Product adoption is the key to a successful and growing SaaS product. Without it, your product will fail.
Simply put, product adoption is the process of customers discovering, purchasing, and implementing a new application into their work or lives. Many companies invest a lot of time and money into the first part of the process – the discovery.
From expensive marketing tactics to free trials, SaaS companies place a significant emphasis on the acquisition part of the customer lifecycle, but what happens after a new user converts to a paying customer is even more critical and often overlooked. If paying customers isn’t fully utilizing your software, they will cancel or not renew their subscription.
If you don’t have a solid adoption strategy in place, you’ll waste all the time and money you spent on marketing and converting a customer. According to Harvard Business Review, it costs 5 to 25 times more to acquire a new customer than keep an existing one.
Product adoption is essential for any SaaS business that is serious about gaining returning customers that love what they have to offer.
When companies focus on customer adoption, they are not merely increasing conversions; they’re developing a base of customers who know and share the value of their product.
In this guide, we’re taking a closer look at what a product adoption framework looks like for SaaS companies and how you can measure your adoption rates and best practices to improve your overall customer adoption.
Why should SaaS companies care about customer adoption?
Numerous SaaS companies with long-term goals of growth and success tend to focus time and effort on product adoption. By concentrating on adoption, SaaS companies move their users along the pathway from basic conversion to becoming regular users.
This path is essential as it creates a base of regular, loyal customers that believe in the value of what the company produces. They have complete buy-in with the company’s software and use it as part of their daily processes.
A key reason why SaaS customer adoption matters is its impact on reducing churn in the SaaS industry. By focusing on driving engagement through outcome-driven onboarding, businesses can achieve higher retention rates and increased product adoption across their user base.
What are the six stages of the product adoption process?
The typical customer lifecycle for a SaaS product has six stages:
- Awareness
- Conversion
- Purchase
- Activation
- Renewal
- Referral
SaaS products need a robust customer adoption strategy that moves users from each stage to the next. The following table summarizes the roles marketing, sales, and customer success play in each step of the process:
You must communicate in such a way that it must excite your users. There is a high chance that the information you provide might overwhelm them and discourage them from using the application.
Make your In-app announcements crisp and clear. Don’t try to dump all the information at one go. Give some breathing time and show them only what they need to know.
| Stage | Who is driving? | Desired Outcome |
| Awareness | Marketing | The potential user learns of your product |
| Conversion | Marketing | The user signs up for a free resource or trial |
| Purchase | Sales | The user purchases a subscription |
| Activation | Customer Success | The user begins implementing the software and becomes a frequent active user |
| Renewal | Customer Success | The user purchases another term (typically monthly or yearly) |
| Referral | Customer Success and Sales | The user is so pleased with the application they refer a friend or colleague. |
When people think about product adoption, they often think of the activation phase – getting someone to use your product after buying it. But, it’s helpful to picture a product adoption framework as a cycle.
All the referrals you get from the last step will entire the cycle at awareness. The cycle continues to repeat itself as you add more users.
To accelerate this cycle, you need a product adoption framework supported by tools that enable in-app guidance and user analytics. Platforms like Apty’s Digital Adoption Platform offer tailored walkthroughs, enabling users to activate faster and navigate the SaaS product lifecycle more efficiently.
The customer adoption cycle is also helpful for when you’re introducing new features. Here’s how each step could apply:
- Awareness – Users learn about your feature release and how it can solve a problem.
- Conversion – user watches a video you released about the new feature.
- Purchase – if the feature requires an upgrade, the user could make a purchase.
- Activation – user begins incorporating the feature into their routines.
- Renewal – if the feature required an upgrade, users could renew their upgraded subscription.
- Referral – the user lets other people know about the new features.
What are the benefits of product adoption?
Product adoption provides several benefits for companies. As with every business, success is dependent upon customer conversion and retention.
That makes customer adoption essential, as the result of effective adoption is that users find the product so valuable that they continue to use it.
After implementing a product adoption framework, businesses experience higher user retention, as well as lower churn.
Decreasing churn leads to regular, high revenue for the business. Churn refers to the loss of profit or users and is the antithesis of success. By utilizing customer adoption, companies can ensure they have low churn, as they effectively gain loyal customers as a result of their process.
Incorporating feature adoption tracking into your product strategy helps you understand which functionalities are driving value and which need improvement. This insight also enables teams to build a stronger customer onboarding strategy focused on outcomes instead of one-size-fits-all tutorials.
But customer adoption isn’t just about reducing churn; the right adoption strategy can also be the key to growth. As illustrated in the adoption lifecycle, if you can develop a successful product adoption framework that moves users through all six stages, your super users should start referring their friends and colleagues.
Therefore, improved adoption rates can reduce your customer acquisition costs as you reap the benefits of word-of-mouth marketing.
How do you measure product adoption?
There are several key metrics by which you can measure the effectiveness of your product adoption framework. You’ll want to assess how core features are performing, what’s most appealing to new users, and the time and value of the actions that users take with your product.
Because adoption is often influenced by how users discover and engage with the product, marketing mix modeling can help teams connect marketing activities to adoption outcomes and understand which efforts contribute most to sustained usage.
All these assessments work together to form a complete portrait of how people adopt your product — and how you can improve the experience. Before we look at metrics and benchmarks, you’ll need to define and track these key data points:
- Key action – an action providing the most value to your users, examples include running a report or completing an entry.
- Daily active users – total number of users who performed at least one key action in a day
- Weekly active users – total number of users who performed at least one key action in a week
With tools like Apty PULSE, you can dive deep into user activation metrics, process adherence, and behavioral flows to optimize every touchpoint of the product experience. This real-time insight allows product teams to measure SaaS product adoption metrics with greater accuracy and take timely action.
You can also calculate monthly active users, but for weekly or monthly users, you may want to consider raising the threshold on the number of key actions. Depending on your application, you might not consider a person who only completes one key activity, an active user.
In that case, you could define your monthly activity users as people who complete at least eight or more key activities.
Once you’ve defined and track these metrics, you can begin to measure your customer adoption success by looking at:
- Adoption rate
- Time-to-first key action
- Activation
- Time to value
Adoption Rate
There’s a lot of variety in how different consultants and experts recommend you calculate your adoption rate. In general, you’re trying to measure how successful you’ve been at onboarding and getting people to use your application.
One way to look at that is to examine the percentage of people who actually used your application in a given time period.
Adoption Rate = Active Users ÷ Subscribed Users x 100
So if you were trying to measure your adoption rate for a month where you had 75 monthly active users out of 100 subscribed users, you’d have an adoption rate of 75%.
The inactive users are the ones who are most likely to leave, so increasing your adoption rate by lowering inactive users should also reduce your churn rate.
You can also calculate adoption rates for certain features.
Feature Adoption Rate = People Who Use New Feature ÷ Active Users x 100
Time-to-first- key action
This metric refers to the time it takes a new user to start using an existing feature. It can also describe the time it takes a current user to try a new feature. The key action is whatever the user does to make this shift, e.g., completing a transaction or visiting a new feature in an app.
You can use this metric to suggest the appeal of the new feature or how quickly new users begin using core features of the product. Choose several key actions that best describe your primary goals, rather than trying to measure everything.
Your “key” actions are likely those that would provide the most value to your users; you might also measure a product’s more advanced features to see if they are worth keeping around.
Activation: Percentage of users who performed the key action for the first time
It’s also helpful to measure the number of users who took the key action compared to your total users. This metric gives you another way to look at how users respond to new features or which features are most compelling to new users.
As with the adoption rate, link this metric to a time period for more actionable data.
Time to value
As mentioned above, some features of your product provide greater value than others. Time-to-value measures the time it takes for users to obtain their desired results from a given feature.
Naturally, you want this time to be as short as possible, because adopters who derive value from your product more quickly are more likely to become regular users.
You should prioritize TTV assessments surrounding your key feature and provide a path of least resistance for your users. The shorter you can get this value to be, the more likely you are to encourage an adopter to take the next step in the user journey.
Determine your product’s core features and value opportunities, then use the above metrics to understand if you provide the best user experience in your product.
Generally, you need to measure these within a time period to obtain more specific guidance. Focus on the key actions that support your product’s user journey, then evaluate whether users are taking those actions.
What is a good adoption rate?
In general, the higher your adoption rate, the better. More people using your software means they’re seeing the value of your product and will renew the subscription. For specific metrics, consider these SaaS benchmarks from a 2019 Mixpanel study:
| Metric | Median | 90th Percentile |
| User Growth
Measured as the month-over-month growth in weekly active users. |
4% | 72% |
| Activation
Measured as a percentage of users who completed a key activity in their first week. |
17% | 65% |
What’s a good adoption rate for your product will vary depending on the industry and type of application. For example, B2B applications will have different adoption benchmarks than B2C solutions.
In the Mixpanel study, media, finance, and eCommerce applications were growing much faster than SaaS solutions, so the industry or use case your application serves could impact your customer adoption rate.
Economic and market forces could also play a role in determining your adoption rate. For example, products that enable remote work like video conferencing solutions saw rapid growth due to COVID-19.
How can you improve product adoption rates?
SaaS companies, like businesses in other industries, strategize ways to increase revenue. Improving customer adoption increases new user efficiency rates, which results in higher product revenue.
No matter the type of software a SaaS business offers, companies face roadblocks in the product adoption process, experiencing customer churn. Smart SaaS companies focus on improving product adoption by following proven, successful practices.
7 Ways to Improve Product Adoption
- Improve customer onboarding by creating awareness of the product benefits. Besides offering basic education on what the product is, what it does, and who can benefit by using it, make sure you reveal an “Aha” moment as a part of your onboarding. The “aha” moment is when users realize the value your software provides, such as how it will save them time. For more tips, check out our blog post Tips for Using Product Tours to Reveal Your Aha Moment.
- Beef up your product support. Add a live chat feature, embedded videos, and interactive guides to your in-app support. Include tooltips, on-screen messages, and in-app tutorials. Additional education and information that’s easy to access influence adoption. A frustrated customer is more likely to reject the software, so don’t let that person become frustrated. Consider product adoption software to help you with this tip, saving you time.
- Create a memorable first experience for the user. The tools mentioned above are part of this first experience tip, making it easier for them to navigate and complete tasks. Create more than one onboarding experience, targeting different types of users. Consistent visual elements, including your business logo, can also help build trust and familiarity during a user’s first interaction with your product
- Make a big deal when introducing new features. Give new feature introduction treatment similar to a new product launch, but a bit smaller version. Implement an onboarding plan for the functionality and make users interested in the new addition.
- Implement in-app marketing techniques. Your tips and notifications can improve the user experience and can act as ways to promote the product and its features. In-app announcements can be useful. Decide on what you’re trying to achieve and use tools that support that goal.
- Support in-app marketing with emails. Emails keep you in front of the customer. Use them to give information, tips, and highlights new features. Pay attention to the timing of the emails based on where the customer is in the new product adoption stages. To ensure the quality of your email list and campaign effectiveness, Form Guard helps prevent spam and invalid submissions, keeping your outreach targeted and reliable.
- Continue to use data to improve. Collect and review data on an ongoing basis. Explore indicators of problems and find out why they exist. Develop and implement new strategies to enhance product adoption.
Implementing these seven product adoption strategies will boost your level of customer adoption. Companies that have high user adoption numbers experience higher marketing ROI and lower marketing costs. Overall, the gain for your company will be increased revenue in the long run.
How a Digital Adoption Platform Improves Product and Customer Adoption
One of the easiest ways to implement these best practices for product adoption is to use a digital adoption platform or DAP.
DAPs like Apty make it easy for you to provide on-screen guidance, product tours, and guided onboarding to your users. The benefits of using a digital adoption platform with your SaaS product include:
- Faster onboarding – Replace video sessions and custom onboarding sessions with on-screen guidance so users can get started immediately.
- Lower support costs and fewer tickets – On-screen guidance enables users to solve problems on their own without opening a support ticket.
- Decreased churn and increased customer satisfaction – Since DAPs make your application easier to use, customers are happier and more likely to renew.
- Deliver better product tours – DAPs make it easier to create and segment product tours to guide users through your adoption and onboarding process.
Product Adoption Key Takeaways
If you’re looking to improve your product adoption and grow your SaaS product, remember these key points:
- SaaS customers follow a life cycle. Make sure product adoption is a priority at each stage as you move users from novice to expert.
- Track and measure key product adoption metrics so you can identify weaknesses and areas for improvement.
Leverage best practices and a digital adoption platform to boost user engagement and drive higher adoption rates.
Ready to Maximize SaaS Product Adoption?
With Apty’s AI-powered Digital Adoption Platform, you don’t just train users—you empower them to thrive. Eliminate friction, reduce churn, and accelerate time-to-value with smart, outcome-driven adoption tools built for SaaS success.
Book a personalized demo now and see how you can revolutionize your SaaS customer adoption journey.
FAQs
Walkthrough software is an essential tool for companies implementing a new enterprise application in their organization or for SaaS companies looking to improve their product.
Onboarding and supporting users of any software is a challenging task. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and if users find your software challenging to use, they might not come back.
If you’re a large company implementing new software, failed onboarding could lead to poor adoption and a loss of productivity – not to mention the wasted money on your software and training.
If you’re a SaaS product when users bail after a poor onboarding experience, you’ve lost a paying customer. If people can’t figure out how to use your software, they’re not going to keep paying for it.
Using a walkthrough software to build an interactive walkthrough can solve product adoption challenges and improve your user onboarding experience.
In this post, we’re going to examine the most frequently asked questions about walkthrough software to discover the best ways to implement interactive walkthroughs in your application. We will cover:
What is an Interactive Walkthrough?
An interactive walkthrough helps users adjust to a new program or process with on-screen guidance. Pop-up balloons to show users where to click and give instructions on what to do next. Interactive workflows are frequently used as a part of user training and onboarding.
Common types include:
- Product tours to show new users how to navigate the application,
- Process flows to help users finish tasks correctly, or
- Feature introduction to show existing users how a new feature works.
How do software walkthroughs help users?
Interactive walkthroughs can significantly improve user onboarding and adoption by making your application easier to use. The software tour is like having an experienced guide sit next to the new user and show them how to use the application.
Even the best-designed software can be difficult to master at first. A good product tour can help novice users feel like experts. Think about tax preparation software. Most people who use TurboTax or other do-it-yourself tax preparation services are not accountants. They’re not tax experts.
So how do tax novices end up completing their taxes without the help of a professional? The software makes it easy by asking a series of questions and guiding users through the process. This approach makes tax preparation simple and faster.
Essentially, the entire program is an interactive walkthrough for your taxes. While the tasks your users are completing may not be as complicated as taxes, they still reap the benefits of making their jobs easier with on-screen guidance.
What is Walkthrough Software?
Walkthrough software allows you to create interactive walkthroughs without having to code and program them yourself. They work as a layer that sits on top of any web-based application.
- Loading a javascript in the header of your application,
- Through a browser extension, or
- Via an API.
Walkthrough software typically delivers content in one of three ways:
Why do I need walkthrough software?
So, if you want to help users with on-screen guidance, you may wonder why you need to buy walkthrough software? SaaS companies often think they could just make it a part of their products. Large organizations think their IT teams can make custom-guided workflows.
Yes, you can create on-screen guidance content without walkthrough software. But should you?
Creating and maintaining guided workflows from scratch is time-consuming. A Walkthrough software enables you to design and publish content quickly – without having to deal with any limits on your internal development team.
What types of walkthrough software are available?
Most on-screen guidance solutions are a part of a growing category of SaaS providers called Digital Adoption Solutions or Digital Adoption Platforms.
These solutions are designed to help users navigate and adopt digital technology like a new HCM or ERP system or a new CRM like Salesforce. They’re also deployed by SaaS companies to improve their user experience and adoption.
Digital adoption solutions vary significantly in their features and functions. Low-end products are best suited for simple guided tours as they tend to focus only on adding pop-up bubbles. Enterprise-grade applications will include robust analytics and automation.
What features should I look for in a walkthrough software?
Since there are so many Digital Adoption applications on the market, it’s crucial to select one that best meets all your needs. Use these checklists to ensure you’re making a wise choice:
Essential Walkthrough Software Features Needed in a Digital Adoption Platform
| Features | Description |
| Audience Segmentation | Make sure the platform lets you customize your workflows, based on roles or user groups. |
| Multi-Language Support | Make sure you can deliver support content in all the languages you support. |
| Mobile Support | Some lower-end applications only allow you to create guided workflows for desktop applications. If your user base accesses your application in a mobile browser or app, make sure you can develop content for them too. |
Features #1 – Audience Segmentation
Description:
Make sure the platform lets you customize your workflows, based on roles or user groups.
Features #2 – Multi-Language Support
Description:
Make sure you can deliver support content in all the languages you support.
Features #3 – Mobile Support
Description:
Some lower-end applications only allow you to create guided workflows for desktop applications. If your user base accesses your application in a mobile browser or app, make sure you can develop content for them too.
If you’re looking for enterprise-class digital adoption tools, consider evaluating your vendors to see if their platform has these features:
Enterprise Features in Digital Adoption Platforms
| Feature | Description |
| Cross-Application Support | If you want to use guided workflows to help users complete a business process, make sure your walkthrough software works with every application users will need, to complete the process. For example, a user might need to input a deal in their CRM and then create an invoice in their accounting system. An advanced DAP would create a workflow that guides the user through both applications. |
| Automation | Automation takes your interactive walkthroughs a step further. If it’s a repetitive process, can you leverage automation to complete some or all of it? Advanced Digital Adoption Platforms will include an option for you to automate some or all of the process, so you can eliminate time-consuming steps in your workflows. |
| Advanced Analytics | An enterprise-grade solution should allow you to understand how people are engaging with your application and your workflows. |
Features #1 – Cross-Application Support
Description:
If you want to use guided workflows to help users complete a business process, make sure your walkthrough software works with every application users will need, to complete the process. For example, a user might need to input a deal in their CRM and then create an invoice in their accounting system. An advanced DAP would create a workflow that guides the user through both applications.
Features #2 – Automation
Description:
Automation takes your interactive walkthroughs a step further. If it’s a repetitive process, can you leverage automation to complete some or all of it? Advanced Digital Adoption Platforms will include an option for you to automate some or all of the process, so you can eliminate time-consuming steps in your workflows.
Features #3 – Advanced Analytics
Description:
An enterprise-grade solution should allow you to understand how people are engaging with your application and your workflows.
How easy is it to create an interactive walkthrough?
The ease of creating product tours and guided workflows will vary depending on the platform you choose. To get the maximum value out of your walkthrough software, you should prioritize ease of use for content creators.
If it’s too challenging or time-consuming to create a guided workflow, then you’ll generate less content and not deliver the best experience for your users.
Look for software that includes a code-free editor that allows you to create and publish content quickly. Apty’s editor is one of the easiest to use in the market.
How do I know what workflows to create?
Knowing what workflows to create is one of the toughest challenges. Many people know how an application is designed to work, but don’t always know how it’s being used by ordinary users.
With a traditional or legacy digital adoption solution, you just have to guess what workflows to create. You then get analytics on how users interacted with those.
‘Guess and check’ is clearly not the most efficient way to create support content. Modern Digital Adoption platforms, like Apty, follow the DAP Cycle, which helps you first identify what workflows are needed before creating the content.
The cycle has four parts:
- Setup tracking to determine how users are interacting with your application
- Analyze your usage to provide actionable insights on how and where to introduce workflows
- Create and deploy your guided workflows
- Continuously analyze and optimize your workflows to better meet users’ needs
By following the DAP cycle, you don’t waste time or money creating content users don’t need. The DAP cycle helps you quickly identify where on-screen guidance is necessary and how to best support your users.
Read More:- Digital Adoption Done the Right Way: What You Need to Know About the DAP Cycle
What best practices should I follow when creating interactive walkthroughs?
When building your interactive product tour and on-screen guidance consider adopting these best practices:
- Learn your users’ behaviors and identify their needs
As discussed above, you shouldn’t go crazy, creating tons of interactive walkthroughs without first figuring out how your users are interacting with the program, so you can build workflows best suited to their needs. - Make the Aha! moment obvious
When users start to understand the value of your application, they’ve reached the ‘Aha moment.’ Leverage interactive walkthroughs to create an onboarding experience that seamlessly guides them and allows them to discover the value of what your platform does. Remember, onboarding isn’t about telling someone why they’ll love your new application, it’s about showing them. You’ll know your product tour is a success if users think, “Wow, this is going to save me so much time,” or “this is so much easier.” - Customize each user’s experience
Not every user has the same needs – which is why it’s good to have walkthrough software that allows for user segmentation. Don’t waste someone’s time with a workflow on a feature or process they’ll never use. Create unique onboarding experiences that include product tours custom-tailored by your different user types. - Establish and track metrics to measure your success
It’s essential to measure how users are interacting with your product tours and on-screen guidance. One key metric to look at is utilization and completion. How many people initiate a workflow, and how many people complete it? If ‘not that many people’ are launching the workflow, it could mean it wasn’t needed, or the process for starting the guided tour isn’t apparent and If ‘not that many people’ are completing it, you need to identify why they’re dropping off. Is the content not relevant? Are they abandoning the process? - Remind people when they haven’t finished onboarding
If you’re using guided product tours as a part of your onboarding, hopefully, your walkthrough software allows you to track who has and has not completed the flow. Leverage that data to remind people to finish the process. Setup automated alerts that nudge people to finish their onboarding. - Break up workflows and processes into bite-sized chunks
If your workflows are 20 steps long, you should probably revisit them and your process, in general. The more straightforward and simple a process and the resulting workflows, the more likely users will complete them. - Test and revamp your on-screen guidance content as needed
Before you publish a workflow, it’s a good idea to have a small group of users test it out. You’ll also need to monitor your workflows and continue to optimize them as you learn more about your user behavior. - Onboard existing users to new features
Onboarding is for more than just new users. When you roll out new features and updates, you should create new workflows to onboard your existing users to the new features. Make sure your interactive walkthrough illustrates the value of how the new feature makes a task easier or saves them time.
Read More:- User Onboarding Best Practices Infographic
How can SaaS products use interactive walkthroughs?
Interactive walkthroughs are great for SaaS products looking to improve onboarding, product adoption, and feature utilization.
Benefits of Using Interactive Walkthroughs for SaaS Products
| Faster Onboarding | Product tours can quickly introduce new customers to the application so they can start using it immediately. |
| Better Adoption | Product adoption is one of the highest priorities for SaaS products. If people aren’t using your application, they won’t renew their subscriptions. Guided product tours make your application easier to use and more “sticky” for users. |
| Improved Feature Utilization | SaaS companies don’t want to waste time and money developing features that never get utilized. Create an interactive walkthrough to make sure that every feature gets utilized by your users. |
| Decreased Support Costs | On-screen guidance can also help your support teams. Workflows enable users to figure things out on their own and decrease the number of support tickets your team has to field. |
Faster Onboarding
Product tours can quickly introduce new customers to the application so they can start using it immediately.
Better Adoption
Product adoption is one of the highest priorities for SaaS products. If people aren’t using your application, they won’t renew their subscriptions. Guided product tours make your application easier to use and more “sticky” for users.
Improved Feature Utilization
SaaS companies don’t want to waste time and money developing features that never get utilized. Create an interactive walkthrough to make sure that every feature gets utilized by your users.
Decreased Support Costs
On-screen guidance can also help your support teams. Workflows enable users to figure things out on their own and decrease the number of support tickets your team has to field.
How can companies use walkthrough software with enterprise applications?
Software tours and on-screen guidance are excellent tools for companies that are implementing a new enterprise software solution or looking to improve their utilization of existing platforms.
Guided workflows make software easier to use and improve your overall user experience and productivity. Typical uses of on-screen guidance include:
- Training
- Onboarding, and
- End-user support.
Benefits of Using Interactive Walkthroughs with Enterprise Applications
| Faster Product Adoption | Guided workflows make applications easier to use, so employees familiarize themselves with the platform faster. Apty clients report they can fully adopt new software 2-3 times faster using Apty’s interactive walkthroughs. |
| Decreased Training and Support Costs | On-screen guidance reduces training and support costs. Users are less likely to open a support ticket when they can use the workflows to show them where to click and what to do. |
| Accelerated User Onboarding | Product tours and on-screen guidance quickly onboard new employees to your applications. With guidance from a workflow, new employees can start using your software on their first day, with no additional training. |
Faster Product Adoption
Guided workflows make applications easier to use, so employees familiarize themselves with the platform faster. Apty clients report they can fully adopt new software 2-3 times faster using Apty’s interactive walkthroughs.
Decreased Training and Support Costs
On-screen guidance reduces training and support costs. Users are less likely to open a support ticket when they can use the workflows to show them where to click and what to do.
Accelerated User Onboarding
Product tours and on-screen guidance quickly onboard new employees to your applications. With guidance from a workflow, new employees can start using your software on their first day, with no additional training.
Another benefit of using workflows as a part of your training program is that many interactive walkthrough software applications allow you to export your workflows into multiple formats.
For example, after creating a workflow in Apty, you can export it into these formats:
- Webpage
- SCORM object to use in a learning management system (LMS)
- PDF with screenshots
- PowerPoint
- Video
Exporting an Apty workflow saves the Learning and Development Teams countless hours as they can create the content once and export it into all the formats they need.
Read More:- How to Create Training and LMS Content Using the COPE Method
Conclusion: Why You Need Interactive Walkthrough Software
Interactive walkthroughs improve your user experience, production adoption, and onboarding. If you’re looking for the most productive and cost-efficient way to implement on-screen guidance, remember creating workflows from scratch is time-intensive and requires a specialized skillset.
Walkthrough software enables anyone to quickly build and deploy custom product tours with no coding knowledge. By utilizing walkthrough software, your developers and IT professionals are free to focus on other product improvements while you create an engaging and customized experience for your on-screen guidance.
Product Walkthroughs are the key to unlock the full potential of your product to the world. But many companies are guilty of not utilizing them effectively to meet their customer’s expectations.
They go with one size fits all approach and create a product tour or product demo that gives unsatisfactory results.
This creates a negative impact on the efforts that your organization is taking to succeed in the market. Making your product adoption journey difficult results in an increased churn rate and poor retention rate.
An ideal Product Walkthrough solution should be contextual, and interactive which should ultimately help to increase the product adoption rate.
We put together a guide of Product Walkthrough to answer the most common questions about walkthroughs, including:
What is Product Walkthrough?
A Product Walkthrough is also known as Product Tour. It interactively guides users to realize the value and functionality of the product. They are the means to onboard new users or empower the existing ones.
Tours help your users to stay motivated and use your product properly. A good walkthrough should be valuable to users and help them identify how a new product can satisfy their needs.
Product Walkthroughs are not a one-time thing and can be utilized to introduce new or updated essential features to your users.
You can also customize your tours so that only specific features are shown in a product tour to a specific set of users. For example, you might create a tour that highlights premium features if you’re trying to upsell a user to the next subscription tier.
However, a feature walkthrough should be limited to a few relevant steps to get started. Once the user gets hang of your product environment you can go ahead to present other features when users are ready.
Why do you need a Product Walkthrough?
When a new user starts to utilize your product they usually encounter some kind of challenge. It creates a bad product experience and as a result, a user can drop-off.
Users must remain engaged and satisfied throughout the user journey. Businesses should keep them motivated by providing great user experience. You need Product Walkthroughs because they can help you:
- Make Users take action:- A new user needs guidance and providing them with interactive in-app walkthroughs does wonder. As a user need not leave your platform to learn about your product; they can learn by doing, thanks to interactive walkthroughs.
- Achieve better Adoption rates:- The product tour help users to achieve their goals immediately with fewer touchpoints. It reduces the learning curve. This makes users adopt your product seamlessly without being dependent on anyone. Which eventually increases the product adoption rate of your application.
- Increase Retention Rate and Reduce the churn rate:- Acquiring a new customer is 5 to 25 times costlier for a business than retaining the existing one. With a software walkthrough, you can retain the user and reduce the churn-rate. Reducing churn and increasing adoption improves your bottom line.
What makes a great Product Walkthrough?
A well-designed Product Walkthrough can determine the success of your product. Here are the few aspects that make a great product tour:
- Focus on providing value:- Initially, a user wants to see the value that your product can provide. To achieve this ask a few questions upfront to know what they want to achieve with your product. Once you know that guide them to achieve those goals as soon as possible.
- Keep it meaningful:- It can be tempting to showcase all the features to your users but doing so will overwhelm the user and they could drop-off. Show users the specific features they’ll find most important within a few-touchpoints.
- Don’t confuse the user:- Don’t show too many things at once, and never jump from one task to another especially when they are very different. Doing so could overwhelm and confuse your user.
- Mention the Next steps:- Once the user completes a task let them know what next steps they have to take. This is especially important when trying to convert free trials to active users. Leverage the end of a walkthrough to push to the next action such as making a purchase.
How Product Walkthrough can be Used?
Product Walkthroughs are one of the most powerful tools that SaaS products can use to pave their path to growth. Here are a few ways you can put Product Walkthrough to use:
- ntroducing new features and updates:- In-app guidance tools have an announcement feature which helps businesses to grab the attention of the user. It lets users know about the latest update and how to make use of it.
- Better onboarding experience:- When a new user opens the application for the first time, he could be confused and could find it difficult to start. Having a product tour in place guides users from one step to the other with the help of contextual walkthroughs and tooltips.
- Training new and existing users:- Most users aren’t going to sit through video training or want to read a bunch of help articles. So providing complete training via walkthrough on their own time using in-app guidance tools makes more sense. This saves a lot of time for the user in comparison to traditional training.
- Enabling sales:- A Product Walkthrough can begin from the moment a user visits your website and a well-built site backed by dedicated hosting ensures the experience starts smoothly. Use a walkthrough to guide users through your sign up process. It is an effective way to increase the conversion rate by creating a cohesive product experience across the board. It helps businesses to convert users into customers.
The product tour as a whole is helpful to boost your key business metrics. The product team should leverage walkthroughs to drive growth.
How to choose the right product tour tool?
A product tour or walkthrough tool guides users through each step by designing onboarding flow with tools like Tooltips, Announcements (Pop-up), and on-screen guidance.
The tools and software to create this content come under the umbrella of Digital Adoption Platforms (DAP) or Digital Adoption Solutions.
Selecting the right Product Walkthrough tool can be challenging. Having a basic tool could be helpful but for a more targeted user onboarding experience you must delve deep and go with a solution that offers mobility, flexibility, and customization.
Usually, companies must go with a product tour tool which offers the following:
- Walkthrough:- Step-by-Step walkthroughs are one of the basic things. It guides users from one step to the other seamlessly. Each of these steps could be highlighted in numerous ways. The main purpose is to let a user how to complete the step and what to do next.
- Tooltips:- These are generally available right next to a field. On Hovering over the icon which is right next to the field will give users the basic information about that field. It includes information such as:-
- Why the field is important?
- Why it is mandatory?
- Multi-Language-support:- Having support in multiple languages is essential as your user could hail from any country. It helps you to acquire new users from different regions and helps you to increase your retention rate.
- In-depth Analytics:- A modern Digital adoption solution helps you to get two types of insights:-
- Application Insights:- It helps you to understand how the user is utilizing your application.
- Workflow Insights:- It helps you to understand how the user is using the deployed workflow or walkthroughs.
- Customization:- Based on the insights available from the above steps a business can design their workflow based on each user type. Audience segmentation helps you to provide a customized onboarding experience.
How to Create a Great Product Walkthrough?
Traditional Digital Adoption Platforms are not capable of creating workflows based on user behavior. Product tours in legacy systems are created by assumptions made by the product team on what they think users need.
Creating workflows by merely using “assumptions ” is not an ideal way.
On the other hand, a Modern DAP(Digital Adoption Platform) like Apty does have capabilities to create a workflow based on each user type by understanding user behavior.
With Modern Digital Adoption Platform, you follow the DAP cycle which guides you to create a relevant onboarding flow-
- Application Analysis:- Understand how the user is utilizing an application this helps you understand their pain points and the issue that they are facing.
- Design workflows:- Based on the application analysis the workflows can be designed for each user type, this way you create effective workflows that a user will use effectively without dropping-off.
- Analyze workflows:- Once the designed workflow is deployed then you can analyze how the workflow is performing and then tweak it based on the drawn insights.
- Improve the adoption:- With all the data and insights available you can automate, improve, and build upon the existing workflows and make it more interactive.
What are the Benefits of using Product Walkthrough?
- Enhanced user engagement:- The user is hooked after their first interaction because of the Product Walkthrough. They go from one step to another, accomplish one goal after the other and all this contributes to a better engagement rate.
- Improved product adoption:- One of the biggest challenges is to enable customers to use your product. If a product is not used, then a SaaS company could lose their customer.
- Effective utilization:- In the long run, better utilization of the product is of paramount importance. A well-designed product tour that helps users to complete one task at a time and makes them realize their goals at their own pace ensures better utilization of the product.
- Decreased support-ticket:- Since the in-app guidance tool has all the relevant documents, knowledgebase links, videos, and walkthroughs. It empowers users to do the tasks on their own. It reduces the user’s dependency on any kind of support. It helps the organization to save costs and utilize their resources in a much effective way.
- Decreased churn-rate:- Once the user is able to properly use the product it helps the businesses to reduce the churn-rate as the users tend to use the application more often.
- Increased ROI on training:- Digital Adoption Platform helps you to save time and money by enabling your customers to adopt your application in less time. On-screen guidance quickly shows users how your product works and guides them towards mastering it.
Here’s how Apty makes Software Training simple, better and faster.
Dos and Don’ts
Here are a few tips that you can follow to get most out of your Product Walkthrough:
- Do align your Product Walkthrough strategy with the overall organization’s strategy:- This might appear far-fetched but it is essential to align your Product Walkthrough strategy with your overall organization strategies such as product adoption strategy, training strategy, customer experience strategy, customer success strategy, and sales strategy.
- Do co-ordinate across the board to get the walkthrough right:- Since the goals of the organization are aligned it is a must to involve important stakeholders to design a consistent walkthrough.
- Do understand your users:- Understanding users by analyzing product usage is important for creating relevant workflows for your user. Having irrelevant onboarding flow in place could hurt the user experience.
- Do create customized workflows:- Customized workflows created based on the data available helps the user to achieve the “aha moment” consecutively as the experience attached to it is personalized.
- Do Ask for Feedback:- Even if you can analyze all the flaws and merit of an application, it is always better to ask for feedback from a user. A real person could help you to know where your product stands and allows you to check the efficiency of the insights drawn by the digital adoption solution.
- Don’t set and forget the onboarding flow:- As onboarding, is a continuous process and the behavior of the user is continuously changing. Keep an eye on the analytics and update the workflow regularly. This doesn’t mean that you have to it daily or weekly. You can do it on a monthly or quarterly basis but the bottom line is to maintain the workflows and keep a check on them.
- Don’t make the workflow lengthy:- You can be tempted to make a new user see all the features in one go but doing so will overwhelm them as they can barely remember such an exhaustive experience with your product. Moreover, it will impact the retention rate. The best option would be to dissect your Product Walkthrough flows and segment them in an organized manner. It will help your users to absorb your product in a much better way.
Going Forward!
A Product Walkthrough is a great means to onboard new or existing users. It enhances the user experience and increases product adoption rates.
Look for a modern digital adoption solution like Apty that helps you to deploy the walkthrough without even writing a single piece of code. It saves time for your development team, training professionals, and customer support.
Modern software walkthrough solutions are one of the most cost-efficient ways for any business to train and onboard users.
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