20 Best Customer Onboarding Software of 2024
10 Best Customer Onboarding Software
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
With so many different customer onboarding software solutions available, finding the right fit for your needs is tough. You know you want software to help your new customers get acquainted with your products or services to ensure they have a positive experience, but you need to figure out which system is best. In this article, I'll help you make this choice easier by sharing my insights on the best customer onboarding software to help your customers navigate your products or services.
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The Best Customer Onboarding Software Solutions Summary Table
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| UserGuiding | From $89/month (billed annually) | Website |
| Dock | From $49/person/month | Website |
| Document360 | From $49/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
| Stonly | From $99/month (billed annually) | Website |
| Whatfix | 14-day free trial + Demo available | Website |
| WalkMe | From $2-3000/annually | Website |
| Intercom | From $74/month (billed annually) | Website |
| Pendo | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Rocketlane | From $19/user/month | Website |
| Userflow | From $20/month (billed annually) | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareHow to Choose Onboarding Software
You'll want to ensure the best fit possible when choosing customer onboarding software for your team. Here are the questions you should be asking yourself before making a purchasing decision:
⬜ What are your goals for employing customer onboarding software?
⬜ Have you ever used customer onboarding software before?
⬜ How many users will need access to the tool? And how often?
⬜ What are 3 key software features you can't live without?
⬜ What unique or niche needs does your company have?
⬜ What channels does it need to connect to? Website, app, other?
⬜ What's your budget for customer onboarding software?
It could be helpful to write down the answers to these questions before you start reading the reviews below. That way, you can measure each tool against the features, functionality, and flexibility you actually need.
Overviews of the 10 Best Customer Onboarding Software
Here’s a brief description of each customer onboarding tool to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
UserGuiding is a digital adoption platform that enables organizations to create interactive and customizable onboarding flows for their software applications. The platform is designed to assist companies in improving user onboarding, feature adoption, and overall user experience, with the goal of increasing user retention and reducing support queries.
UserGuiding provides a platform that allows the creation of interactive guides, tooltips, and hotspots to facilitate user learning and engagement. These features help new users navigate through the software's functionalities, promoting a better understanding of the product. The tool also offers personalized onboarding checklists and in-app messages to ensure users complete essential steps, enhancing their initial experience with the software.
The tool also offer user segmentation tools, which allow businesses to deliver even more personalized onboarding experiences. Guides and messages can be targeted to specific user groups based on behavior, characteristics, or other criteria.
UserGuiding integrates with Segment, Woopra, Slack, Google Analytics, Intercom, HubSpot, Mixpanel, and Google Tag Manager.
UserGuiding costs from $89/month (billed annually). A 14-day free trial is also available.
Dock is a sales and customer onboarding software that assists businesses in managing their customer onboarding processes through features like sales deal rooms, client portals, and virtual data rooms. It offers a centralized platform where businesses can create personalized onboarding hubs, manage shared project plans, and facilitate collaboration with clients.
One of its key features is the templated workspaces, which allow businesses to create consistent and repeatable onboarding processes. The personalized mutual success plans ensure that each client receives a customized onboarding experience and timeline tailored to their specific needs. Additionally, Dock's seamless integration with popular CRM systems enables businesses to maintain a cohesive workflow, enhancing data accuracy and reducing manual entry.
The platform also offers content organization capabilities to ensure all necessary documents and resources are easily accessible and well-organized to enhance the client's onboarding experience. Furthermore, the analytics feature provides valuable insights into client engagement and progress.
Integrations include Airtable, Pandadoc, Typeform, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Zoom, and more.
Document360 is a knowledge base management software your customer support team can use to create and publish self-service content for customers. It has a 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG) editor for crafting product documentation, and you can add images and videos, tables, links, and callouts to your content. You can also maintain multiple versions of an article, create or draw from existing article templates, and work collaboratively on articles.
The category manager helps keep your product documentation organized and structured in a hierarchical manner. You can add new sub-categories, update existing ones, and archive ones that are no longer relevant. Tagging is another way to keep documentation organized, and helps your customers find what they're looking for.
When it comes to onboarding new customers, you can use the platform to develop self-serve documents that will help get them up and running quickly. How-tos, FAQs, and more can be provided through your knowledge base.
Integrations include Intercom, Segment, Google Analytics, Disqus, HTML 5, Olark, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Hotjar, Freshmarketer, and Drift. Paid plans start from $119 per user per month, and a 14-day free trial is available.
Stonly is a client onboarding software that helps SaaS product and sales teams create superior customer experiences for their users. The solution enables you to build complex knowledge bases, product tours, checklists, and self-serve help centers that enable your users to find information with ease.
Stonly is very easy to implement, and thanks to its free-forever version, it’s a good solution for lean startups that want to improve their customer experience on a budget. The platform has a simple interface, making it suitable for non-technical staff members. One of the good things about using this app is that it offers a lot of options to build your onboarding flows.
You can choose your own adventure and build the best information resource for your users – product tours, self-serve help centers, or something else.
Stonly integrates with multiple apps, including Zendesh, Front, Freshdesk, and Segment. Stonly costs from $49/month.
The platform offers a free-forever version for up to 1,000 guide views per month and a free 14-day trial.
Whatfix is a customer success tool that simplifies user onboarding and drives digital adoption. The software is simple to learn, so your team can start creating content after going through the platform’s onboarding process.
I like the fact that Whatfix enables you to segment your audience based on their location in your app. This helps you create contextualized walkthroughs for your users, reducing churn and customer support calls. Another good thing about this tool is that it enables you to incorporate feedback into your customer onboarding process.
This creates an opportunity to collect valuable data about your customers’ experiences while using certain aspects of your solution.
Whatfix integrates with most of the apps you use on a day-to-day basis, such as Slack, Google Sheets, Google Analytics, Workday, Amplitude, and Salesforce.
Whatfix offers customized pricing upon request. You can access a free trial.
WalkMe
Code-free solution that helps you create customer activity heatmaps
WalkMe is a cloud-based user onboarding software that helps you make informed decisions in order to accelerate the learning experience of your customers. The code-free platform helps your team build product adoption flows to showcase your product’s features and capabilities.
One of the great things about WalkMe is that it enables you to put the right lesson in front of each new customer at exactly the right time. This takes the pressure off the users, as they don’t have to search for the information in your knowledge base, so it can help boost your product adoption rates.
WalkMe also helps your team build heat maps of your system, showing where your customers spend their time, how long it takes them to complete certain tasks, and where they encounter roadblocks and ask your team for guidance. As a result, you can create targeted guides that help your users navigate the trickier aspects of your solution.
WalkMe integrates with dozens of your favorite solutions, including Salesforce, Google Analytics, Slack, Azure Active Directory, LiveChat, and Zendesk.
WalkMe offers customized pricing upon request. You can see the solution in action with a free
Intercom is a digital adoption platform that makes it easy for teams to map out customer journeys, track product usage, and connect users to your customer success team. This is a code-free solution that helps you use data to improve user adoption. Intercom has a minimalist layout that’s simple to navigate.
Your team members can collaborate on customer issues, make notes on different tasks, and set up filters to segment users in any way you want. The highlight of using this platform is how easy it is to leverage its automation features. You can set up automations with custom triggers without developers, so you can create tailored onboarding content for targeted elements in your app.
Intercom integrates with over 300 apps, including Hubspot, Stripe, Salesforce, Jira, Slack, Microsoft Outlook, Google Analytics, and Instagram.
Intercom costs from $74/month. You can access a free 14-day trial.
Pendo is a customer onboarding solution that helps product teams reduce churn and increase customer satisfaction. The platform has strong analytical capabilities, allowing you to collect and interpret data on product adoption. Thanks to all the data it collects, Pendo makes it easy to spot roadblocks and understand why your users are not using your app.
The platform then helps you guide your customers with the help of walkthroughs, in-app pop-ups, tool tips, and messages, so you can improve the onboarding experience and reduce customer service calls. While Pendo does a lot of things right, its analytics are amazing.
The platform collects a lot of data, and you can segment it in whatever way you want to make better decisions about your solution and onboarding process.
Pendo integrates with a variety of apps, including Hubspot, Jira, BigQuery, Calendly, Drift, HelpDocs, Microsoft Teams, and Optimizely. Pendo offers customized pricing upon request.
The platform offers a free-forever version for up to 1,000 monthly active users.
You can also book a demo.
Create customer onboarding processes with ready-made templates
Rocketlane is a cloud-based client onboarding platform that helps you increase customer satisfaction with ready-made product tours. The solution enables you to create customer education content with ease and present it when your users need it most. With Rocketlane, you can create onboarding projects, assign tasks to team members, and implement changes in your processes in real-time.
The platform enables you to load templates for your work, but you can also create your own template from scratch if you want to add or remove tasks or milestones. One of the great things about this platform is the variety of templates it offers.
These templates help your team create successful onboarding flows in good time, so you build a satisfied customer community with ease.
Rocketlane integrates with dozens of tools, including Google Drive, Youtube, Calendly, Figma, Vimeo, and Typeform.
Rocketlane costs from $19/user/month. The platform offers a free 14-day trial. You can also book a demo.
Userflow is a customer success software that enables your team to create sophisticated user flows without writing a single line of code. The platform is flexible, and it allows you to use a variety of onboarding tools, such as an onboarding checklist, product tour, resource center, or surveys. Userflow has a clean interface that makes it ideal for non-technical teams.
Thanks to the platform’s simple but thorough onboarding process, you can create a basic user flow shortly after. One of the highlights of using this solution is that it enables you to track how your users interact with your app in real-time.
This helps you understand where your users get stuck and how they navigate roadblocks, so you can improve your processes based on customer engagement.
Userflow integrates with many popular apps, including Zapier, Segment, HubSpot, Amplitude, Mixpanel, and Heap. Userflow costs from $200/month.
You can access a free 14-day trial and a demo.
Related CX Software Lists
If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for here, check out these related customer experience management tools that I’ve tested and evaluated.
Customer Onboarding Software Selection Criteria
When selecting customer onboarding software, it's essential to focus on functionality and meeting specific use cases. This ensures the tool you choose effectively addresses your needs, alleviates pain points, and supports your business goals. I have personally tried and researched these tools to provide you with accurate and valuable insights.
Core Functionality - 25% of total weighting score:
- Automating the customer onboarding process
- Providing comprehensive analytics and reporting
- Offering customizable onboarding workflows
- Integrating with CRM and other essential tools
- Enabling secure data handling and compliance
Additional Standout Features - 25% of total weighting score:
- Innovative user interface with drag-and-drop workflow builders
- Advanced segmentation and personalization capabilities
- AI-driven insights and recommendations
- Real-time collaboration tools for team onboarding efforts
- Comprehensive learning libraries or wikis for customer education
Usability - 10% of total weighting score:
- Intuitive dashboard and navigation
- Simple, clean, and modern design aesthetic
- Flexible configuration options without complex steps
- Role-based access that's easy to manage
- Efficient workflows that minimize clicks and steps
Onboarding - 10% of total weighting score:
- Availability of interactive product tours
- Comprehensive training videos and tutorials
- Templates for common onboarding scenarios
- Responsive chatbots for instant help
- Regularly scheduled webinars for deep dives
Customer Support - 10% of total weighting score:
- 24/7 availability with multiple contact options
- Dedicated account managers or success teams
- Quick response times and effective resolution
- Extensive knowledge base and FAQs
- Community forums for peer support
Value For Money - 10% of total weighting score:
- Transparent pricing models
- Flexible subscription plans
- Free trials or demo versions
- No hidden fees or long-term contracts
- Competitive pricing compared to similar tools
Customer Reviews - 10% of total weighting score:
- High overall satisfaction ratings
- Positive feedback on ease of use and effectiveness
- Consistent praise for customer support and service
- Evidence of successful implementations and ROI
- User testimonials highlighting key benefits and features
Trends for Customer Onboarding Software in 2024
Customer onboarding software is evolving to meet changing business needs. Here are the top trends to watch.
AI-Driven Personalization
AI-driven personalization tailors the onboarding experience to individual customers. This trend improves engagement and satisfaction by delivering customized content. It also increases efficiency by automating personalized touches.
Interactive Onboarding Tools
Interactive onboarding tools, like gamified tutorials and simulations, are becoming more popular. These tools make the onboarding process more engaging and enjoyable. They also help users retain information better.
Seamless Integration Capabilities
Seamless integration capabilities are essential for customer onboarding software. This trend allows for effortless data exchange between different systems. It ensures a smooth and unified customer experience.
Enhanced Analytics and Reporting
Enhanced analytics and reporting provide deeper insights into the onboarding process. This trend helps businesses identify areas for improvement. It also enables data-driven decision-making for better outcomes.
Focus on Data Privacy and Security
A focus on data privacy and security is paramount in 2024. Customer onboarding software is incorporating robust security measures. This trend ensures compliance with regulations and builds customer trust.
These trends highlight the dynamic nature of customer onboarding software.
What Is Customer Onboarding Software?
Customer onboarding software is a tool that helps businesses guide new customers through the initial stages of using their product or service. This software is used by customer success teams, sales departments, and support teams to create a seamless and engaging onboarding experience. It automates processes, provides personalized guidance, and ensures customers quickly understand and gain value from the product. Users may need it to enhance customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and accelerate the time to value.
Features of Customer Onboarding Software
In this section, I'll outline the key features of customer onboarding software. These features are essential for providing a smooth and effective onboarding experience for new customers.
- Automated Workflows: Streamlines the onboarding process with predefined steps.
- Personalized Onboarding: Tailors the onboarding experience to individual customer needs.
- Analytics and Reporting: Provides insights into customer progress and engagement.
- Integrations: Connects seamlessly with other business tools like CRM systems.
- Self-Service Portals: Allows customers to access resources and support independently.
- Task Management: Helps track and manage onboarding tasks for both customers and teams.
- Interactive Tutorials: Engages customers with step-by-step guides and videos.
- Customizable Templates: Offers ready-to-use templates that can be tailored to specific use cases.
- Collaboration Tools: Enables team collaboration to support the onboarding process.
- Security and Compliance: Ensures data protection and compliance with industry regulations.
These features are crucial for making sure customers have a positive and efficient onboarding experience. They help businesses streamline their processes, personalize interactions, and ultimately enhance customer satisfaction.
Benefits of Customer Onboarding Software
Customer onboarding software offers numerous advantages for both users and organizations. Here are the primary benefits you can expect from using this type of software.
- Improved Customer Retention: By providing a seamless onboarding experience, businesses can increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn rates.
- Increased Efficiency: Automating repetitive tasks allows teams to focus on more strategic activities, improving overall productivity.
- Enhanced Customer Engagement: Personalized onboarding processes ensure customers feel valued and understood, leading to higher engagement levels.
- Better Data Insights: Comprehensive analytics and reporting offer valuable insights into customer behavior and onboarding effectiveness.
- Streamlined Processes: Integrations with other tools and customizable workflows help create a cohesive and efficient onboarding process.
These benefits highlight the importance of customer onboarding software in fostering customer loyalty and operational efficiency. Investing in this type of software can lead to significant improvements in both customer experience and business performance.
Costs And Pricing Of Customer Onboarding Software
When evaluating customer onboarding software, it's essential to understand the various plan and pricing options available. Different plans cater to different needs, from small businesses to large enterprises. Below, I’ve outlined the typical pricing structures and features for these plans to help you make an informed decision.
| Plan Type | Average Price | Common Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Basic onboarding tools, limited users, basic reporting |
| Basic | $20/month | Automated workflows, standard templates, email support |
| Professional | $50/month | Advanced analytics, customizable workflows, integrations |
| Enterprise | $100+/month | Dedicated support, advanced security, full customization |
Free plans are suitable for small teams or businesses just starting. Basic plans offer essential features for moderate needs. Professional plans provide more advanced tools and integration capabilities for growing businesses. Enterprise plans cater to large organizations requiring comprehensive features and dedicated support.
Customer Onboarding Software FAQs
Who uses customer onboarding software?
Customer success teams, sales departments, and support teams use this software to enhance the customer experience and ensure successful product adoption.
Why do businesses need customer onboarding software?
Businesses need this software to streamline onboarding processes, reduce churn, improve customer satisfaction, and accelerate time to value.
How does customer onboarding software improve customer retention?
It provides a structured and personalized onboarding experience, ensuring customers quickly understand and gain value from the product, leading to higher satisfaction and retention.
Is customer onboarding software suitable for small businesses?
Yes, there are free and basic plans designed for small businesses that provide essential onboarding features without a high cost.
Are there free options available for customer onboarding software?
Yes, many providers offer free plans with basic features suitable for small teams or startups.
What types of analytics are available in customer onboarding software?
It offers comprehensive analytics and reporting, providing insights into customer behavior, onboarding progress, and areas for improvement.
How do self-service portals benefit customers?
Self-service portals allow customers to access resources and support independently, reducing the need for direct intervention and enhancing their experience.
What should I consider when choosing a customer onboarding software plan?
Consider your business size, specific needs, budget, and required features when choosing a plan. Evaluate each plan's features and pricing to find the best fit.
importance of customer onboarding
Customer onboarding helps your company succeed in the long term.
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