5 Onboarding Lessons from Netflix

When it comes to SVOD (subscription-video-on-demand) services, established giants in the space like Netflix have set the gold standard on the user experiences that customers have come to expect. This is distinctly apparent during the onboarding experience, where maintaining seamless registration and login workflows can make or break customers’ satisfaction with a streaming service.

An estimated 91 percent of U.S. SVOD users rate over-the-top streamers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video good or excellent, according to a study by IAB. Meanwhile, only 78 percent can say the same for cable-driven options like Disney Freeform.

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Let’s review what separates Netflix and Amazon Prime Video from its counterpart Disney Freeform.

Netflix offers the easiest onboarding experience, allowing customers to signup and login on any device with just an email and a unique password.

Amazon Prime Video boasts similarly simple signup and login processes. However, users must navigate two-step verification, which requires them to access a second device.

Then there’s Disney Freeform, a relatively new entrant to the SVOD marketplace. This service lets customers access some content without creating an account or logging in. That said, those who wish to view newer video or resume episodes they started previously must do both, and enter their cable subscription details.

While all three of these streaming services see significant traffic, data shows that consumers hold the former two in higher regard than the latter due, in part, to the onboarding experience.

Netflix alone serves 51 percent of U.S. SVOD customers, more than all of the other available services combined. Newer ventures intending to keep pace with the streaming giant and lay the groundwork for similar success must develop and deploy sleek signup and login interfaces that minimize friction.

Here are five ways that newer SVOD services can keep up with Netflix:

1. Facilitate as few registration and sign-in steps as possible while keeping user data safe.
2. Clearly communicate instructions and information required at every step.
3. Divide the registration process into several steps, especially if users are required to input cable subscription details.
4. Embrace intuitive registration and login designs.
5. Test to quickly and accurately to understand what works and what does not.

With these strategies, newcomers to the SVOD space can meet high user experience standards centered on registration and login workflows, and distinguish themselves among the some 200 companies in the arena.

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