Top Customer Onboarding Metrics to Track

Customer onboarding is your first chance to make a lasting impression. When done right, it sets the stage for high engagement, strong retention, and long-term loyalty. But how do you know if your app’s onboarding process is up to par? 

By tracking the right metrics, you can guide your efforts to help you spot areas that need improvement. 

In this blog, we will look at the most important customer onboarding metrics to track in 2024. 

The Importance of Customer Onboarding Metrics

Recent studies have shown that mobile apps that use personalized onboarding saw an increase in conversions up to 200%.

Customer onboarding ensures users feel happy and see value in your app. Therefore, you should track key metrics that provide insights to refine your app's onboarding process. 

Improving the Onboarding Process

You can always improve your app’s onboarding process with the help of metrics in a multitude of ways. Here are some practices that you can use to improve your app’s onboarding process:

• Track user interactions to pinpoint where users drop off.
• Address high drop-off rates to simplify confusing areas.
• Use clear instructions and interactive elements like tooltips.
• Continuously analyze completion rates and customer effort scores.
• Personalize onboarding to cater to individual user needs.
• Implement feedback loops for real-time user input and adjustments.

Improving your app's onboarding process is all about making users feel at ease and valued right from the start. Keeping things simple and personalized will create an onboarding experience that users will appreciate and enjoy.

Boosting Customer Satisfaction and Retention

How is customer retention related to onboarding metrics? Let’s have a look:

• Onboarding metrics are directly connected to your customer happiness and loyalty.
• Keeping an eye on user satisfaction helps you identify the best onboarding elements of your app.

Improving these key areas reduces early drop-offs, leading to better retention.

Aligning Goals with Business Objectives

Balancing your strategies ensures onboarding supports both user satisfaction and app growth. 

• Metrics connect user onboarding with your app goals.
• Tracking feature adoption shows if onboarding is helping your users find and use valuable tools.

In the end, what matters is your utmost focus on these aspects. This will help you create a game-changing app. 

Now, let’s look into these metrics that can be the game-changer for your app to gain conversions.

Time to First Value (TTFV)

The first metric is the Time to First Value. This metric shows how fast users reach meaningful actions in the app. 

The fitness app MyFitnessPal optimizes TTFV by helping new users achieve a quick “first win” within minutes of signing up. After onboarding, users are encouraged to log their first meal or track an exercise.

The quicker users complete the initial step, the more engaged they feel. This increases their likelihood of returning to your app consistently.

Setting Goals to Reduce TTFV

To ensure the value of your app is optimal, follow these steps:

• Make TTFV a priority in onboarding.
• Set clear goals, like “send the first message in five minutes.” 
• Streamline onboarding to avoid unnecessary steps.

Adding interactive mobile adoption elements such as gamification can prompt your users to complete desired actions. 

Quick Wins to Achieve Early Value

Once your goals are set, it is vital to get to work quickly. Here’s how you achieve early value:

• Guide your users to simple actions, such as making their first conversion.
• Adopt elements that can quickly enhance your process. For example, GooglePay uses tooltips to ensure that onboarding turns into conversions. 

A quicker TTFV means users see higher value in your app in less time. 

Customer Churn Rate

Spotify tracks churn rates closely, segmenting users based on activity during the onboarding phase. 

They analyze churn indicators, such as skipped tutorials or unengaged sessions, to identify and improve areas where users may lose interest.

Churn rate measures if your users’ onboarding experience keeps them interested and engaged.

Using Cohort Analysis to Measure Churn

Cohort analysis is an essential part of measuring your app’s churn rates. Now let’s see how it works:

• Segment users based on factors like sign-up date or specific onboarding steps to see patterns.
• These groups help identify where users lose interest and drop off.

Pinpointing these moments allows you to focus on your app improvements.

Identifying Poor Onboarding Practices with Churn Indicators

You can see whether your app onboarding strategy is a success or not with churn indicators. Here’s how: 

• High churn after specific steps often shows parts of onboarding that you need to simplify.
• Recognizing and fixing these pain points leads to stronger engagement.

Keeping your app’s churn rates down creates a smoother onboarding that engages users.

Onboarding Completion Rate

The onboarding completion rate shows how many users finish the entire process.

Pokémon GO emphasizes onboarding completion by walking new players through key game features. This is achieved through completing objectives such as capturing their first Pokémon and navigating the map. 

The game provides an engaging experience immediately by ensuring users complete these initial steps. Analyzing the drop-offs during onboarding enables the game to simplify these steps.

Higher onboarding rates usually mean your users find the onboarding process simple and valuable. However, low completion rates may indicate confusion.

Ensuring a Full Onboarding Experience

A whole onboarding experience is a great way to ensure conversions. Let’s see how they work: 

• Examine completion rates to check if users hit key milestones like profile sign-up.
• Drop-offs before these steps indicate areas that need to be improved.

Now let’s look into what examining the process completion can provide your app.

Analyzing Process Completion by Step

It is essential to understand where your user dropped off. Here’s why:

• Breaking down drop-offs in each step, like sign-up or tutorials, reveals where users may lose interest.
• This insight allows for adjustments, creating a smoother onboarding flow.

Update your app’s onboarding experience regularly based on the completion rate. This will increase user satisfaction and retention.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES surveys reveal the app's pain points, allowing the e-commerce platform to simplify the steps. This includes processes like one-click checkout options. 

A lower effort score enhances user satisfaction, encouraging repeat visits and purchases.

Amazon tracks CES during onboarding to ensure users find it easy to navigate product searches, add items to the cart, and check out. 

Impact of Effort on Loyalty and Satisfaction

Picture trying out a new app that promises a seamless experience. You must be thinking of a hassle-free experience, right? Effort plays a huge role in maintaining user satisfaction and loyalty.

Here are a few consequences of a dip or increase in effort:

• Effortless onboarding gives users a positive impression, reducing drop-offs.
• High effort scores can highlight pain points, making CES an essential metric for improving onboarding.

Example of CES Surveys

To have a better picture of CES surveys, here’s an example and its implications: 

• Questions in CES surveys include, “How easy was it to set up your profile?”
• Low scores suggest changes like simplifying steps or adding tooltips.

Tracking your app’s CES helps create an easy, satisfying onboarding journey that keeps users hooked.

Feature Adoption Rate

Feature adoption shows the features your users value the most. This helps you guide your future app updates and streamline your services. 

Jar, a fintech app, increased monetization by 80% by improving its feature adoption experience.

Tracking the Percentage of Users Adopting Key Features

Your adoption rates can indicate a lot about your app’s health. Here are a few insights they provide:

• Higher adoption rates indicate what feature of your app resonates with your user base.
• Low adoption suggests a need for a clearer onboarding design.
• Regular checks help users find valuable features, boosting engagement. This is the formula for designing a user-focused experience.

 Using the feature adoption rate, you can enhance these areas to generate revenue.

Improving Adoption Through User Training and Support

The success of all your future feature updates depends upon your app’s adoption rate. Here are a few ways to keep your feature adoption high:

• Tutorials, tooltips, and walkthroughs help users confidently adopt complex features.
• Utilizing these elements in your app’s onboarding journey encourages users to explore the advanced features.
• Regular prompts, such as notifications or in-app messages, remind users to try out features they may have missed.

Tracking and improving feature adoption ensures users see value, driving long-term engagement.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS measures your app users' chances of recommending your app to their peers.

Disney+ measures NPS after the onboarding phase, asking questions like, “How likely are you to recommend Disney+?” 

By analyzing NPS feedback, the app refines its onboarding to enhance user satisfaction and boost recommendations from existing users.

A high NPS reflects a happy, engaged user base. However, if your app has a low score, it means issues in your app onboarding experience.

Measuring the Likelihood of a Customer to Recommend the Service

Your NPS provides various critical insights to your app. This includes:

• In your NPS survey, ask questions like, “How likely are you to recommend us?” to measure satisfaction and loyalty.
• Regularly checking NPS helps you identify issues early. This is essential to improving your user experience.

There’s no bigger marketing tool than your user base, which makes it crucial to keep your NPS high.

Strategies to Improve NPS Through Onboarding Enhancements

Conducting regular A/B tests to find what tone, feature, and design get your user hooked is also vital in collecting feedback. 

Here are a few strategies to improve your app NPS:

• To boost NPS, refine onboarding with guided tours, personalized tips, and timely follow-ups.
• Act on user feedback and address common onboarding issues to show commitment to their needs.
• These improvements make onboarding intuitive and supportive, building strong customer loyalty.

By focusing on NPS and improving onboarding, your app can create a satisfied and loyal user base. These happy users are more likely to recommend the app, bringing in more users.

Conclusion

Measuring and refining onboarding metrics is crucial for customer retention and the app’s growth. Consistent tracking provides insights to improve the experience.

Effective onboarding lets users see value fast, boosting long-term engagement. As user needs shift, adapting keeps onboarding relevant.

Plotline’s in-app tools, like personalized nudges, make your user onboarding experience easier than ever! 

Book a demo to set your app up for success!