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Perspectives


THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOFTWARE EXPERIENCE GAP—AND WHY YOU NEED TO CLOSE IT

By Sara Estes
4m read
Published Oct 26, 2021
Tags:
In-App Guides Product Analytics

Think about the last time you interacted with your bank. Or your insurance
company. Or your coworkers. You likely pulled out your phone or laptop, opened a
mobile or web app, and got to work. But what happened after you logged in? Did
you get stuck? Was the user interface (UI) confusing? Did you decide to give up
entirely?

Whether the primary users are external customers or internal employees (or
both), every company relies on software to drive its business forward. And when
that software works, it really works. When it doesn’t, well, that’s a different
story. 

As software replaces more in-person activities and enhances more workflows,
oftentimes a disconnect in that experience arises. At Pendo, we call it the
software experience gap.


WHAT IS THE SOFTWARE EXPERIENCE GAP?

At its core, the software experience gap is the difference between what users
expect from a product and what they actually experience. Especially as social
media and other consumer-facing platforms have evolved to offer sleek and
intuitive interfaces, users have come to expect the software they use for work
to be just as easy to navigate. Can you blame them?

The software experience gap comes into play when the simple, efficient products
of users’ dreams turn out to be clunky, confusing, and frustrating. And when you
consider that the average enterprise maintains 288 SaaS applications, the scale
of the problem becomes alarmingly clear. Because software is integral to the
customer (and employee) experience, it has a direct impact on business outcomes
like retention, product adoption, productivity, and customer loyalty.

Here’s the good news: There’s a way to close your software experience gap. And
when you do, your customers get more value, your employees adopt and use
software more effectively, and you’re able to drive down onboarding, training,
support, and software costs.


HOW TO CLOSE YOUR SOFTWARE EXPERIENCE GAP

The first step to closing the software experience gap is to recognize that your
software experience is something you can control—you just need the right methods
for doing so. We’ve split the process for closing the gap into two parts.

Part 1: Understand how people use your software

You can’t improve users’ experience with your software if you don’t know how
they’re using it. Product analytics can help shed light on where users are
getting stuck or dropping off, which features they use the most (and the least),
and which behaviors correlate with positive outcomes like retention and customer
satisfaction (e.g. NPS Promoters). This means you’re able to take the guesswork
out of improving the user experience and base iteration on immediate,
data-informed insights.

Complementary to this quantitative data is qualitative data, which you should
collect in the form of customer feedback. Use in-app guides to solicit feedback
while users are in the product, when their experience and opinions will be top
of mind. It’s also useful to create an always-on place in your app for users to
submit feedback whenever they have it.

Part 2: Guide users to success

All of the product usage and feedback data you collected means nothing if you
don’t act on it. Rather than blasting customers (or employees) with emails that
will likely go unread or relying on standing meetings or training sessions,
closing the software experience gap requires a more strategic approach.

The best way to reach users effectively is to provide resources and guidance
within the application itself, using the product as your communication channel. 

Create in-app guides that walk users through key workflows (e.g. those you
identified as correlating with higher retention) and direct users to features
you know they will find value in. You can also bring your entire onboarding
experience in-app, leveraging guides to welcome new users, familiarize them with
the UI, and point them in the right direction as they get started. For a less
intrusive form of in-app support, utilize tooltips to preemptively mitigate
confusion or answer common questions—for example, if certain product areas or
features keep coming up on support calls.

Bonus: Measure, iterate, and repeat

Once you’ve built in-app guides, your attention should once again turn to the
data. Track the performance of your guides to understand how (or if) they’re
affecting user behaviors. Are users getting to the end of your walkthrough? Are
they interacting with the tooltips you created? Are they adopting your
high-value features? This way, you can adjust your in-app guides as needed to
ensure they’re adding to—not detracting from—the product experience.

Although closing your software experience gap doesn’t happen overnight, small
changes can make a big difference. Look to your product data for tweaks you can
make immediately, iterations you can plan for future release cycles, and even
long-term shifts to your product strategy. You’d be surprised by how much you
can learn from what users are already telling you, just in how they utilize your
software today.

Learn more about Pendo





YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Perspectives –– 1m read

WHY PRODUCT ANALYTICS ISN’T JUST FOR PRODUCT TEAMS ANYMORE


Perspectives –– 3m read

WHY DIGITAL EXPERIENCES MATTER, NO MATTER WHAT YOU MAKE OR SELL


Perspectives –– 2m read

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR PRODUCT EXPERIENCE SOFTWARE




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