Getting new customers to scale your business is an exciting prospect. But making sure that their decision to go forward with your company is the right one is the actual test. 

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If you are a SaaS company looking to onboard customers, your customers only interact with you whenever they run into a problem or need additional help in figuring out how to use a particular feature. Customers want to solve their problems themselves by utilizing your help resources. 

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Now you may think, what's the problem then? 

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There is no problem. However, to ensure that your customers also follow the same trend, you have to understand their needs and why they chose you in the first place. This is what customer onboarding surveys allow you to do. 

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By creating a personalized customer onboarding survey, you can learn more about the specific needs of your customers and inform them about how your product can help them fulfill those requirements. 

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Having said that, in this article, I will tell you more about onboarding surveys and questions that you should be asking your users to deliver value through your products. Before we jump into the questions, let’s look at what these surveys are. 

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What is a customer onboarding survey?

As you might have judged from its name, a customer onboarding survey is a set of questions, utilized by brands to collect information about their customers. 

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This questionnaire allows you to learn customer needs, figure out what they are going to use your products for and craft a tailored onboarding process to accommodate every kind of user. 

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Customer onboarding surveys include well-planned questions, built for you to streamline your onboarding, smoothly onboard new signups, and get them started with your product. Some of the common questions revolve around:

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• Introducing your product
• Asking customer requirements
• Training new customers
• Sending timely follow-ups

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By asking these questions and receiving direct feedback from your customers you can highlight your product in such a way that increases the probability of a successful conversion. 

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Advantages of using customer onboarding surveys

A streamlined customer onboarding results in better satisfaction and builds long-lasting relationships. That being said, here are some of the benefits of using customer onboarding surveys:

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Deliver tailored customer experience

By asking relevant questions, you can divide new customers into smaller groups depending on their goals, locations, and requirements. Doing this enables you to craft personalized onboarding experiences with the help of the right resources. 

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This tailored experience will allow your customers to get used to the product without having to spend too much time going through the entire knowledge base. On top of that, having your customers segmented in groups will streamline future communication, making it easy to form solid connections for long-term success. 

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Better product adoption

Customer onboarding surveys tell you beforehand the objectives of your customers and why they are using your product. Using this data, you can find out the best way for them to adopt your product and provide relevant resources for quick onboarding. 

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Once the customer is accustomed to the product, they can keep using it without requiring guidance from your end. This frees up your onboarding or customer success teams, allowing them to focus on the next customer. 

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Smooth transition

Being able to identify pain points early during the initial phases of the onboarding process, you can start working on resolving them immediately or at least prepare for them before providing a demo to a user. 

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After these points have been addressed or once you have presented ways to overcome these challenges, you can smoothly onboard customers and boost your overall credibility. 

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Create a loyal customer base

Customer onboarding surveys not only provide you with the details of new users but also enable you to establish a loyal customer base by offering targeted onboarding experiences. When you show your customers that you are determined to resolve their problems and help them hit their goals, they are much more likely to stay invested in your product. 

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31 customer onboarding questions to ask for an effective onboarding

Now that you are aware of what onboarding surveys are along with their advantages, it’s time to see the various kinds of questions that you can ask new sign-ups for streamlined onboarding. 

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I have divided these questions into different categories based on the information you will receive. This way, you can keep track of the responses and tailor your outreach effectively.

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Knowing your customers

Knowing a customer’s name, email, and phone number is not enough to streamline the onboarding. You need to ask more personalized questions to identify the decision-makers and their needs. 

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A few common questions you can ask include:

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• What is your role within the company?
• Are you looking for the product for yourself or for a team?
• Are you the primary decision-maker for this product’s purchase?
• Where did you first learn about our product?
• Which products did you try before reaching out to us?

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User intent questions

These questions provide you an insight into why they want to get your product. In addition to that, they let you know how interested customers are in purchasing the product. This information allows you to plan your next interactions for higher chances of getting a conversion.

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Some of the questions that let you gauge purchase intention are:

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• Which features influenced your decision the most when you signed up?
• What is your main reason for choosing our product? 
• What challenges are you looking to address with this product? 
• Before selecting our product, which other apps did you consider? 
• What factors led you to choose us over other available options?
• Which features motivated you to create a demo account?
• What particular objectives are you aiming to hit with the product?

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Project-related details

Project-related questionnaires enable you to understand customer’s objectives and needs. Also, using these questions you can find out future challenges that might pop up down the line. Having this information beforehand allows you to plan ahead and manage hurdles accordingly. 

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These questions include: 

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• What risks or challenges do you foresee for this project?
• How will we define and track the success of this project?
• What results are you aiming to accomplish with our product?
• Is there any additional information we should be aware of to help make this project successful?

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Usage-based questions

As implied by the name, usage questions assist you in identifying how customers want to use your product or what has been their experience with using the product. Although these questions provide you the feedback, these questions are aimed at getting quick feedback instead of a comprehensive review. 

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• Have you encountered any challenges when first using the product?
• Was it difficult for you to get used to our product?
• How valuable are these features for you?
• Were there any features you were expecting but didn't find in the product?
• Is there anything about our product that you don't like?
• Which features of the product you appreciate the most?

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Customer experience 

Although asking customers about their experience immediately after signing up will not offer you many details, but by asking these questions, you can get an estimate of how well your product is being received. The answers given by your customers will let you tweak your future interactions. 

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Some common customer experience questions are:

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• On a scale of 1-10, how beneficial do you find the product?
• Will you recommend our product to your friends or family depending on your experience?
• How would you score your satisfaction with our product on a scale of 1-10?
• How would you evaluate our onboarding process?
• What suggestions do you have to help us make our onboarding process better?
• Have you encountered any difficulties when using the product?
• Were you looking forward to using a feature but couldn’t find it in the product?
• What aspects of our product do you dislike?

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Best practices for using customer onboarding surveys

Customer onboarding surveys are beneficial for both you and your customers. These questions give you a solid idea of what your audience is expecting from your products, letting you know the features or options you need to plan during the development phase. 

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That being said, before you start asking customers these onboarding questions, here are some of the best practices for using customer onboarding surveys to let you make the most of them:

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Keep your surveys short and focused

Limit the survey to a few key questions to avoid overwhelming new users. Focus on essential areas like usability, first impressions, and onboarding experience to get quick insights rather than in-depth ones. 

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You can also ask multiple choice, rating scale (e.g., 1-10), and open-ended questions to gather both quantitative and qualitative feedback.

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Use simple Language

You should not ask customers to spend a lot of time figuring out what your questions mean. So, write questions that are easy to understand and avoid industry jargon. This ensures users can quickly respond without confusion.

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Ask at the right time

Timing is crucial to capture relevant feedback. Don’t send onboarding surveys on the first day of signing up for the product. Decide on specific milestones to send your surveys. These can be anything from after completing the first action or within the first few days of usage. 

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Offer an incentive

As a show of gratitude and to encourage survey participation, you can offer rewards to your customers. For example, by incentivizing users with exclusive discounts, product credits, or free features, make sure they are willing to participate, without compromising the integrity of the feedback.

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A/B test survey questions

You should not send the same survey questions to all the users who signed up to use your product. Instead, you need to experiment with different question formats and timings to determine what yields the most useful feedback plus the highest response rates.

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Utilize customer onboarding surveys to identify how to streamline your onboarding process

So, there you have it. These are some of the customer onboarding questions that you can ask your customers to gauge expectations and figure out requirements. 

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They are a great way to provide you with feedback and meaningful data on how you can streamline your onboarding, provide relevant resources, and empower your customers to maximize their ROI.