From Onboarding to Advocacy: Writing for Customer Experience

Writing for customer experience is a bit like hosting a dinner: every course is an interaction, every detail shapes the experience. 

Your goal? To make guests feel welcomed, understood, and eager for what comes next. Except here, you’re not serving food — you’re serving words.

And just like a thoughtfully curated meal, writing carries your customers through a full journey. It doesn’t just inform; it guides, reassures, removes friction, and builds connection. Good writing turns the customer journey from a series of steps into an experience.

In this article, we’ll break down the four key stages of the customer journey and explore how strategic writing can shape — and improve — the customer journey.

The Customer Journey Map: Writing for Customer Experience

Customer relationships don’t begin and end with a single transaction. They’re built through repeated, meaningful touchpoints — most of which happen through writing.

To create a journey that feels clear, human, and reassuring, you need to support customers through every stage:

1. Onboarding: Help users understand the product and feel confident they made the right choice.

2. Adoption: Guide them as they explore, experiment, and integrate your product into their routine.

3. Retention: Keep delivering value, support, and clarity so usage feels effortless and rewarding.

4. Advocacy: Empower delighted customers to share their experiences and champion your brand.

Writing plays a different role in each stage — sometimes it informs, sometimes it motivates, sometimes it removes uncertainty. But when it’s intentional, consistent, and aligned with your brand voice, writing becomes the thread that connects every moment of the customer experience.

Because writing isn’t just communication — it’s relationship-building.

Writing for Onboarding

The onboarding stage begins once customers have chosen your product and are ready to take their first steps. Your job now is to help them feel confident, supported, and sure they made the right decision. This is where writing plays a critical role.

Typical onboarding touchpoints include welcome emails, getting-started guides, tooltips, tutorials, and quick-start checklists — all of which shape the user’s first impression of how easy (or difficult) your product will be.

To make onboarding smooth and frictionless, focus on clarity, simplicity, and empathy. Your writing should reduce uncertainty, lower cognitive load, and guide users toward early wins.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Step-by-step guidance: Break down tasks into simple, logical steps to minimise overwhelm and build momentum.

• Progressive disclosure: Give users only what they need to start, then reveal more detail as they grow comfortable — helping them learn without feeling overloaded.

• Thoughtful microcopy: Clear tooltips, button labels, empty states, and error messages that gently guide users and prevent confusion.

Great examples include Slack’s friendly onboarding messages and Duolingo’s motivational prompts for first-time learners — both designed to build confidence from the very first interaction.

Once users understand the basics, your next goal is to support them through the adoption stage, where they begin to explore your product more deeply.

Writing for Adoption and Engagement

At this stage, customers are already using your product and are deciding whether it should become part of their routine. Your role is to nurture that curiosity — to encourage deeper exploration and help them feel supported, even when they encounter more advanced features. The writing you use here shapes how confidently they move through this discovery phase.

Because every customer behaves differently, it’s nearly impossible to guide each person one-on-one. This is where writing becomes your most scalable tool. Through in-app messaging, tooltips, feature updates, and contextual prompts, you can guide users at the exact moments they need support.

Here’s what this could look like:

• Use concise, user-focused language: Avoid jargon and emphasise the real benefits behind your features.

• Encourage habit formation: Create small, repeatable steps that reinforce consistency and build user momentum.

• Surfacing “aha moments”: Highlight high-value features, explain why they matter, and point out moments where users experience meaningful improvement or success.

Duolingo is a great example. It encourages regular learning by presenting bite-sized lessons, sending timely nudges, and celebrating user streaks — all through purposeful, supportive writing.

Once customers are engaging with your product regularly, the next step is maintaining that engagement through the retention stage.

Writing for Retention

Even when customers use your product regularly, the habit can break easily — especially with so many competing alternatives. Your goal in the retention stage is to nurture ongoing usage by keeping customers satisfied, supported, and motivated to return.

Retention touchpoints include email campaigns, newsletters, in-app guidance, and educational content that deepens product understanding. This is also where personalisation, empathy, and genuinely helpful resources make the biggest impact.

What this could look like:

• Reinforce ongoing value: Highlight updates, improvements, and meaningful wins to remind customers why your product deserves a place in their routine.

• Personalise, where possible: Strengthen connection through tailored messages, behaviour-based recommendations, and custom nudges that feel timely and relevant.

• Proactively remove friction: Use clear troubleshooting guides, empathetic microcopy, and anticipatory in-app cues to prevent confusion before it starts.

Spotify is a great example of this. Beyond curated playlists and mood-based mixes, they offer recommendations grounded in your listening habits — making the experience feel uniquely yours.

When customers feel happy, supported, and understood, they’re far more likely to stay. From there, you can turn long-term users into active promoters in the advocacy stage.

Writing for Advocacy

At the advocacy stage, your goal is to turn satisfied customers into vocal supporters — people who leave reviews, share your product, and recommend you to others.

But advocacy can’t be forced. There’s a fine line between inviting customers to share their experience and making them feel pressured. That’s where strategic writing matters. 

If your message feels transactional, it creates resistance. If it feels empowering, it creates action.

Customers who genuinely love your product will often share it naturally with people around them. Others may show loyalty through repeat purchases instead. Both are valuable — but advocacy helps you tap into new and wider audiences through trust, not ads.

To encourage organic advocacy:

• Use positive, empowering language that makes users feel proud to share their story.

• Frame referrals and reviews as a way for them to help others, not just help your brand.

• If you offer incentives, position them as thank-yous, not transactions.

Most importantly, advocacy should feel like a natural extension of their experience with your product — not an obligation.

When your writing makes customers feel seen, valued, and appreciated, sharing your brand becomes something they want to do, not something they feel asked to.

Tips for Cohesive Customer Journey Writing

As we shared in Consistent Voice, consistency is what keeps your brand recognisable. Even when you’re writing for different stages of the customer journey, your messaging should still feel like it comes from the same voice.

Here are some actionable tips for creating a cohesive customer journey through writing:

1. Maintain a consistent voice and style across all touchpoints Your tone can adapt based on context, but your personality should remain recognisable.

2. Keep your messaging user-centric Focus on solving user problems and guiding action, not just promoting features.

3. Audit your content regularly Review touchpoints across the journey to identify gaps, inconsistencies, or outdated messaging.

4. Use storytelling to create emotional continuity A consistent narrative helps customers feel connected to your brand at every stage.

It’s also important to measure the impact of your writing so you can understand how well it supports the customer journey. Much like hosting a dinner party, you wouldn’t just serve the meal — you’d also pay attention to your guests’ reactions, feedback, and experience.

Here are a few common ways to measure impact:

• Metrics: Onboarding completion, engagement rates, referrals, and retention

• Qualitative feedback: User surveys, support tickets, and interviews

• Action: Iterate and optimise based on real behaviour and outcomes

Every piece of content in a customer journey is a chance to influence trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. But turning functional communication into a meaningful customer experience requires more than just writing — it requires strategic writing.

Anyone can write. But writing that moves people, builds relationships, and strengthens journeys takes intention, practice, and perspective.

At So She Scripted, we believe in equipping you with the clarity and skills to write with purpose.

Now that you understand how writing shapes each stage of the customer journey, we challenge you to review and audit your own content. 

And if you’d like support along the way, let’s optimise your customer journey together.