It's one thing to sell a product. It's another entirely for customers to use and enjoy it.
Limited and confusing instructions are a sure path to unsatisfied customers—no matter how good the product is. That's why user training and customer education are so important.
However, if accessing the training materials is slow or hard to figure out, customers will skip it.
That's why you need a friendly and engaging external user onboarding process.
What is external user onboarding?
External user onboarding is the process of setting up system access for non-employees. It's for customers, partners, vendors, and other external parties who need access to specific resources like training materials.
A good onboarding process makes it easy for outside users to become familiar with the system and ensures they use it effectively.
Why is it important to onboard external users effectively?
External user onboarding is the next step of the customer journey after a purchase. The onboarding process sets the tone for how customers view your product and organization. Optimized onboarding can lead to increased engagement and user success.
Best practices for onboarding external users
To develop a strong external user onboarding strategy, follow these best practices:
1. Create a strategic onboarding framework
Start by creating a well-structured onboarding strategy. Make sure the ideal user experience serves as a framework for your strategy. Outline the key steps of your training workflow, and define the people and systems responsible for each step.
Onboarding Checklist: Tasks & Steps to Complete
A detailed checklist for effectively onboarding new hires into your organization.
Download Your Free Copy2. Design your welcome experience
Since first impressions matter, design a warm and engaging welcome experience. Personalized welcome emails, introductory videos, and interactive onboarding modules encourage external users to explore further. Ensure all the early onboarding steps are easy to follow and facilitate the customer journey.
3. Build personalized learning paths
A personalized user experience leads to more engaged customers. Build customized learning paths based on the customer's experience level or their specific needs. Ensure each user can progress through the training at their own pace. Offer related courses that align with the customer's needs or interests.
4. Automate the onboarding process
Some learning management systems (LMS) offer onboarding automation. This feature minimizes the risk of errors and streamlines the onboarding process. Tasks like account provisioning and personalizing courses can also be handled via automation. Choose an LMS that has the automation features you need.
5.Implement progress tracking
Tracking a user's progress after onboarding provides critical data on user enablement and training effectiveness. Concerning onboarding metrics, track KPIs such as account activation, starting training modules, and course completion.
6. Provide self-service resources
Empower users with self-service resources like a knowledge base, FAQs, and video tutorials. These features reduce your support team's workload. As users feel more self-sufficient, they'll have a more favorable view of your product, leading to repeat business.
7. Drive early product success
Help newly onboarded customers get to know the product they purchased with high-level overviews and feature demonstrations. These early wins reinforce the benefits and value of your product. User adoption levels then increase, helping to drive user adoption and make the product a success.
The key to achieving onboarding success
You've created a great product and even have great ideas for user training. Now, you have to put everything together in a smooth and easy external user onboarding process. Following these best practices will help you create a seamless and engaging experience that drives user adoption and improves customer satisfaction.
If you're ready to elevate customer onboarding to a new level, check out Continu and our powerful LMS platform. Continu strikes the right balance between automation and user interaction for full training effectiveness. With a simplified and optimized onboarding process, the platform provides the key to user success.
To learn more about Continu, book a demo today.
Frequently asked questions
How long should external user onboarding take?
It's best to keep onboarding as concise as possible. Onboarding automation can speed up routine tasks like account provisioning and course selection.
Who is considered an external user?
An external user is anyone who does not work for your organization but interacts with at least one of your products. Customers are the most common external users, but the term also applies to external stakeholders like business partners or service providers.
What's the difference between internal and external user onboarding?
Internal user onboarding typically refers to integrating new employees into a company. It often involves training on internal systems and procedures and creating accounts for things like email. External user onboarding is focused on providing a service, such as product training, to a customer or other external stakeholders.
Which metrics indicate successful user onboarding?
Several metrics indicate how successful your customer onboarding process is. This includes account activation, a measure of how many users activate their external accounts, and the onboarding completion rate, which is the percentage of external users who complete onboarding. Course completion rate is the percentage of users who complete a specific course or training series. With a successful onboarding process, you should also see your customer satisfaction metrics improve. As more customers complete training courses, you should also note a decrease in support ticket volume.
What tools help automate the onboarding process?
A learning management system (LMS) can automate onboarding, track user progress, and measure training effectiveness. Other system-specific workflow automation tools can handle account creation, password management, and similar tasks.
What's the right mix of automated and personal touch?
While the right mix of automation and in-person communication will depend on the nature of your product, it's best to automate routine tasks. This includes sending welcome emails, account provisioning, and scheduling meetings.
How often should you update external onboarding materials?
Update your onboarding materials around new product launches or updates. Review onboarding metrics for indications that the process may need to be revised.
What role should customer success play in customer onboarding?
Customer success should drive your external user onboarding process. Your onboarding strategy and training workflow should be geared toward creating satisfied customers who return for repeat business.
.avif)
