Many companies want to improve their customer onboarding process. Most customers won’t read complex text instructions to find out how to use a product, platform, or service. Videos, on the other hand, are engaging to watch. Some of the benefits of customer onboarding videos include more engagement and clarity. Effective customer onboarding helps to lay the foundation for a positive customer experience and reduce churn. It ensures customers can derive the most benefit from their purchases.
Why use video for customer onboarding?
Onboarding creates one of the first impressions customers have of your company. If you do it well it offers a positive experience that builds trust, improves retention, and ultimately increases profitability. According to Wyzowl, 91% of people have watched a video to get a better understanding of how to use a physical product. When customers understand how to use physical products, there is less chance of them returning them or leaving bad reviews. Many customers also watch videos to understand how to use digital products.
Increase engagement and reduce churn
A short tutorial video takes less time to watch than reading an article. Video-based onboarding can hold attention and make the onboarding process more entertaining. Most customers prefer watching a video to reading text instructions to learn how to use a product or service. Your videos can go beyond just explaining how they function and showcase how features can solve their pain points and improve their lives.
Enhance clarity and consistency
The multisensory experience that comes with watching videos enhances understanding. Visual walkthroughs provide immediate clarity and eliminate any confusion. Video also ensures consistency as all customers can watch the same videos.
Provide a personalized experience
Segmenting customers according to their needs and preferences allows you to personalize videos and provide a more relevant onboarding experience.
Offer on-demand access for customers
Customers can access onboarding videos when they find this most convenient. They can also watch them at their own pace and rewind to watch again where necessary. You can create a video once and customers can watch it over and over. All you need to do is to ensure that you keep it up to date. This can expedite how users learn to use a product or service and lead to faster adoption rates.
Reduce customer support costs
When customers have access to videos it can reduce customer support costs. They can solve many of their issues simply by watching videos. Support staff can guide them to relevant videos rather than having to give lengthy explanations.
Where to use customer onboarding videos
- Embed customer onboarding videos on a company website or a landing page. Onboarding videos in an online knowledge base or help center can give users step-by-step guidance when using products or services.
- SaaS onboarding videos in a user dashboard can guide customers and deliver an informative experience as they learn to use software for the first time. Asana has an onboarding video series on its website that teaches customers how to use basic features such as tasks and projects. QuickBooks gives a quick overview of its features and benefits in its onboarding video.
- Getting an inside look at a company and its culture through its videos on social media can help to build customer trust. Starbucks has a video that shows customers how to make pour-over coffee. It shows them another way to enjoy their coffee and gives them more insight into the brand and its values.
- Using onboarding welcome videos in emails can immediately make new customers feel appreciated.
- Integrating customer onboarding videos into a product or app interface can guide a customer through functionalities and features as they are busy navigating.
- Hosting live or recorded onboarding workshops or webinars can offer in-depth training and support.
Key elements of an effective onboarding video
A clear objective: When your objective is clear, your video will have more focus and it will be easier to structure it. What do you want to communicate to the customer? What should they be able to do after watching the video?
Micro-learning: Taking complex concepts and breaking them down into bite-sized pieces makes them easier to understand. An effective onboarding video is a short one. Ideally aim for less than two minutes and focus only on the most essential features. A successful MailChimp onboarding video shares information in a short yet comprehensive way about how to create an email campaign. If a product has a suite of tools, you could create a series of short educational videos.
Personalization and branding: An onboarding video platform should allow you to personalize and brand your onboarding videos. Start by using a friendly and approachable tone of voice to connect with new users. You can welcome customers and tell them what to expect from the customer journey. You should be able to customize your video player with your brand logo, colors, and fonts.
Interactive elements: Video hosting platforms like Cincopa allow you to include interactive elements in your customer onboarding videos. Annotating a video with tips can ensure customers get the most from each step. Quizzes can help them to understand what they know and what they still need to learn. CTAs can guide them to other helpful resources. Interaction is still one of the best ways for customers to come to grips with new information.
Storytelling: An onboarding video can provide an opportunity to share your company story with potential customers. This can help to form an emotional connection with them. Creating such a connection is one of the best customer retention strategies.
Real world use cases: Real world use cases provide practical examples customers can relate to. IKEA has a video that shows users how to use the Create Your Space feature on the catalog app. To explain the concept of augmented reality to customers would be difficult but showing them how the tool works makes it easy to understand.
How Cincopa enhances video onboarding
Cincopa simplifies the onboarding experience features such as secure hosting, interactive elements, and powerful analytics.
- When using the Cincopa video hosting platform you will always deliver high quality customer onboarding videos with seamless playback no matter what devices viewers use.
- Cincopa’s RecTrace tool will help you make screen recordings with voiceover explanations. This enables you to show products in context and create step-by-step instructions to walk customers through using them.
- Features such as annotations, quizzes, and CTA’s on videos help to make the onboarding process more engaging. Customers can have a more dynamic experience with these interactive features.
- Cincopa integrates with your existing LMS and CRM so you can streamline your workflows and offer an effective customer experience.
- The advanced analytics on Cincopa include dashboards and heatmaps that help you understand the performance of individual videos and how users interact with them. This can help you to identify gaps in onboarding and optimize video content.
Conclusion
The onboarding process often sets the tone for the ongoing relationship with a customer. When you provide information in an accessible and user-friendly way, customers are more likely to get the best use out of what they purchase. It’s essential to understand customer needs and personalize their experiences. A free trial can help you to understand the benefits of Cincopa for onboarding videos.
