Onboarding research
See what keeps new customers from getting started.
Signup data can point to the step where new people stop. Only those people can say what they expected there and why they gave up. Through PaidInsight, you invite recent signups, some who stalled and some who got going, and those who take part tell Penny, the AI phone interviewer, about their first days.
$15.00 USD per interview at the default reward. No subscription. See pricing.
Onboarding
Study setup
One-sentence goal
I want to understand why 60% of new signups never create their first project in our tool
- Product
- Our tool
- Audience
- Our customers
- Role
- New signups
- Metric
- First-project activation (60% target)
Interview focus topics
- signup expectations and intended use
- first-project creation workflow
- blank-state guidance
- project template selection
- workspace setup requirements
- permission or teammate setup
- early product value moment
- help content during setup
The numbers are examples: change them to fit your business. No sign-up to look around.
Start with a decision
When this study is useful
An Onboarding & Activation study helps you decide what to change in someone’s first days with you. In a tool where most new signups never create a first project, ask what they meant to do, what they tried first, and where they stopped. A new gym member, client, or patient getting started can be asked the same things.
Who to invite
- People who joined in the past few weeks still remember their first days clearly. Agree on what counts as getting going, such as creating a first project or booking a first class, before you send invites.
- Sort your list into people who stalled and people who got going, and invite from both groups. Location, prior experience, or who helped with setup can also change what someone ran into.
- Draw the invite list from your own signup or customer records. PaidInsight adds no one to it, so everyone interviewed is someone you chose to invite.
Interview preparation
Questions worth exploring
Use these examples to sharpen your goal. PaidInsight designs an interview around your study; these are not a fixed script.
- When you signed up, what were you hoping to get done first?
- Take me back to the first time you sat down to get set up. What did you start with, and what came next?
- Which part took more effort than you expected? What was going on at that point?
- Since then, how have you been getting that work done?
What to look for in the report
Where first use breaks down
Spot the points where people say they stopped, waited, or went looking for help, and what they expected to find there. Set those accounts beside the step your data already flags.
Stalled and active, side by side
Line up accounts from people who got going with those from people who stalled. Check whether the difference lies in their goal, their starting material, or who helped them, and not only in a single step.
Changes worth testing
Take the suggested next steps to the people who own the first days. Before you change guidance, defaults, or setup, read the quotes behind each finding and how many interviews support it.
Turn a finding into a next step
Start with an obstacle several people ran into, such as an empty starting page or a step that waits on someone else. Change it for the next group of new signups and follow their progress in your own data. Judge the change by what those people go on to do. How often an obstacle came up in interviews says little about how common it is.
What the interviews can establish
Everything in these interviews comes from what people remember about their first days. Nobody is observed using your product or service, so the interviews cannot pinpoint which screen or form fails or measure what share of new users get going. Pair them with your usage records, or watch a few people set up.