What Is Digital Adoption and How Can It Help Your Business Grow?

Many businesses that don't see the business outcomes they expected usually blame it on their marketing strategy, or the product itself.

Only a few companies are aware of the fact that digital tools require a comprehensive digital adoption process, and the end-users need to get onboard with all the tools in order to fully use it.

Interestingly, some people think that spending money on a digital adoption platform is usually unnecessary for successful adoption, and they try to build an in-house digital adoption plan.

I can guarantee you that won't be efficient.

And I have proof.

So today, I will be going into detail about:

• What digital adoption is,
• Why Digital Software adoption is key to business growth,
• And what tools you can use to create a digital adoption strategy with minimum money and effort.

So, let's begin with:

What Is Digital Adoption?

The process of learning how to use new technology to its full potential is known as digital adoption. During the implementation phase, a firm enables the widespread usage of new technology by its personnel or clients through onboarding and digital tools.

During a digital transformation process, a company could adopt new digital technology or switch from one to another. In order to have a smooth transition, the end users - the employees and customers - must be open to new technology adoption, and your job is to provide them the right training materials.

Implementing a successful digital transformation strategy increases employee engagement, driving employee performance and reducing employee turnover. You will have provided them the training content through which they will overcome digital adoption challenges.

But digital adoption challenges are not only limited to employees. 

Your customers need to fully understand the functionality of your product to have a great customer experience.

You are responsible for providing a customer journey that cleanses all the hardships and complexities of your business software out of the way.

"How do you even know?" you might ask.

Let's take a look at the development of this process to understand it better:

The Development of Digital Adoption Over The Years

Digital adoption has been around for quite a while, since technical knowledge has never been something that everyone has.

During that time, getting enterprise, IT solutions was getting more and more popular.

That's why the need for digital adoption software became a #1 priority for most tech companies.

Eliminating the need for staff time for product onboarding, enterprises began to seek potential approaches to the problem.

In 2019, Gartner formally recognized Digital Adoption Solution as a category, with many big companies embracing Digital Adoption Solution to tackle their user adoption difficulties.

Why Is Digital Adoption Key to Your Business's Growth

What would happen if you tried to teach every single end user and employee how to use each of those tools in person?

You do the math.

Adopting a DAP solution allows you to:

• Decrease time to value for new customers by helping them reach their “aha” moment faster.
• Increase overall efficiency.
• Ensure partner companies are familiar with the full benefits of implementing your product.
• Stay up to date within your industry.
• Decrease technology-related frustration for employees and customers.
• Decrease the need for internal technical support teams, reduce support tickets, and empower your employees to be technology experts.

Another reason why Digital Adoption is a great way to achieve success is the fact that it's one of the easiest processes to create and maintain.

Here is what you need to do in six steps:

1. Ensure Appropriate Leadership Support
2. Address Resistance to Change
3. Incentivize Change
4. Take A Holistic Approach
5. Utilize Smart Onboarding
6. Be Flexible and Experimental

Let us focus on the most important step on this list, the 5th step:

The importance of User Onboarding in digital adoption

From the customers' perspective:

• 80% of end-users delete an app when they can't figure out how to use it instead of looking for help.
• 86% of customers will pay more for a better customer experience.
• 40% of users prefer self-service over human contact.
• User Onboarding and digital adoption tools are affordable, and there is a huge variety of solutions that you can adopt according to your needs. That's why 60% of companies use at least 4-6 tools for customer onboarding.
• 86% of people say they’d be more likely to stay loyal to a business that invests in onboarding content that welcomes and educates them after they’ve bought.

From the employees' perspective:

• Employees who experience positive and well-designed onboarding are 18x more likely to feel committed to their company.
•  Employee onboarding can increase retention by 25% and improve performance by 11%.
• 88% of employees suggest that there is too much to improve in their companies’ employee onboarding processes.
• Around 10% of employees resigned from a company because of their inadequate onboarding experience.

Top Digital Adoption Solutions You Can Use in 2022

Here I have the most popular four digital adoption platform software for you to turn digital processes into a piece of cake.

Let's begin with:

Appcues

Appcues is a user onboarding platform that helps you create interactive user onboarding experiences, and is a company that’s one of the first to do it.

Appcues was founded in 2013, and back then, digital adoption efforts were mostly towards human education and in-person training sessions.

Being one of the first no-code digital adoption tools, Appcues has a lot to offer alongside employee learning or customer training.

Appcues is also the first tool that offers onboarding checklists and tooltips, which are now an inseparable part of every digital technology adoption process.

Customers of Appcues generally believe the platform to be effective and beneficial. However, users frequently say that the product is excessively pricey, or that the implementation and UI are too complicated for non-technical users.

Appcues Pricing:

• The Essentials Package starts at $249/month when billed annually with 2500 MAU.
• The Growth Package starts at $879/month when billed annually, again at 2500 MAU.
• The Enterprise Package Custom quotation upon request.

Userflow

Userflow lets your whole team build customized in-app tours, checklists, and surveys, without code.

Here is the full list of Userflow's features:

• Interactive walkthroughs
• Checklists
• Tooltips and hotspots
• And NPS surveys.

There are many advantages that separate Userflow from its competitors, such as the ability to track each end-user's activity independently or the ability to adapt the tool to complicated UIs.

The tool is also easy to use, and won't waste your digital transformation efforts.

Usually, with such platforms, you should use their browser extension and create your adoption flows on-site.

What makes Userflow unique is the fact that you can create modals and tooltips within the tool without opening the target page. You still have to use their chrome extension to place the tooltips in the desired places, though.

Userflow Pricing:

• Free 14-day trial (no credit card required)
• Startup plan: $200/month when billed annually, includes unlimited flows, 1 checklist, and 3,000 MAU
• Pro plan: $600/month when billed annually, includes unlimited flows, surveys and NPS, and 10,000 MAU
• Enterprise plan: Custom quotation upon request.

UserGuiding

UserGuiding is another no-code user onboarding software that helps you provide better in-app experiences.

UserGuiding is one of the simplest DAP solutions on the market.

Let me give you the full list of features as well, before I get into detail:

• Interactive walkthroughs
• Checklists
• Tooltips and Hotspots
• In-app messages
• Help centers
• Resource centers
• NPS surveys

UserGuiding allows you to create in-app resource centers, and also has integrations with Zendesk and such knowledge management tools. This gives you the ability to create even more engaging content for your customers and employees, increasing end-user adoption rates.

It's not only the value that makes UserGuiding more likable than others; it's also their pricing:

UserGuiding Pricing:

• 14-day free trial (no credit card required)
• Basic Plan: $82/month when billed annually for up to 2,500 MAU
• Professional Plan: $333/month when billed annually for up to 20,000 MAU with unlimited guides
• Enterprise plan: Custom quotation upon request.

UserPilot

Userpilot is a SaaS product that helps you create in-product experiences for your customers.

 Here are Userpilot's key features:

• Interactive Walkthroughs
• Tooltips
• Checklists
• Resource Centers
• NPS surveys

While the key features of the tool are pretty similar to other similar software, UserPilot gained popularity thanks to their on-point marketing strategies.

Most users agree that UserPilot doesn't offer the customizability that other tools do, and the prices are high, but their customer service deserves praise.

UserPilot Pricing:

• 14-day free trial (no credit card required)
• Growth Plan: $249/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
• Enterprise Plan: $749/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU

Conclusion

I hope that we're now on the same page about digital processes not being as tough or useless as they might seem to some people.

Technologies change, and the way we use technology also changes.

Benefiting from a digital adoption solution is one of the best ways you can drive user engagement and drastically increase conversion rates...

...As long as you use the tools and your budget wisely.

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