5 ways to build a better new user onboarding process

New user acquisition is costly, so you don’t want to spend money attracting a customer only to churn due to a poor UX. While your onboarding program can help new users become customers, your entire business profits. But, being a successful digital- and mobile-first business requires incorporating new technologies to streamline user onboarding, like risk-based verification.

Ready to create a seamless and secure onboarding flow? Here are 6 best practices and tools we recommend every brand should use to keep customers at the heart of the onboarding process.

1. Simplify the onboarding process

Your clients are busy. They want to quickly and easily create a new account with your business, take care of their needs, then move on to the next item on their to-do list. To that end, simplify your onboarding process to remove any unnecessary steps. Removing any extra steps or information fields that add unnecessary length or complexity can help ensure your customers move beyond sign-up and spend more time finding what they need quickly and doing business with your brand. Instead, rely on mobile identity signals integrated into your sign-up flow. These risk signals help confirm an identity and streamline the registration process.

Tip: During onboarding, only ask for information you absolutely need to create a simple, frictionless experience for your new customers. You can always ask them for more information after sign-up

2. Meet your customers where they are

Every consumer has unique preferences for communicating based on cost, internet connectivity, regional nuances, and more. It’s critical to allow your consumers to choose which channel they engage with your business.

With Twilio Verify, your business can help you secure users on their preferred channels, including:

SMS
Time-based one-time passcodes
Push authentication
WhatsApp
Voice
Email

Tip: During onboarding, only ask for information you absolutely need to create a simple, frictionless experience for your new customers. You can always ask them for more information after sign-up

Why does this matter? If you can send a message to a channel that a customer already trusts, you can create a better UX for them. For example, if your customer in Brazil solely uses WhatsApp to connect with friends and family, it makes the most sense for your brand to send them a verification code on a channel they use regularly and trust.

These dynamic verification options can help your customers choose the most convenient and comfortable process for them and allow your business to keep the conversation going across all your customers’ preferred channels.

Validate users with SMS, voice, WhatsApp, email, push, and time-based one-time passwords.

Request a demo of Twilio Verify

3. Incorporate identity verification

While digital and mobile identity verification are critical to determining a trustworthy and legitimate user, both can occur behind the scenes so that your customers don’t have to wait. To get a user registered for your service and on their way, you need a reliable, accurate way to identify and reduce fraudulent sign-ups.

Twilio's Lookup API helps power trusted interactions with your customers by providing your business with in-depth information behind a phone number, like:

Region-specific number formatting and validation
Caller name
Line type (VoIP detection, landline, mobile, and more)
SIM swap and call forwarding detection

When paired with Twilio’s Verify API, you can verify your users’ identities and filter out known bad actors before sending an account verification message—all without troubling your end-users. Your business can even prevent fraud by using the Lookup API to allow or deny numbers from certain countries, VoIP numbers, or carriers based on risk. These tools can help you significantly identify and act against spam accounts and fake profiles to reduce the risk of fraud and improve security for your users’ accounts.

Incorporating mobile identity signals from Twilio Lookup and using Twilio Verify for OTPs is the ideal match for balancing security and UX. Plus, your business can specify any criteria that requires a closer look to certify a legitimate user created the account. For example, your business can flag VoIP, burner numbers, or even numbers from specific countries with a propensity for fraud. From there, you can choose to manually review or automatically block these accounts, allowing you to ensure only trustworthy users gain access to your platform.

4. Prioritize reliable deliverability

When a customer requests a verification code from your brand, the time it takes your message to send becomes critical. Consider a new user creating a new account through your mobile app, for example. When requesting a verification passcode, your user expects to receive the code or push instantaneously. If a passcode is delayed or not received, users might become frustrated, request multiple authentication codes, contact support for help, or abandon their registration attempt altogether.

OTPs are mission-critical messages that must go out in real time, as even a few seconds of delays can cause user frustration and friction. Those few seconds could cause you to lose their business to a competitor. That’s why partnering with a service provider, like Twilio, that allows you to reliably send customer communications at scale is key to maintaining a good CX for your users, reducing churn, and improving business performance as a result.

Twilio Lookup checks carrier and phone number information so that you can pick the right medium for your message and ensure its delivery.

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5. Think beyond account creation

Building a seamless CX doesn’t start and end with your sign-up process. You need an exceptional CX at every step of the user journey to foster a life-long relationship with your customers. Luckily, much of the information you collect during new user onboarding can help you connect with and engage your customers as they continue to do business with your brand. For example, your brand can send them a 2FA message via SMS or a purchase confirmation via email throughout the rest of the customer journey. By maintaining seamless and secure interactions at every touchpoint, you build lasting trust and loyalty with your users.