In this blog and series of videos, we’ll examine the key best practices to follow for delivering a seamless customer onboarding experience through effective customer education. 

Click the tabs below to learn the different tips and tricks related to customer onboarding through customer education.

Customer Onboarding is Not a One-time event.

Most teams treat customer onboarding as something that ends after signup. But as Ramli John and Wes Bush teach in Product-Led Onboarding, and I agree, real onboarding is a continuous engine of growth.

  • It starts at the first touchpoint
  • It focuses on helping users consistently experience your product’s value
  • It turns new users into lifelong customers

When you stop seeing onboarding as a checklist and start seeing it as a continuous value journey, you unlock user retention and reduce churn.

Example: If you run a project management tool: Don’t stop at the welcome email. Roll out an advanced analytics dashboard. Use personalized in-app messages to guide active users to discover new features.

The result?

  • Lower churn
  • Higher lifetime value
  • Customers who stick around

Remember: Onboarding is not the beginning of the customer journey it is the customer journey.

Another key insight from Ramli John & Wes Bush’s Product-Led Onboarding Framework is that onboarding isn’t a one-time event it’s an ongoing process of learning, testing, and improving.

Instead of relying on big, infrequent changes, teams should embrace rapid iteration and learning by doing.

✅ One powerful approach is the Triple-A Sprint Model:

  • Analyze your data
  • Ask users for feedback
  • Act on those insights

👉 Example: Let’s say a collaboration tool notices a high drop-off at the “Share Document” step. The team analyzes the drop-off data. Asks users via a quick survey why they didn’t share. Then acts by running A/B tests with different call-to-action buttons. This cycle of continuous optimization ensures that customer onboarding and customer education stay: ✨ Relevant ✨ Effective ✨ And ultimately drive long-term retention & revenue Blending onboarding with education is a growth engine. 

Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) for Customer Onboarding through Customer Education

👉 Onboarding should help users improve their lives, not just learn product features.

This starts with understanding their Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) the functional, emotional, and social outcomes they’re really hiring your product to achieve.

For example: A user signing up for a project management tool isn’t just looking to create tasks.

They want to:

  • Reduce team stress
  • Gain better control over deadlines
  • Build alignment across projects

So instead of only showing them “how to add a task,” show them how to use a project dashboard to visualize everyone’s workload and, in turn, reduce stress for the whole team.

The shift is powerful: teach outcomes, not just buttons. When your onboarding bridges the gap between product usage and life improvement, you’re not just gaining users, you’re building loyal advocates.

Defining Success Metrics for Customer Onboarding

When it comes to onboarding, signup completion is just the beginning. According to Ramli John and Wes Bush’s Product-Led Onboarding Framework, you should focus on two critical indicators:

✅ First Strike – the moment a user achieves their desired outcome for the very first time. Example: exporting the first design in Canva, or creating the first project in a project management app.

✅ Product Adoption Indicator (PAI) – an early, repeat behavior that signals the product is becoming part of the user’s daily workflow. Example: creating 5 projects and inviting 3 team members within the first week.

These metrics shift onboarding from guesswork ➡️ data-driven strategy.

They ensure your customer education efforts aren’t just guiding users through setup, but are driving real product adoption and long-term retention. Focus on First Strike + PAI, and you’ll unlock sustained customer value.

Straight-line Customer Onboarding

In product-led growth, the goal of onboarding is to help users experience value as quickly as possible.

👉 Ramli John and Wes Bush highlight this with the concept of Straight Line Onboarding. Instead of technically bloated onboarding flows that slow users down and increase abandonment, focus on guiding them straight to their first success moment (“first strike”).

💡 Example: If you’re onboarding a user to a video editing app, don’t force them through a 5-minute tutorial or a lengthy profile setup. Instead: Drop them directly into a simple editing interface Provide a preloaded sample video so they can start editing right away Move secondary steps (like account setup) later in the flow.

Use the DAD Test for every step: Direct → Does it take them closer to value? Adds Value → Is this step meaningful right now? Delights → Does it leave the user feeling good?

Pro Tip: Apply progressive disclosure by showing fewer options at a time, so users are not overwhelmed. When you combine customer onboarding with customer education best practices, you create a frictionless, efficient, and delightful first journey. ✨ Remember: Your job isn’t to teach everything at once. It’s to help your users see value—fast.

Behavioral Psychology in Customer Education and Customer Onboarding

Customer onboarding isn’t just about showing people how to use a product; it’s about helping them stick with it and build habits.

One powerful framework that brings this to life is Product-Led Onboarding by Ramli John and Wes Bush, which applies the BJ Fogg Behavior Model:

👉 Motivation – why users want to act

👉 Ability – how easy it is to act

👉 Prompts – the nudge to take action But here’s the catch: prompts only work if motivation and ability are high enough.

Example: A fitness app 💪 Improve ability: provide pre-made workout templates.

Boost motivation: show a progress tracker (e.g., “Week 1 is 50% complete—almost there!”).

This taps into the Zeigarnik effect—our drive to complete unfinished tasks. Reinforce behavior: after a workout, celebrate with a “Great job!” message. 🎉 The secret? Design your onboarding, education, and prompts to be: – Omnichannel – Personalized – Subtle yet consistent.

That’s how you guide users toward habit formation and long-term product adoption.