10 Customer Onboarding Metrics to Optimize Your Experience

Think you've got your onboarding down pat? Don't rest just yet.

Just like a Picasso painting, your user onboarding efforts are never really done. You have to constantly tweak and enhance the experience to make users happy.

But how do you know what needs improvement? With the right metrics.

We rounded up the 10 most crucial customer onboarding metrics to help you optimize your experience based on hard data. Let’s break them down.

1. Time-to-value
2. Activation rate
3. Product NPS
4. Retention rate
5. Engagement rate
6. Feature adoption rate
7. Free trial conversion rate
8. User support request rate
9. Onboarding completion rate
10. Churn rate

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1. Time-to-Value

Time-to-value measures the amount of time it takes for a new user to realize the value of the product.

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How it Helps

Time-to-value helps CS teams understand how long it takes for a customer to get value from their purchase, and how they can shorten this time. It essentially measures the effectiveness of your onboarding flow. Use this data to identify areas where your customer onboarding process can be improved and set new users up for quick success.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Identify what success means to your customers and optimize your onboarding to take them closer to these goals.
2. Streamline the onboarding process and make it as straightforward as possible.
3. Provide relevant resources, such as tutorials or guides, to help them achieve early wins.

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2. Activation Rate

Activation rate measures the percentage of new customers who have completed the necessary steps to start using your product.

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How it Helps

Activation rate helps CS teams understand how well the onboarding process is working and how engaged new customers are in the initial stages. Pinpoint areas of friction to modify your activation milestones and redesign your product-led onboarding flow.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Simplify the activation milestones to increase the likelihood that new customers will complete the necessary steps.
2. Personalize the onboarding experience based on the customer's pain points and preferences.
3. Provide clear instructions and guidance throughout the onboarding process to take them closer to activation.

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3. Product NPS

Product NPS calculates how likely customers are to recommend your product to others.

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How it Helps

Product NPS is a valuable metric for assessing customer satisfaction and loyalty, helping businesses understand how likely their customers are to remain loyal. The NPS survey is a quick and easy way to gather feedback from customers, allowing businesses to identify areas in need of improvement and make changes to better meet their customers' needs.

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How to Track

Product NPS can be measured by asking customers to rate how likely they are to recommend the product or service to others on a scale of 0-10. Customers who give a rating of 9 or 10 are considered promoters, those who give a rating of 7 or 8 are considered passive, and those who give a rating of 0-6 are considered detractors.

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Collect feedback regularly to identify areas where the product or service can be improved to increase customer satisfaction.
2. Address customer concerns to maximize customer satisfaction and increase loyalty.
3. Reward promoters and increase customer loyalty.

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4. Retention Rate

Retention rate tracks the percentage of customers who continue to use your product after a certain period, usually a month or a year.

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How it Helps

Retention rate helps businesses understand how well their product or service is meeting the needs of customers and how likely they are to remain a customer. This metric is essential as a part of SaaS onboarding because it shows how many new users managed to get a hang of the product in the initial stage.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Monitor retention rate regularly to discover trends and changes in customer behavior.
2. Identify the reasons for churn and address those issues proactively through self-serve resources.
3. Offer incentives for continued use, such as discounts or special offers.

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5. Engagement Rate

Engagement rate tracks the level of engagement that customers have with your product.

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How it Helps

Engagement rate helps your understand how well your product is meeting the needs of customers and how likely they are to remain a customer. Use this data to identify areas where your onboarding flow can be improved to boost customer engagement.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Monitor engagement rate regularly and address issues before they become significant problems.
2. Identify the reasons for low engagement and use customer service videos to tackle these problems.
3. Incentivize engagement through personalized recommendations or rewards for interaction.

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6. Feature Adoption Rate

Feature adoption rate measures the percentage of customers who have adopted a particular feature of your product.

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How it Helps

The feature adoption rate provides businesses with insight into how well their product meets the needs of customers, as well as how likely customers are to keep using the tool. CS teams can use this data to add self-serve resources and maximize the adoption rate.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Monitor feature adoption rate regularly to notice areas of friction in feature use.
2. Identify the reasons for low adoption deliver tailored resources to improve usage.
3. Create how-to guides and explainer videos specifically for features with low adoption.

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7. Free Trial Conversion Rate

Free trial conversion rate calculates the percentage of customers who convert from a free trial to a paid subscription.

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How it Helps

Free trial conversion rate tells you how effective your onboarding and free trial is in converting customers to paying customers.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Use conversion rates to identify which features or service aspects prompt trial users to become paid customers.
2. Find and fix bottlenecks to create a more streamlined onboarding and trial process.
3. Analyze the behavior of those who convert after a free trial and use this data to tailor your onboarding process.

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8. User Support Request Rate

User support request tracks the number of support requests that new customers submit during the onboarding phase.

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How it Helps

User support request rate tells you how often new users get stuck or need help within your product. This metric points out the gaps in your onboarding flow and help you identify the exact areas where users need guidance.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Leverage user requests to align the onboarding flow with user needs.
2. Address common requests through help guides, tutorials, tooltips, etc.
3. Use these requests for continuous product/service improvement.

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9. Onboarding Completion Rate

Onboarding completion rate measures the percentage of customers who have completed the onboarding process.

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How it Helps

Onboarding completion rate show how well your onboarding process is working and how engaged new customers. Use this data to scope opportunities for increasing completion rates and boosting customer satisfaction.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Use completion rates to diagnose and solve hiccups in your onboarding flow.
2. Assess the user-friendliness and intuitiveness of your onboarding process.
3. Treat completion rates as a predictive tool for user engagement and long-term retention.

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10. Churn Rate

Churn rate measures the percentage of customers who stop using your product during a certain period, usually a month or a year.

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How it Helps

Churn rate helps businesses identify if users are happy enough to continue using the product or unsatisfied. This information can help teams identify areas where the product or service can be improved to reduce churn and increase customer retention.

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How to Track

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How to Use it Effectively

1. Use churn rates to highlight problem areas and opportunities for customer retention.
2. Leverage rates as a benchmark for success of your customer engagement strategies.
3. Employ churn rates as a trigger for re-evaluating product/service value proposition.

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Create and track your customer onboarding like a pro

Tracking and analyzing customer onboarding metrics is essential for businesses that want to optimize their onboarding experience and increase customer retention and growth.

By measuring metrics such as time-to-value, activation rate, and product NPS, businesses can gain insight into how well their onboarding process is working and how satisfied customers are with the product.

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