We’re going to come up with improvements for your onboarding flow.

A high-converting onboarding flow makes it cheaper to get customers. Which lets you test out more ways to find users and also gives you more room for error.

Once we set up some initial machinery, we’re going to approach this in a more data-driven way. This will happen later in the course.

Phase 1: View Completed Doc Example

First, take a look at an example completed onboarding recommendations doc to see what we’re working towards.

Phase 2: Copy Template

Make a copy of our template. We’re about to fill it out.

You can do this by making a new doc in Dropbox Paper, then selecting everything in the template and copy-pasting it.

Phase 3: Goal

Write down the goal at the top of the page in bold.

The goal should be the tipping point that means, after the user does it, they’ll keep using the product as part of their life.

Examples

Envoy: iPad is on the front desk welcoming visitors.

Sentry: User has deployed to their environment, resolved an error, integrated Slack and invited a team member.

Phase 4: Current First-Time User (FTU) Experience

Move to the “Current FTU Experience” section.

Go through (and write down) the current onboarding flow in steps. This means starting at the landing page, filling out the fields, and clicking through all the buttons yourself so that you see exactly what the user sees.

Break this down to the mechanical level of clicks and typing on the keyboard. It’s easy to gloss over steps if you’re not careful.

Examples

A) Envoy:

1. Enter email and press "Get Started"
2. Enter email again, along with Full Name, Phone Number, Company Name, Password
3. Sign in with email and password
4. Tell them about company, including location
5. Visitor info + NDA form field choosing.
6. Pair iPad
7. Go to dashboard.

B) Sentry:

1. Sign up
2. Click type of project
3. Type name of project
4. Click "Create Project"
5. etc…

Phase 5: New First-Time User (FTU) Experience

Move to the “New FTU Experience.” section.

Now that you’ve gone through the existing onboarding flow, write down your suggested onboarding experience. Follow the guidelines from our reading.

In particular, look for places to reduce friction in the funnel by removing steps or pouring in resources:

Examples of removing steps:

1. “After the user submits information on the second page, bring them to the dashboard. Don't force the user to sign in again — that's a redundant step that will tire people and we need all their energy for this.”
2. “Prefill the company name on the company information page with what the user has already submitted.”

Examples of pouring in resources:

1. “Create a service in major cities that delivers iPads within 2 hours to set up offices sooner (could restrict to major cities with an Apple store). Add a button to the iPad pairing page that says "get an iPad delivered in 2 hours" if the IP is within the right area.”
2. “Add live chat to the signup page to handle any objections as they pop up.”

There are ways to take expensive recommendations (that require a lot of human labor) and make them cheaper. Common ways to do it:

1. Automate parts (e.g., send an automatic chat message instead of a manual one).
2. Propose a short test so that the you don’t have to spend much to tell whether or not there is ROI on your suggestion (i.e., whether it’s worth doing).

Also look for places to entice the user by highlighting the metrics they care about or showing how great life will be once they are using the product. But, only entice the user if it makes sense: don’t force it with weird metrics or out-of-place media.

Examples

Envoy: Experiencing a super fast office sign-in is important to office visitors. Visualize this benefit with a GIF showing the speedy sign-in flow at the part of the onboarding flow where most people quit.

Sentry: “Estimated Time To Engineering Hotfix” is an important metric for a Sentry user to minimize in their daily workflow. So, visualize that number decreasing continuously (via a progress bar) as the user goes through the onboarding flow. It'll motivate them to see the onboarding process through to completion.

Phase 6: Mobile ideas

Move to the “Mobile Ideas” section. (Skip this if you know that none of your traffic is mobile.)

Visit the site on your phone or tablet. Alternately, in Google Chrome, open Chrome dev tools (Command + Option + J on Mac) and choose a mobile device type (Command + Shift + M).

Ask us if you're having trouble with this.

Write down the bullet-point improvements you want to make to the mobile experience. This includes both your mobile website and your mobile app (if applicable). So, go on your phone and try to buy your own product.

Include screenshots of poor onboarding to show what you’re talking about. You can use Skitch to mock up improvements.

One trick we’ll sometimes use with clients is a “mobile drip campaign:" If you’re a desktop-only app, but you get a lot of people who visit your site on their phone, you can ask visitors for their email on your landing page. Then, you send them an automated email they can click to return to your site when they’re later at a desktop computer. You can even say that in the email: that they should return once they're not on mobile so that they can fully experience your app.

Phase 7 - Additional “Shoot the moon” ideas

Add a section called “Additional ideas” or “’Shoot the moon’ ideas”.

This is for ideas that popped into your head but might be really costly, or you’d need to see more data to come to a good decision, or are just crazy.

It's good to make note of these ideas because they might become more feasible in the future. Or, they might inspire a coworker to come up with an alternative implementation that is actually immediately feasible.

You can generate shoot the moon by re-reading the high-touch experiences from earlier in our reading.

Phase 8: Final Pass

Go through all your recommendations.

Under the “Main Takeaways” section, pick the top two or three changes you’d make that would have the biggest impact on the funnel. Highlight those in the doc (command + E) as well.

Phase 9: Implement

You can't stop here. Your team will actually have to make these changes.

Send the doc to your product team and schedule a meeting to discuss your recommendations. Or pitch it to your leadership team.

In that meeting, work with them to identify the changes that require the least engineering and design effort that have the highest impact on your onboarding experience.

If you're having trouble selling your team on this, ping us.