What Is an Aha Moment, and How Can You Have One?
Are you a business owner struggling to retain customers? Or do you have a website that your visitors don't subscribe to or sign up for your tools? Well, there is always a two-way explanation for this.
One reason is that you have yet to discover your aha moment as a business owner, and the other reason is the customers didn't find your tools useful to them. As a business owner, you always know the goal of your product, but only some customers see that immediately they land on your product/tools.
What is an Aha Moment
Aha! moment is the point where users realize a product/tool's satisfaction, recognition, inspiration, and effectiveness.
Think about this scenario; you’re looking for information on freelancing online, and you come across Dave Rogenmoser's blog posts and articles. After scrolling and reading through some articles, you realize how useful they are, and you happily sign up for his mailing list or a course.
That moment of satisfaction that made you sign up for the mailing list is your aha moment. Therefore, resonating with the content of the website and benefiting from it is the touchpoint. It means you are satisfied with the content and are willing to return for more.
How can you have Aha moments?
Aha moments are achieved in two ways; one is the user experience, and another is your experience.
Your aha moment
Your aha moment is when you decide to build a website that offers educational information to users. The moment you get many followers and subscribers to your mailing list is when you achieve a Eureka moment. It means users are finding your content valuable. As a website owner, that's your aha moment.
User aha moment
Users' aha moment is when they realize the value of your content. The users realized after going through several pages online that your blogs are what they need. The satisfaction convinced them to subscribe to your mailing list or even take a course from you.
For users to achieve these moments, you as a business must identify what's valuable to them and provide them with solutions.
What’s an aha moment in user onboarding?
Aha moment in user onboarding is when a new user comes across your product for the first time, suddenly understands how it works, and realizes its value. When this happens, the moment is called activation. It’s when you start having a user-brand relationship.
The user-brand relationship establishment leads to customer retention. It means users will continue buying and using your product because of its value to them. As your customer retention rate increases, it increases your sales revenue.
Users keep returning to purchase from you because it saves them money, time, and effort.
How to achieve the aha moment in user onboarding
To achieve the aha moment on user onboarding, you focus on building the product, software, or app while the users focus on getting its values.
We’ll discuss three ways you can achieve an aha moment in user onboarding;
#1 Engaging with your actual users
There is no complicated process involved when achieving aha moments. The best way is to engage your clients. They don’t know the meaning of aha moments. Instead, they focus on whether your product serves their needs.
To utilize this method, you choose a few of your most retained clients who have consistently used your product for a long time and those who abandoned it too. They are the ones with experience, and they can quickly tell you what they like or dislike about your product.
Email the few selected clients and ask them if they can spare you a 10 minutes call to discuss your product. Most of them will give in to your request. When you get that chance, be ready with your questions.
Ask your long-term clients questions like; how they use your product, what feature made them buy, and what exciting feature they loved most. Note down what stories they have about the product because they will give you honest reviews.
Come back to those who abandoned your product; it will only be smooth if they see the value. Ask them what they were looking forward to achieving, what made your product unsuitable for them, and what you can do differently to keep them around.
From their responses, you can rectify any possible issues with your product. Furthermore, engaging your users gives them closure; even the churned may decide to try again.
#2 Bring your aha moment to the front
As the owner, you know the goal and purpose of the product. When designing it, put yourself in the shoes of your users. Ask yourself if you were the user, would you find it valuable?
Putting the needs of your users on the front gives them the ability to scroll through your product and inspect it. You don’t want to ask them for their personal information or account setup before they see the value.
For example, the Airbnb
Airbnb asks for a lot of personal information when signing up for their product, but they only ask you to sign up after you download the app or open their website and are ready to use.
First, it lets you see their listings on its interface; you can scroll through different services until you find what you want. Only when you want to book or use a property will they ask you to sign up and provide your information.
Making the listing appear first on the interface brings your aha moments to the front. Clients would want to see the value of your product before giving you their personal data.
#3 Guiding users on how to use the product
The competition between web apps and products gradually increases daily. Business owners focus on creating value and building a product that will wow users at first glance. Providing new users with a guide immediately after signing up for your service ensures user onboarding.
You want your users to stick around longer and use your product. To ensure that you achieve maximum user onboarding, you can adapt the following;
Use of product walkthroughs
Product walkthroughs are the interactions you encounter when you start using a product for the first time. They aim to give users directions to complete specific tasks successfully. In addition, it helps companies simplify their onboarding process.
Product walkthroughs are usually confused with a guide when signing up for a product. For example, choosing a username, giving an email address, and selecting a password is simply a guide. It's a one-time task, and users don’t need to retain it.
The deal with product walkthroughs is that users must retain the information throughout to complete tasks successfully. Therefore, an interactive product demo is an effective tool for helping users discover how to use the product.
For example, Canva
Canva is a design template with hundreds and thousands of templates; it's easy to get lost if you are a beginner. I can’t say how many times I gave up on Canva but still returned to it until I mastered how to use it correctly.
Immediately after you successfully sign up to Canva, the app or website guides you to choose one of three options. The purpose of the options is to know your aim for using Canva. Depending on the option you select, Canva will display relevant templates on your user interface.
For example, if you choose personal use, most of your templates will be on birthdays, photo colleges, thumbnails, etc. Users are likely to stick around because the product serves their purpose, and they understand how it works to achieve its value.
Use of interactive walkthroughs with walkthrough software
Interactive walkthroughs are when you give users instructions on what to do when they start using a product. The instructions show the user where to click and what’s the next move. They are usually on-screen pop-ups with arrows pointing to where to click.
The walkthrough software improves user onboarding significantly; it's like sitting with an expert guiding your next move. Therefore, developing a good product tour relieves users' burdens by simplifying their tasks.
For example, TurboTax software
Turbotax is a tax preparation software that helps millions of people file taxes correctly. Its users don’t need the experience to use the app because the software provides an interactive product tour on how to use it step by step.
How does the software make it easy for users to file taxes without the help of an expert? The software is already designed with essential questions that guide the user; all you need to do is key in your answers. Many people find Turbotax easy, fast, and efficient.
The software uses on-screen pop-ups and interactive product demos to guide every step to compilation. As a result, every essential detail is covered by the time you finish filling in your tax information.
Conclusion
Aha! moments are the key features to ensure user onboarding in your company. When building a product, master what value you what it to achieve. Ensure that you wow your users from the beginning of the product to the end.
Interacting with your users and getting their feedback helps to build the product; ensure you put the key features of your product at the front. Let people see what it is before signing up for it. Also, ensure that you interact with and guide your users on using your product to ensure customer satisfaction.