For SaaS companies, a top-notch onboarding process is a must-have. Without a smooth onboarding, users may get frustrated and leave before they even get the chance to get to that 'aha' moment. The thing is, it takes a lot of time and effort to create great client onboarding. And in order to achieve maximum product adoption, you'll need many client onboarding flows. This is where onboarding templates come in.

Onboarding templates help make sure your client onboarding process is simple, repeatable, and engaging. It saves you time from having to recreate the same onboarding process for different features of your SaaS product over and over again. 

In this post, we’ll walk through the ins and outs of onboarding templates, show you how they can be customized to fit different users, and share best practices for making them as effective as possible. Whether you're starting from scratch or looking to improve your current workflow for building client onboarding processes, we'll help you get there.

Why Use Onboarding Templates?

First, what's the point of these onboarding templates? Why not just build each client onboarding flow as you go? So let's go over some reasons why it's actually more advantageous for SaaS companies to build templates for their onboarding processes. 

Consistency and Clarity for Onboarding

Onboarding templates provide a consistent roadmap for onboarding. Every user follows the same steps, whether it’s signing up, setting up their account, or following an onboarding checklist to ensure nothing is missed. This prevents anyone from falling through the cracks whenever your team has to create new onboarding processes. Templates also help make sure that no important step is skipped, and every user gets the same level of support, enhancing customer success.

Saves Time and Resources on Building Onboarding

Setting up a client onboarding process from scratch can take a lot of time, especially if you have to do it repeatedly for every new feature or product update. With onboarding templates, you only have to do the work once. After that, you can reuse and adjust the template whenever you need to onboard new users or update a feature. This makes it easier for SaaS companies to scale their onboarding process efficiently while ensuring clients have a streamlined user experience.

Allows Your Team to Focus on What Matters

When the basic steps of client onboarding are laid out, your team can focus on more important tasks in their workflow—like improving the customer experience, incorporating personalized tooltips, and ensuring users are reaching key adoption milestones. Instead of worrying about whether you’re missing steps, you can focus on refining the customer journey and driving product adoption.

Keeps Branding Consistent Throughout the Onboarding Process

Onboarding templates not only standardize processes but also ensure consistent branding across all your onboarding elements, including your onboarding checklists, tooltips, and self-serve help widgets. By using templates, your messaging, tone, and visual elements remain uniform across all interactions, reinforcing your brand identity. This helps users recognize and trust your product from the start, providing a cohesive experience that aligns with your brand values.

Essential Components of a SaaS Onboarding Template

Now that we know why onboarding templates are beneficial, let's talk about how a strong SaaS customer onboarding template should cover all the essential steps to guide users through the process. Here are the main parts of your onboarding process that should be included in any templates to onboard users:

Welcome Message and Account Setup

The first interaction users have with your SaaS product is crucial. Whether it's a welcome email or a personalized in-app message, the initial welcome is a great way to set the tone and start building a relationship. Keep it simple and friendly, using tooltips to help users as they get started. Then, guide users through the basic steps of account setup, ensuring they follow a clear checklist. This might include confirming their email, setting preferences, or integrating other tools. The goal is to make these initial steps as smooth as possible, so users feel confident moving forward.

Product Tour for Guided Onboarding Process

Once users are inside your product, a guided product tour is one of the best ways to onboard them. The tour should highlight the main features and how to use them, but keep it simple. Don’t overwhelm users with too much information upfront—focus on key actions that help them get value quickly. A clear onboarding checklist can ensure users don’t miss essential steps in their client onboarding.

Help Resources for User Education 

No matter how great the onboarding tour is, users will have questions during their onboarding process. That’s why it’s important to include educational resources, like a self-serve help center or video tutorials, as part of your onboarding template. Link to these resources at key points in the onboarding process so users can get help when they need it without having to search for answers.

Progress Tracking for the Onboarding Process

A good onboarding process helps users feel like they’re making progress. You can do this by setting up milestones and tracking their progress as they complete key steps. For example, you might set up an onboarding checklist template that highlights when a user completes their first action or integrates your tool with another app. Achieving these milestones can help with customer success and boost customer retention, reducing churn. These little wins give users a sense of accomplishment and encourage them to keep going. 

Continuous Support for Customer Retention

Even after the onboarding process is complete, users will still need support with your SaaS product. Make sure your onboarding templates include a way to access help, whether through a live chat feature, help desk, or knowledge base. This shows users that support is always available, which helps build trust and further reduces churn.

Best Practices for Effective SaaS Onboarding

By now we know why onboarding templates are important, and what they should be, but how do you make good onboarding templates? Here are some best practices: 

Make It Interactive

Users are more likely to stay engaged if they’re actively participating in the client onboarding process. Instead of just showing them how to use the product, get them involved by asking them to complete tasks or set preferences right away. Incorporating tooltips can help them along the way, offering just-in-time guidance.

Personalize the Customer Experience

Customizing onboarding templates for different users is crucial, as needs vary based on experience and SaaS product complexity. First-time users benefit from simple, step-by-step guidance that focuses on core features, while experienced users prefer a faster, more advanced workflow that highlights key features. Tailoring templates ensures both user types feel supported and can use the product effectively.

Offer Clear Next Steps 

At every point in the client onboarding process, make sure users know what to do next. This could be as simple as asking them to complete a task, watch a tutorial, or reach out for support. Clear next steps keep users moving forward and improve customer success rates by keeping them engaged and on track.

Show Users' Progress

Keep users motivated by showing them how far they’ve come. Use progress bars, badges, or even just an onboarding checklist to track their journey and celebrate when they complete key actions. This helps build a sense of accomplishment and encourages users to keep going, reducing churn.

Offer Help When Needed

Sometimes users need a little extra help during the onboarding process. Make sure your onboarding template includes easy access to support, whether it’s through live chat, a help desk, or a knowledge base. The easier it is to find help, the more likely users are to stick around and continue using your product, reducing churn and boosting adoption.

10 Examples of SaaS Customer Onboarding Templates

Below are 10 examples of highly effective pre-built onboarding templates tied to specific user actions.

Feature Adoption Onboarding Template

User Action: Helps users adopt specific features of the product. 

This onboarding template walks users through the process of discovering and using new or advanced features. It's ideal for encouraging users to engage with underutilized features by providing guidance through tooltips and tutorials. 

Self-Serve Customer Support Onboarding Template

User Action: Directs users to self-service support resources 

Designed for users who prefer to solve problems independently, this onboarding template links users to a knowledge base, FAQs, and tutorials during onboarding. It reduces dependency on customer support by offering clear guidance on where to find help.

Welcoming New Users Template

User Action: Introduces first-time users to the product.

This onboarding template focuses on making new users feel welcome by guiding them through initial setup steps like creating accounts, adjusting settings, and introducing them to basic functionality. It typically includes a friendly welcome message and an introductory product tour.

Onboarding Checklist Template

User Action: Helps users follow a step-by-step onboarding process.

A simple onboarding checklist template that ensures users complete essential tasks through the client onboarding process, which in turn increases adoption. Make sure that the onboarding checklist provides a clear, step-by-step roadmap. 

Onboarding Questionnaire Template

User Action: Gathers information about user needs and preferences.

This onboarding template presents new users with a series of onboarding questions to better understand their goals, usage patterns, and preferences. The collected data allows you to customize their onboarding experience and offer personalized product suggestions or features that align with their needs.

New Feature Announcement Template

User Action: Announces and educates users about a new feature.

This onboarding template is used to announce a newly released feature. It provides a guided overview of the new feature, how it works, and its benefits, encouraging users to adopt it. The template often includes tooltips, in-app notifications, and banners to kick off easy activation and adoption of the said feature. 

NPS Survey Onboarding Template

User Action: Prompts users to provide feedback through a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey.

This template is designed to collect user feedback during or after the onboarding process. It prompts users to rate their experience and offer feedback, providing valuable insights into user satisfaction and areas for improvement. The NPS survey can be triggered after key milestones to gauge the user's overall experience.

Trial-to-Paid Conversion Onboarding Template

User Action: Encourages users to convert from a free trial to a paid plan.

Designed to show trial users the value of upgrading, this onboarding template highlights premium features and includes calls to action to upgrade before the trial period ends. It uses tooltips and feature highlights to encourage the transition to a paid plan.

Customer Success Touchpoint Template

User Action: Encourages users to engage with customer success teams.

This onboarding template integrates checkpoints throughout the onboarding process where users are encouraged to schedule a demo, attend a webinar, or reach out to customer success for personalized support. It strengthens the relationship between users and the customer success team by giving personalized nudges to see if they'd like to get more out of the product. 

Account Setup and Customization Template

User Action: Guides users to customize their account and settings.

This onboarding template ensures users complete important setup actions immediately after signup such as configuring account preferences, setting up notifications, and integrating other tools. It allows users to tailor the product to their specific needs, leading to a more personalized experience.

Start Creating Onboarding Templates Now

A well-structured set of SaaS customer onboarding templates is the key to building great onboarding efficiently. It saves time and ensures consistency, whether in terms of branding or customer experience. By following best practices and customizing templates for different user types, you can make sure your onboarding process is as effective as possible.

Now, in order to create great onboarding templates, you need an equally good tool to let you navigate the template building process, as well as have a central hub where you can keep your onboarding templates stored. This is where we invite you to try Userflow. 

At Userflow, we specialize in helping SaaS companies streamline their onboarding with customizable templates that are easy to set up and manage. You can even run A/B tests to see which onboarding templates work best for your users. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to improve your current onboarding, we’ve got the tools to help. Start using Userflow’s SaaS customer onboarding templates today and give your users the experience they deserve!