Successful customer onboarding is the foundation of a lasting customer relationship. And yet, it’s an often-overlooked aspect of the customer experience. When done right, customer onboarding can be an opportunity for competitive differentiation, greater efficiency, and revenue growth.
To build a strong foundation for your onboarding efforts, you should:
- Measure onboarding success
- Decide which metrics to track
- Find ways to improve the essential customer onboarding metrics
In this article, we’ll explore all of these initiatives together and much more. Here’s everything you need to know about customer onboarding metrics to put your business on the right path.
Tracking the right customer onboarding metrics
Customer onboarding is the process of welcoming and educating new users as they move along the customer journey, with the ultimate goal of creating an engaging experience and setting the groundwork for a strong customer relationship.
Well-thought-out customer onboarding is crucial for software as a service (SaaS) and subscription-based businesses. As a matter of fact, bad onboarding in mobile apps results in the loss of an average of 75% of active users within the first three days and up to 90% within the first month.
Adoption of a new tool or platform requires a certain learning curve. That’s why companies include step-by-step tutorials, helpful guidance, and support throughout onboarding to address customers’ questions.
But here’s the thing — customer onboarding is not a one-and-done process. The only way to improve the experience is to track customer onboarding metrics constantly.
Infographic: Top 14 customer onboarding metrics
Essential customer onboarding metrics for SaaS
Our infographic highlights 14 essential customer onboarding metrics to track in 2024 and beyond.
Deciding which metrics matter most to your business can be tricky. Here is a detailed explanation of each metric to help you define and measure onboarding success. Let’s dive in.
1. Customer journey mapping
The customer onboarding journey is a very delicate process. To deal with all the intricacies, you need a customer onboarding journey map — a visual representation of the customer experience during (and after) the onboarding period.
Customer journey mapping can help you visualize the path to purchase and understand your buyer’s processes, needs, and perceptions. User testing and behavior analysis are techniques you can use to compare a customer journey map to a user’s real experience.
How it’s measured
Start by identifying the basic elements of a customer journey map, such as essential milestones (aha moment, activation, feature adoption) and interaction points (opt-ins, welcome emails, platform walkthroughs, and customer support).
The next step is segmenting customers into buyer personas and creating a fitting onboarding journey map for the most relevant personas. Collect data from different touchpoints and analyze it to draw conclusions about your customer onboarding journey.
How to improve it
- Create an onboarding flow chart
- Pinpoint areas that you can optimize
- Take action
2. Time to onboard (TTO)
The main purpose of a customer onboarding journey is to empower customers to understand and use a tool or platform independently. The sooner customers go through onboarding, the faster they can move from a free trial to the paid version or adopt more features.
TTO shows the number of days it takes for users to start using your product independently. The time needed for onboarding can indicate how complex the tool is. That’s why you should try to simplify the process and reduce the time to onboard.
Time to onboard formula
Companies should pay attention to the number of days customers need to complete the onboarding process. This is how you measure and then optimize the time to onboard.
Example: If a user takes five days from the start of the onboarding process until they independently use the product, then TTO is five days.
How to improve it
- Measure the time to onboard and use it as a benchmark to make improvements in the future
- Keep track of the time needed for reaching different milestones in the customer onboarding and focus on the friction points you identify along the way
- Don’t compromise on the customer onboarding quality just to reduce the time to onboard
3. Time to first value (TTFV)
TTFV is the time it takes for users to move from the start of onboarding to getting value from your product — also called the ‘AHA’ moment.
Why is it important to measure TTFV? The ‘AHA’ moment is the sudden realization of a product or platform’s full potential. Reducing the time to first value significantly decreases the potential for customer churn. It’s important to pinpoint customers’ needs to help them reach the ‘AHA’ moment faster.
Time to first value formula
TTFV is the amount of time between the close of the sale and when the customer is onboarded.
Example: If the ‘AHA’ moment for a software tool is when a user successfully completes their first project after onboarding, and it takes them 3 days from the close of the sale to achieve this, then TTFV is 3 days.
How to improve it
- Identify the value your product brings
- Build your onboarding towards reaching the ‘AHA’ moment
- Eliminate extra steps in the process
- Personalize the experience
4. Trial-to-paid activation rate (TTPAR)
Getting customers to sign up for a free trial is a small win. The real excitement is getting more paid users after the trial period. That’s why TTPAR is one of the essential customer onboarding metrics to track.
TTPAR represents the percentage of users that convert to a paid account from a trial period.
Trial-to-paid activation rate formula
To measure TTPAR, divide the number of free trials converted to paid users by the total number of free trials and multiply the result by 100 to get a percentage.
Example: Let’s suppose you had 200 users start a free trial of your service and 40 of those upgraded to a paid plan after the trial period. Then, TTPAR = 40 / 200 = 0.2 or 20%.
How to improve it
- Make it easy to upgrade
- Track users’ activity and identify the best moment to offer an upgrade
- Be proactive and remind users to upgrade
- Personalize the communication to create a strong customer bond
5. Onboarding revenue (OR)
While customer education is one of the primary goals of customer onboarding, one of the essential SaaS onboarding metrics to track is the revenue the customer onboarding journey brings to your business.
OR is the revenue you generate through the onboarding process. This metric shows whether your conversations lead to upsells and revenue growth.
Onboarding revenue formula
OR can be measured using net revenue retention (NRR), which is the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a given period.
To get NRR, you should sum the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) at the beginning of the period and the business expansion revenue. Then subtract the canceled MRR and the downgraded MRR. Divide the result by the MRR at the beginning of the period and multiply by 100.
If NRR is high, your business is generating revenue due to retaining customers. On the contrary, if the number is low, it indicates that the revenue is affected by customer churn.
Example: Let’s say you started the period with an MRR of $10,000, gained $2,000 in business expansion revenue, lost $1,000 in canceled MRR, and downgraded $500 in MRR. Your NRR would be ((10,000 + 2,000) – (1,000 – 500)) / 10,000 x 100 = 115%. This indicates a 15% growth in revenue through the onboarding process.
How to improve it
- Show value early on
- Build customer trust
- Improve the onboarding process
6. Customer response rate (CRR)
Customer information is a black box. You will be blindsided if you don’t conduct regular surveys to gather feedback. Collecting feedback is the only way to spot common pain points and optimize the customer onboarding process.
The number of answers you receive should be on the list of customer onboarding success metrics you track. Measuring customer response rates can help you determine the effectiveness of your customer onboarding process and point to any red flags you must address.
Customer response rate formula
To measure CRR, divide the number of people who completed your survey by the total number of survey participants and multiply the result by 100.
Example: If you sent a customer onboarding survey to 500 customers and received 100 responses, then CRR = 100 / 500 = 0.2 or 20%.
How to improve it
- Personalize the survey/questionnaire
- Offer an incentive
- Use different survey distribution channels
7. Feature adoption rate (FAR)
Understanding how customers use your tool more granularly is a prerequisite for a more effective future product development roadmap. What features are most adopted, the roadblocks to adopting specific features, and what features you should prioritize next are just some questions you have to answer.
FAR measures the percentage of total users using a feature regularly. The more features a user adopts, the more they depend on the tool. That’s why tracking the adoption rate for all your features is crucial.
Feature adoption rate formula
To calculate FAR, you should divide the number of new users of a specific feature by the total number of product users and multiply the result by 100.
Example: Let’s say that 50 customers have adopted one of your features, and you have 200 total product users. Then, FAR = 50 / 200 = 0.25 or 25%.
How to improve it
- Promote features to boost adoption
- Communicate with customers often
- Conduct user tests and surveys to gather feedback
- Monitor results and iterate
8. Logins to your tool (LTYT)
The number of LTYT is a tell-tale sign of the success of your customer onboarding. The more users log into your tool, the more they engage and adopt your product into their workflow.
While this seems simple to track, most businesses overlook its importance and forget to list it among their SaaS onboarding metrics.
Logins to your tool formula
To measure the number of LTYT, you need to count the number of logins during the customer onboarding process.
Example: If a customer logs in 15 times over their onboarding period, then LTYT is 15.
How to improve it
- Enhance the user experience
- Remind customers to use the tool with follow-up email reminders
- Maximise referrals to get more users onboard
- Speed up the learning curve with interactive walkthroughs
9. Onboarding completion rate (OCR)
Setting an onboarding program is just part of the process. To get results, customers need to get to the finish line. That’s why tracking OCR is crucial as one of the onboarding success metrics.
The completion rate is the percentage of users who finish the onboarding. It has a different meaning for different businesses.
To have a clear picture of what you are tracking, consider marking onboarding completion through a custom event or action relevant to you (e.g., switching to a yearly plan, going through the onboarding checklist, inviting more team members, etc.).
Onboarding completion rate formula
To calculate the onboarding completion rate, divide the number of users who finished onboarding by the total number of users in the onboarding cohort and multiply the result by 100.
Example: If you onboarded 20 customers this month and only 12 of them completed the whole onboarding process, your OCR = 12 / 20 = 0.6 or 60%.
How to improve it
- Gamify the experience with a checklist
- Encourage new users to explore key features with frequent tips and best practices
10. User support request rate (USRR)
Getting a lot of support request tickets during the onboarding can be a canary in the coal mine. Think about it this way — the number of user support tickets indicates how many users are struggling with your onboarding process and asking for assistance.
You should consider these signs as early indicators of potential failure and devise a solution for the most frequent roadblocks.
User support request rate formula
To calculate USRR, divide the number of users that sent support requests during the onboarding period by the total number of users onboarding and multiply the result by 100. The higher percentage value strongly indicates that users need support during the onboarding.
Example: If 10 out of 50 users sent support requests during the onboarding period, then USRR = 10 / 50 = 0.2 or 20%.
How to improve it
- Use insights from support tickets to identify frequent pain points
- A/B test solutions to overcome the major roadblocks
11. Customer effort score (CES)
An intuitive onboarding experience builds customer loyalty, while a complex or frustrating one can drive users away.
CES measures the ease of a customer’s experience when interacting with your product or service. This metric is particularly valuable because it highlights friction points in the onboarding process that can lead to dissatisfaction or churn.
The lower the effort your customers require, the higher their satisfaction. That’s why tracking and improving CES is crucial for retaining customers.
Customer effort score formula
To compute CES, have your users rate how easy it was to onboard to your service on a scale from “Very easy” to “Very difficult.” Add up all the scores and calculate the average.
Example: Say you gather scores from 100 customers, and the total is 200. On a scale where 1 is “Very easy,” and 7 is “Very difficult,” CES would be 2.0. This indicates that, on average, customers find your service easy to use.
How to improve it
- Streamline processes and reduce the number of steps required to complete onboarding tasks
- Provide resources like frequently asked question (FAQ) pages and tutorials to help customers find answers on their own
12. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
The success of your onboarding (and your business, in general) depends on customer satisfaction. To track this, you need to determine your CSAT. CSAT measures customers’ satisfaction with your product and brand. It indicates your company’s performance that can be used to measure specific interactions.
Customer satisfaction score formula
To measure CSAT, divide the number of satisfied customers by the total number of responses and multiply the number by 100.
Example: If you have 75 satisfied customers out of the total 150 surveyed, your CSAT = 75 / 100 = 0.5 or 50%.
How to improve it
- Personalize the experience
- Create a thorough and interactive knowledge base
- Find the root cause for dissatisfaction and fix it
13. Number of active users (NoAU)
We can’t discuss customer onboarding analytics without mentioning NoAU. The active user count measures how many customers log in and use your tool in a given period, typically monthly or daily.
The main challenge is figuring out how you define an active user. You can simplify the definition of “active user” as a customer logging in to your platform. But then again, does that represent a person actively using your product? So while defining an “active” user is up to you, you should consider completing a specific activity as a benchmark.
Number of active users formula
This metric is usually tracked as the total number of people actively using a product in a given period. However, it can also be denoted as a percentage to help you understand how many users in a cohort remain active over time.
Example: If you have a cohort of 500 users and 350 of them are actively using the product, NoAU = 350 / 500 = 0.7 or 70%.
How to improve it
- Track inactive users
- Trigger targeted emails to re-engage them by sharing tips and best practices
14. Average session duration (ASD)
The time spent using your tool is a crucial SaaS onboarding metric. ASD looks at how long a customer uses a tool. A higher ASD indicates that people are engaged with your tool.
However, you should always combine multiple customer onboarding metrics to ensure that you understand your customers’ journey. In rare cases, a high ASD can also mean that customers have difficulty navigating your tool. That’s why you must check in with customers through regular surveys or analyze customer support requests.
Average session duration formula
To calculate ASD, divide the total time spent across sessions by the total number of users.
Example: If the total time users spent across sessions is 500 minutes and there were 50 sessions, ASD = 500 minutes / 50 sessions = 10 minutes.
How to improve it
- Track user behavior and identify where your customers are spending time on your tool
- Introduce training sessions and functionality enhancements
- Create a smooth user experience
Improve your customer onboarding experience
An effective customer onboarding experience can give your SaaS business an edge over your competitors and increase customer lifetime value. The customer onboarding period is the time of building trust.
Customers expect you to be there for them wherever they are and show them value that reaffirms their decision to work with you. That’s why personalized interactions help you engage customers across channels and improve customer onboarding metrics.
One of the best ways to improve the customer onboarding experience is to use customer-facing knowledge. Also known as an external or public knowledge base, these online resources allow your business to publish helpful information for the benefit of its customers.
Customers can acquire information whenever they want, without relying on the presence and attention of a support professional.
Nowadays, with the help of AI-boosted knowledge base software, you can build a KB for your business in a matter of hours.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Two of the most powerful metrics a team can track during onboarding are time to first value (TTFV) and trial-to-paid activation rate (TTPAR).
Together, they reveal how well your onboarding turns sign-ups into satisfied customers.
You can measure onboarding success by analyzing how well new users move through your funnel and become long-term customers.
Look at metrics like onboarding completion rate, retention at 30/60/90 days, and customer feedback through NPS or in-app surveys.
A streamlined onboarding process reduces time to first value and creates a better user experience.
You can do this by mapping the entire journey, identifying friction points, and replacing them with tooltips, video walkthroughs, or embedded support.
A SaaS onboarding model is the framework that defines how users are introduced to a product and guided toward activation.
Popular models include self-service onboarding (ideal for low-cost, high-volume products), concierge onboarding (common in B2B and enterprise), and progressive onboarding, where users are guided based on their behavior.
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