The importance of SaaS customer onboarding & how to create an enjoyable experience using video
Customer onboarding is an important aspect of any business. It involves welcoming customers, educating them on the product and process, and giving them a chance to ask questions.
Companies spend a lot of money on customer onboarding because it is crucial in retaining customers. However, this can be expensive because companies need to invest in training staff and providing more resources for their customers.
In this case, having a video works much better than having 1-1 sessions. It is more helpful, efficient and saves time, and making a video is a 1-time cost, but how do you gauge what’s the right amount to spend on such a video?
Well, a single 2-minute video can cost you between $25 in doing it yourself and could go up to around $2000 based on the complexity, what you include, the quality you choose and a lot more.
Here’s a table that might be of help to you in picking the right option.
| Types of Videos | Source | Cost for a 2 minute video | Time taken | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIY Tools | Loom, Camtasia | 10$ - 250$ | 15 days | You have complete product knowledge to make sure everything you want is mentioned in the video | You have to spend time learning the tool and depend on your skills to end up with a professional output |
| Gig Based / Freelancers | Upwork, Fiverr | $500 - $1000 | 21 - 28 days | Quick cost efficient results with professional outputs | They may not have the understanding of your product and may not have the complete skillset for your requirement either |
| Hybrid Videos | Content Beta, Rocketwheel | $500 - $3,500 | 10 - 20 days | These agencies are usually very niche and have a clear understanding of SaaS Products. They specialize in converting just product docs into engaging videos and can have a clear technical understanding of your product, to help explain it better | Engagement in these videos depends more on how well it can explain the service and the script rather than custom designed characters. |
| 2D Animation | YumYum Videos, Switch Video | $2,000 - $5,000 | 30 - 45 days | A great way to tell a story by correlating it with a real/similar situation and setting a full tone for the video, via visuals, on budget | 2D animation Agencies are usually not niche and require a larger team, detailed artworks |
| 3D Animation | Explain Ninja, IdeaRocket | $5,000 - $10,000 | 2 months + | A very realistic feel to the animation, making it more visual and engaging | Takes weeks to design each character and element and it is hard to make changes once the designs are created. |
| Complete Live Action | Sandwich Media, Demo Duck | $10,000+ | 30 - 45 days | Extremely Engaging and relatable, high quality productions. | Might not work as well for SaaS products |
Now while none of these costs come up to what you would have to spend in a whole lot of 1-1 training, what’s important here is that you have an efficient process.
Your priority is to make sure that your customer is able to clearly understand your product and have a seamless onboarding experience because otherwise, you would have to completely redo the whole onboarding process that you tried to avoid with this video.
Your onboarding video is a tutorial on how to use the product. It should show how it works and what the benefits are.
In order to get the best effect from your video, you need a lot more than just a great UX or a product tour. You need to understand your customer and nudge them to take the appropriate steps.
Here are some things that you should pay attention to.
Your message is more important than any high production or budget. No matter how your video is, try to make sure that the takeaway is what you want it to be.
The video should be able to answer the customer’s questions and provide them with enough information to make a decision to keep using your product. If it doesn’t, then the video has failed its purpose.
Learn more – The ultimate guide to making SaaS onboarding videos from scratch
A well-executed customer onboarding video can be a powerful tool for converting customers. It educates the new customer about your product and builds trust by showing that you are committed to providing them with the best service possible.
The video should be personalized to the new customer, so they feel like they are being welcomed into a community of people who use your product, not just joining a one-time transaction.
It should have a gentle voiceover and the right emotional tone for your brand, and it should also contain clear instructions on how to navigate your site or app. If you do it right, this video will become an integral part of the customer’s experience with your business and help establish their connection to it.
The purpose of onboarding videos is to make the customer feel comfortable and welcome. The customer should feel like they are not just being sold to, but that someone is there to help them find what they are looking for.
Good customer onboarding videos are not just a way to get the customer excited about using the product. They can also be used to teach customers how they can use them.
The use of animations and visual representations in these videos is a great way for the customer to learn from watching. It is an easy, interactive and engaging way of teaching.
There are many benefits that come with using instructional video in customer onboarding: increased engagement, better retention and improved task completion rates.
Essentially, the aim is to make customers aware of as much as they can about your product and how it will help them. The customer onboarding video should also convey confidence in how effective your product is and what their experience will be like when using it for whatever reason.
You’ll want to make sure that you mention any special features that come along with your product, or anything that might be interesting or new to customers. The goal is to make sure that the viewer has an interest in watching the entire video and feeling as though they learned something new from it.
Keep in mind, it is not about the production cost of your video that drives success. You can work with simple animations, transitions and a lot more and your users will still love the video.
This would be because rather than a new visitor who needs to be enticed into trying out your product, this is someone who has spent time choosing your product, signed up and now wants to learn more about it.
Rather than focus on budget, focus on your customer. Understand what are their real problems, hindrances and inhibitions from using your product. Solve them at the root as soon as they sign up and it’s then that your customer feels valued.
They feel that their issues are really not that major and are rather just some simple hurdles into using an amazing product.
Onboarding videos show new users that the company cares about them. It immediately establishes a connection between them and helps in making the customer comfortable with the product. This can go a long way in as it reduces the chances of churn and promotes customer loyalty.
The length of the B2B SaaS onboarding video depends on the topic being covered. Some companies prefer to make small bitesize videos for better absorption by the customer, while others can make longer ones to put together more data in a single video. 3-minutes is considered to be a good length. Most companies don’t go for videos that cross the six-minute mark.
Research has shown that most new customers appreciate B2B SaaS companies that invest in educating the new users. Onboarding videos are considered a welcome mat for people who have just started to use the product and feel lost. These videos introduce the most important features of the product and address the most often asked questions by people. In fact, companies that provide onboarding videos see higher adoption rate and lower churn.
Most B2B SaaS companies breakdown the features of the products that are either important or complex and which they think would be difficult for new users to adapt to. Topics are selected in sequential order and onboarding videos are made on the specific topics. The process involves deciding on a new style, scripting and onboarding, hiring an agency or producing it in-house, recording and voiceover, and finally editing and hosting of the video.
