Telecom onboarding has a reputation problem. Most people would never use the word “delightful” to describe activating a SIM, setting up roaming, or understanding their first bill. Compare that to SaaS. You sign up, click around for five minutes, and suddenly you feel productive. You know where to go, what to do next, and why the product matters.

That gap is not accidental. SaaS companies obsess over onboarding. Telecom companies mostly tolerate it.

The good news is that telecom does not need to reinvent the wheel. SaaS has already done the hard thinking. If telecom operators, MVNOs, and even eSIM providers borrowed just a few onboarding principles from SaaS, customer satisfaction would rise, support costs would drop, and churn would slow down.

Let’s break down what telecom can realistically learn and apply.

First, SaaS treats onboarding as part of the product, not a step before it. In telecom, onboarding is often seen as paperwork, setup, compliance, activation, and then the “real service” begins. In SaaS, onboarding is the product experience. It is designed, tested, iterated, and owned by product teams.

Think about a typical SaaS signup. The moment you log in, the product guides you. It highlights what matters first. It hides complexity until you need it. It gives you a sense of progress. Telecom onboarding usually does the opposite. It throws everything at the user at once. Tariffs, fair use policies, APNs, roaming zones, add-ons, PINs, PUKs, and long PDFs no one reads.

The lesson here is simple. If onboarding feels confusing, the product feels broken. Telecom companies should stop treating onboarding as an operational checklist and start treating it as a core product feature.

Second, SaaS focuses on the first success moment, not full understanding. SaaS teams talk a lot about “time to value.” How quickly can a user experience something useful? Not understand everything, just get one meaningful win.

Telecom onboarding usually aims for full understanding upfront. Read all terms. Confirm all details. Choose all options. This is overwhelming and unnecessary. Most customers do not need to understand telecom. They need one thing to work.

For a mobile customer, the first success moment is not understanding their plan. It is sending a message, loading a webpage, or seeing signal bars appear. For an eSIM user, it is installing the profile and seeing data work instantly. SaaS would never block that moment behind ten explanations.

Telecom companies should design onboarding around achieving that first success as fast as possible. Everything else can come later.

Third, SaaS explains things when they matter, not before. One of the key strengths of SaaS onboarding is its provision of contextual education. You do not get a manual upfront. You get small explanations exactly when you need them.

Telecom loves upfront explanations. Long welcome emails. Long SMS messages. Long PDFs. Long-term conditions. The customer is expected to absorb all of this before using the service. In reality, they absorb almost none of it.

Imagine if telecom onboarding worked like SaaS. You do not explain roaming policies until the user crosses a border. You do not explain data throttling until the user approaches their limit. You do not explain add-ons until the user needs more.

This shift alone would dramatically reduce confusion and support tickets. SaaS understands that information has value only when it is timely.

Fourth, SaaS assumes users are busy and impatient. Telecom often designs onboarding as if customers have time, patience, and a strong interest in telecom details. They do not.

SaaS companies assume users want to get in and get out. That is why onboarding flows are short, focused, and optional where possible. Tooltips replace manuals. Checklists replace long explanations. Progress bars replace uncertainty.

Telecom onboarding often feels like an obstacle course. Miss one step and nothing works. Enter one wrong detail and you are stuck. This creates anxiety, especially for travelers, first-time users, or less technical customers.

The SaaS mindset is forgiving. If something goes wrong, it explains why and how to fix it. Telecom often responds with silence or generic error messages.

Fifth, SaaS uses onboarding to build confidence, not just functionality. Great SaaS onboarding makes users feel smart. Even when the product is complex, the user feels guided and capable.

Telecom onboarding often does the opposite. Customers feel unsure. They wonder if they did something wrong. They worry about hidden charges, roaming surprises, or misconfigured settings.

This is where tone matters. SaaS onboarding copy is friendly, reassuring, and human. Telecom copy is often formal, legal, and defensive. It is written to protect the company, not to help the user.

Changing tone does not require regulatory changes. It requires empathy. Explaining things like you would to a friend instead of a lawyer makes a measurable difference.

Sixth, SaaS measures onboarding performance relentlessly. SaaS companies track where users drop off, where they get stuck, and where they succeed. Onboarding is continuously optimized.

Telecom onboarding is rarely treated as a measurable funnel. Activation rates are tracked, but emotional friction is not. Confusion, hesitation, and anxiety are invisible in most telecom dashboards.

SaaS teams ask questions like “Where do users abandon onboarding?” Telecom should ask the same. Is it during identity verification? Plan selection? Activation? Roaming setup? Each drop-off point is a signal.

Without measurement, onboarding never improves. SaaS learned this early. Telecom is still catching up.

Seventh, SaaS personalizes onboarding by use case. SaaS rarely treats all users the same. A freelancer sees a different onboarding flow than an enterprise admin. A marketer sees different tips than a developer.

Telecom onboarding is mostly one-size-fits-all. A tourist, a business traveler, a remote worker, and a local user often get the same explanations and steps.

This is a missed opportunity. A traveler does not need deep billing explanations. A business user does not need tourist roaming tips. Personalization does not have to be complex. Even simple branching makes onboarding feel smarter.

SaaS shows that relevance beats completeness every time.

Finally, SaaS understands that onboarding never really ends. Onboarding is not a single moment. It continues as users discover new features, upgrade plans, or change behavior.

Telecom treats onboarding as finished once activation succeeds. After that, communication is mostly transactional. Bills, alerts, warnings. Very little education or guidance.

This is why customers feel lost months later when something changes. New roaming rules. New fair use limits. New services. SaaS would introduce these gradually, with in-product education and clear messaging.

Telecom can do the same.

The big takeaway is this. SaaS onboarding works because it is built around humans, not systems. Telecom onboarding is often built around internal processes, regulations, and legacy constraints.

Telecom does not need to become SaaS. But it does need to think like one. Design onboarding as part of the experience. Focus on the first success. Explain things when they matter. Use human language. Measure friction. Personalize where possible.

If telecom companies adopted even half of the SaaS onboarding principles, the industry would feel very different to customers. Less confusing. Less stressful. More trustworthy.

And in an industry where churn is high and differentiation is hard, that kind of onboarding is not just a nice-to-have. It is a competitive advantage hiding in plain sight.