Aha Moment

What is an aha moment?

The aha moment is the point in the customer’s journey where they experience the value of your product or service firsthand. The time taken to reach this point is also called Time to Value (TTV). 

The aha moment and TTV depend on your product but getting the combination right can be powerful in boosting conversions and retentions. 

The aha moment should happen at some point during customer onboarding to improve the chances of adoption.

Why it matters

The aha moment is important because it focuses on the value as experienced by a customer firsthand— not what was sold to them or articulated by someone else. 

In the renewal models that SaaS businesses rely on, a thoughtfully arrived at aha moment can make all the difference in your customer journey. Value realization of the right kind early on in the journey is all it can take for your customer to engage with and adopt your product. 

Best practices

• The aha moment isn’t always obvious, spend the time and effort to define it for all your customers
• Keep your Time-to-First-Value (TTFV) short: The more you ask a user to understand and learn before delivering perceptible value, the less likely it is that they’ll stick around for it. 

Minimize friction at the beginning: Products such as Airbnb do this by allowing people to explore places before logging in. In the world of SaaS, approvals, authorizations, security signoffs, etc., precede any actual tasks. Minimize friction by ticking them off your list before you begin onboarding.