that new users who took the
tour activated at 4x our existing rate.”
Andy Allen
Co-founder and Director, Hike SEO

43. Reduce support inquiries.
With Product Tours you can...

44. Harness the power of video.
With Product Tours you can...

45. Get started with onboarding
in no time with a code-free
and simple tour builder.
With Product Tours you can...

46. “Product Tours allowed us to save hundreds of
development hours compared to a custom-
built solution. Our support team is empowered
to make changes and add new tours as our
platform evolves.”
Seth Greenlaw
Community Manager, ViewPointCloud

48. Want to watch the webinar?
Check out the recording.