Category: Onboarding

The Product Knowledge Base is dead, it just hasn’t stopped moving yet

The Product Knowledge Base is dead, it just hasn’t stopped moving yet

61% prefer to just Google it

How an App’s customers search for help has rapidly changed – not merely influenced by an “instant gratification” culture (e.g chatbots) but also the user’s context (e.g inApp) and the efficacy of product knowledge bases.

A recent Salesforce Survey on customer service and support reveals shifting customer service standards amid COVID-19. The data shows that thirty percent of Americans now contact customer service more than they have in the past. Millennials have ramped up interactions the most (46%) compared to Gen-Zers (42%) and baby boomers (11%).

The Salesforce data clearly shows that online search is the preferred channel for customer support which is not entirely surprising as technology providers have financial interest in encouraging their customers to self-service support. In their quest to reduce their support costs, product knowledge bases have increasingly become the only support resource offered by providers.

The generational cohort preferences also bear out considering Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the USA’s largest living adult generation, according to population estimates from the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data available at the time this article was written.

But if you have never wondered about the general efficacy of Product Knowledge Bases then you might not be surprised to learn that you may also belong to a large cohort of users that instinctively reach for Google rather than apply their research skills to get support from knowledge base resources provided by the product they are using.

We at Contextual did wander so we ran a poll using LinkedIn’s Poll feature to find out. The first question was framed;

How often do you reach for product knowledge base?

Our follow-up survey was;

When using a Product Knowledge Base how often do you get the answer you need the first time?

On face value it would be tempting to draw the conclusion that product knowledge bases only have a 20% efficacy rate therefore 86% of users don’t use them. However there is a little more to unpick here.

What we found interesting about the results was the responses seemed to be influenced by the roles of the respondents. For example respondents answering the first survey “it’s my go to resource” 14% and “Often” 20% in the second survey were mostly involved in highly technical roles such as Software Developer, Product Manager and QA.

Respondents who answered the first survey “I just Google it” 61% and “Sometimes” 54% in the second survey also had representation from Software Developers and Product Managers but then also included Product Analysts, Senior Managers, Founders, CEO and Sales Professionals.

Respondents answering the first survey “Sometimes” 14% and The second Second survey “Rarely” 21% had similar role representations but tended to lean more towards Marketing and Managers.

What the results “go to resource” 14% and “Often” 20% results might suggest is that those who are involved in highly technical roles like Software Developers and Product Managers are more likely using advanced technical products and are better skilled at formulating questions to get the answers they need. Equally the products they use by virtue of their complexity may have better quality knowledge base resources. This theory was also reflected in the comments section of the survey post.

What might be behind the results “I just Google it” 61% and “Sometimes” 54% is that the roles in that group are more likely to be using productivity tools which are not as complex as the tools used by software developers and don’t have the same level of data quality in their knowledge base. The range of job roles in this group might also not apply the same level of rigor in their search queries as the previous group. Comments by respondents indicated that the knowledge base was their first port of call but the answers were often not available. The “I just Google it” user behavior here seems to be influenced by user experience. If users don’t get the answer they need the first time often enough they may be more likely to ditch using product knowledge base resources over time and take their chances with Google instead.

Knowledge Base is a pathway to Digital Distraction

If your users are having to leave your application to get help then you are going to risk exposing them to digital distraction. We have all been there, you pause a task to get a piece of information to support what you are doing right now and BAM! you are confronted with a myriad of distractions ranging from a new email demanding your immediate response to any number of reminders of competing priorities. Studies have shown that digital distraction has a massive impact on productivity with workers talking on average 25 minutes to fully refocus after an interruption. Bringing focus to mobile users where the digital distraction rate is higher and the screen real estate is limited so users have no option but to go outside to get help and you have an even greater challenge. If a mobile user has to leave your app to get help before they achieve Activation (In the Pirate Metrics model of Acquisition to Revenue) you be unwittingly helping them become a churn statistic.

The Future of Help is not self service

The answer to this problem is giving your users the help they need within the mobile application rather than sending them outside the app and then making them do the work i.e. search. Offering users an in-app user onboarding walkthrough. The support content can then easily be repurposed as an in-app mobile contextual tooltip or user guide. Rather than send a user to a website to get an answer, which is an awkward experience especially on a mobile app, you can offer an in-app Contextual FAQ.

Mobile User Onboarding Guide Example

This strategy provides product managers, designers and customer success professionals the opportunity to make the in-app support experience contextual so the in-app mobile tooltip or user guide provides the right answer to the right user at the right time in their user journey. The payoff is self-evident to those whose roles and success are defined by product adoption metrics.

If you are a product manager, a UX/UI designer, a growth marketer or a mobile app developer then you already know that producing a user engagement strategy with mobile in-app user guides, tours, walkthroughs or tooltips like the ones shown in these examples is no walk in the park. Without a no-code tool like Contextual you are limited to hard coding and competing for development resources dedicated to all the features in your product roadmap. You will need to incorporate Onboarding tours and Guides and mobile app walkthroughs in your sprints and App Store Google Play releases, it’s a significant increase in overhead. This is why introducing an off the shelf, no-code, “engagement layer” product is a winning strategy.

Besides allowing you to iterate much faster than a traditional software sprint, the beauty of the engagement layer is that it allows you to provide contextual onboarding, contextual tooltips and contextual guides, what this means is providing the right information to the right user at the right time.

What the survey results do is put a big question mark over the strategy of relying on a product knowledge base to service your customers.The survey results reflect what most know to be true, knowledge base resources fall well short of satisfying customer service and support needs. The future of customer support isn’t self-serve, it’s “in-app” and it’s contextual.

August 9, 2022
For mobile user onboarding. Does the world really love Android more than Apple?

Smartphone manufacturers are clearly the earliest proponents of sophisticated digital product adoption techniques like mobile user onboarding flows and product walkthroughs but how are they faring in their global battle for hearts and minds?

A report by Electronics Hub in 2021 showed that out of 142 countries, 74 prefer Android over Apple 65 with Belarus, Fiji and Peru showing a draw. The survey methodology described in the report was based on sentiment analysis of over 347,000 tweets.

What was remarkable about the survey is that North America overwhelmingly prefers Android (yep you read that right) over Apple with Android averaging 32, over Apple 19 in terms of positive sentiment. Curiously Poland emerged as the world’s number 1 Android hater with 34% of tweets averaging negative. Latvia ranked as the world’s number one Apple hater with 35% tweets about Apple averaging negative.

Whatever religious standing consumers hold over either platform the sentiment doesn’t stack up when it comes to B2B and B2B2C mobile apps. A tally of Apple and Android SDKs for three of the most popular analytics firms Segment, Amplitude and Mixpanel tell a very different story. A sample of Business and Finance apps using SDKs for the aforementioned analytics firms reveal Apple as the clear front runner with almost double the number of SDKs over Android.

Love or hate when it comes to the question of how users feel the apps they use, analytics will provide some insight however they don’t provide any tools enabling quick response to change or influence user behaviour. App developers are largely limited to hard coding which extends to any user engagement strategies like mobile app user onboarding tours, product walkthroughs, contextual mobile tooltips, in-app FAQ’s and user surveys. Darryl Goede, CEO and founder of Sparkbox knows first hand how long and painful software development can be, however being able to use a low-code user engagement platform like Contextual allows his team to quickly respond to changes in user behaviour and maintain the love of Spark Pico users

React Native shares the love!. At Contextual we are noticing emerging B2B apps are trending towards Android particularly in Asia and South America however what we are also seeing is a preference for React Native for the development of both Android and IOS business apps. This is great news for Product Teams looking to accelerate their apps across both iOS and Android platforms. The good news is Contextual provides a simple easy to implement solution for creating and targeting mobile and web application user onboarding guides and walkthroughs and in-app contextual tooltips, FAQs and user surveys across each operating system.

July 24, 2022
Mobile app user onboarding walkthrough guides ever more critical as spending on non-gaming apps overtakes games for the first time ever

Spending on Apps Overtakes Games on Apple’s Platform for the First Time Ever

A strong lead indicator that consumers are depending ever more on mobile phones to conduct their day to day lives is borne out by the latest Sensor Tower Q2 2022 Data Digest: U.S. which reports that spending on Apps Overtakes Games on Apple’s Platform for the First Time Ever.

U.S. consumer spending in non-game mobile apps “pipped” spending in mobile games for the first time ever in the second quarter of the year to $3.4 billion.

Both traditional bricks and mortar businesses and technology led firms are increasingly realizing the potential for greater customer engagement by achieving tenancy on their customers handheld devices.

However despite the massive amount of investment pouring into the development of apps achieving success it’s not as easy as just launching an app! Over 70% of new app installs are used just once and then abandoned and studies have shown that the drop off rate after a free trial period can be as high as 60%. [5 Tips on how to reduce Mobile user churn]

The apps that have survived that initial install and free trial period Gauntlet of Death and become part of the latest success numbers have achieved this by helping their users achieve Activation by shortening the time to “Initial Value” via effective mobile user onboarding strategies and maintained a path of “Realised Value” through effective in-app user engagement via ToolTips, new feature announcements, in-app FAQs and User Surveys.

Sensor Tower also reported that the preferred revenue strategy adopted by B2B and B2B2C mobile apps have also proven to have had a significant impact on these numbers.

The comparative difference between the two sectors (with $3.3 billion spent on mobile games) puts the delta in spending between the two at a mere $100M. However, the difference in comparative growth rates with gaming apps on 20% v non-game mobile apps at 40% compound annual growth rate has non-gaming apps on a trajectory to grow to almost $15B and increase the delta in spending between the two by almost $1B in 2023.

These numbers will place product teams and software developers of B2B and B2B2C mobile apps under even greater pressure as they seek to take advantage of this phenomenal growth. Apps that do not have an effective contextual mobile user onboarding walkthrough strategy will struggle to claim their share. Established mobile and web apps that do not have in-app messaging and tooltips to help guide users find new features and nudge users towards deeper engagement with existing features will lose ground to competitors.

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July 21, 2022
User Onboarding Flow: 5 Best App Practices
As product makers, we understand that users usually get overwhelmed when trying out a new app. You have a multitude of features – but the user doesn’t care, they want whatever your marketing has told them.

I saw some user onboarding research: more than 90%^** of customers believe that Apps can do better, whereas 86% are more likely to stay loyal if the user onboarding process educates and welcomes them.

Here’s when the user onboarding strategy comes in, user onboarding in your App improves user experience and increases user retention, resulting in apps gaining popularity.

What Is App User Onboarding?

It is all about the first impression. All the combined steps a user takes as soon as he opens the app, from the welcome page to the info screen represent onboarding sequences.

It is the foremost condition that determines user retention, proven to be effective in over 50% of the cases if done correctly.

You want to focus on progressive onboarding. What does it mean exactly? The MAGIC of your user engagement strategy is getting people to learn and connect with:
- Your key use-case in the onboarding process
- Secondary functions and uses downplayed to reach your primary objective
- Nudging users to go further at the perfect moment
- Contextual support when they need it
Trialler abandonment is scary for any App’s Product Manager. But we’ve seen Apps that have increased user engagement over the time – so what is the hidden secret? It’s time to walk you through some of the best UX practices!

The User Onboarding Checklist

All businesses approach the app onboarding process differently, depending on the product’s features or the target audience. Let’s take a look at the key elements that transform the onboarding experience into a successful tool for user retention.
- Focus On Your Value Proposition
Instead of prioritizing your app’s functionality, begin by discussing what the user would gain from using it. It will not only encourage people to use your app in the future, but it will also reassure them that it is functional and serves the purpose for which it was designed.
- Ask for Concise Information
Your ultimate goal is to get new users to sign up for your product. Keep the procedure as short as possible and offer them the chance to use other existing accounts to fill in the signup form, as a way of saving time. Make sure that the information required is clear and short, as it reduces the amount of friction generated by the sign-up obligation in the user onboarding process.
- Offer A Personalized Experience
By far, we know that the key step of your user engagement strategy is to personalize everything they see based on their preferences. It does not only show that you are customer-centric, but it also enhances their experience, as the content they see is tailored to their needs and choices.
- Invest in Good UX
A good design can be a game-changer for any app. When UX influences user experience, conversion lift can increase by up to 83%. Following the best UX practices, we notice that users are more likely to stick around and be engaged with your app, as visuals have a great impact on user retention.

Examples of Apps With the Best User Onboarding Flow

App onboarding directly impacts your user engagement strategy and pays off in a variety of ways.

Low churn, greater retention, and higher customer happiness are all benefits of a strong onboarding experience that helps the user grasp the product and its relevance.

Let’s take a look at the best examples out there!

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1. Slack: No distractions

We’ve written about Slack tips and guides before. Created as a messaging app between teams to help businesses communicate more effectively, Slack offers a great example of user onboarding, as it keeps it simple and without distractions. When opening the app, new users are prompted with its features and a four-step tour that portrays the app’s value-oriented onboarding strategy.

Users are encouraged to walk through the software as they try it out and actually use it. The tooltips are concise and helpful, and the tour may be stopped at any time. Slack also introduced a modal window to allow desktop alerts, as part of their onboarding flow.

Popups are used to showcase all of the most significant aspects and the onboarding procedure is simple due to the lack of hard steps. Users are not distracted by unnecessary notifications, email confirmation, or creating a password.

2. Duolingo: Increased User Engagement

Unlike many other apps out there, Duolingo does not focus on the user onboarding process from the beginning.

New users are not prompted to sign up right after opening the app, instead, they are asked to set a goal. This is a great example of JTBD and “getting out of the way”.

After deciding on a language goal, Duolingo gives new users the choice of starting from the beginning or taking a placement exam. Only at the third interface level does the experience become individualized, as the app presents several tools that users can choose from based on their preferences.

The onboarding strategy has proven to be very effective, as it focuses on the product first and only after that, users can choose to create an account. Unregistered users are restricted from accessing some features, but they can still enjoy learning a new language. The sign-up process is simple as well, it only asks for a name, email, and password.

3. Strava’s Onboarding Flow

Created as a platform site for cyclists and athletes who track their runs and rides through GPS, Strava offers one of the best and most simple mobile app onboarding (mobile user onboarding) experiences out there. The app is accessible through Facebook, Google, or e-mail. During the signup process, Strava directs you to a screen where you can connect your Facebook friends – this is key to user activation – Strava has probably figured out via analytics, surveys, user interviews that Strava is inherently social.

Strava requests permission to notify users through email about their statistics, updates, or community stories when they create a basic profile.

Then, it asks users about the sports they are practicing and asks for some data records. Strava has one of the best UX practices due to its clear and simple user interface.

4. Calm: Simple and Effective Design

We’ve compared Calm and a few other meditation apps before – since then Calm has become a “unicorn” (a startup valued at more than $1B). As an application that aims to help users reduce stress and anxiety, Calm clearly knows how to make a good first impression, by greeting them with “take a deep breath”.

Then, it familiarizes the user with the app’s features: sleep tales, breathing programs, and guided meditation.

The users are then asked to set their goals and allow push notifications, as well as create an account or link the app to an existing one. Even though an account is not mandatory, users are presented with the benefits of having one and the premium features it has to offer. The minimalistic and simple design allows users to discover the product by themselves, still providing them with simple and effective in-app tutorials.

5. Voly – fast grocery delivery service

Voly is new (in Australia) but it’s one of the new, new breed of 15minute grocery delivery startups – another is Milkrun. Readers know I’m not a huge fan of carousels because they are often just repeating what the marketing says.

However, we do think carousels can explain and emphasize business value or purpose – in this case Voly speaks to their “replace or refund guarantee” and that is important to tell users.

You can create user onboarding guides just like the big guys! Click on the buttons below to get your 14 day free trial or contact us for a demo!

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April 4, 2022
Context Marketing – The Key Elements
I was on a zoom session yesterday with John Cutler from Amplitude. The session title was “Why Product & Marketing Need to Collaborate…^**“ – it was timely given our “Context Marketing” series is suggesting Product Teams think like Marketers.

By now, Product Teams mostly accept customer centricity (via segmentation, audiences, cohorts and personas) is the new way of increasing adoption. In previous posts we’ve discussed context marketing: the elements are the small nuances that can personalize any user journey.

As users, we all want a personalized experience, don’t we?

As Product Teams, this is when (or where) context marketing should be applied. Previously, we introduced context marketing as delivering the right information to the right people at the right time. It encourages:
- more relevant help, guidance and nudges for the user’s stage of journey
- better conversion rates that fuel product-led growth
Let’s check the key elements that make context marketing critical to your App’s user Activation and Retention approach!

Element 1: Building a Contextual App

“How can I manage my customer experiences?” you may ask.

A contextual platform has some defining attributes that eventually delivers product-led growth through its engagement tools. This shifts your focus from just “writing code” to “crafting experiences” (or more specifically – “crafting user journeys”).

Here are some recommendations you should focus on to make a business case for employing an Engagement and Guidance Platform:
- Stop wasting your precious development team’s time!
- Reduce the time it takes for you to learn new things!
- Identify and measure users based on their consumer behavior throughout their journey instead of spamming them with pop-ups and announcements!
Of course you need to hardcode your App with required web and mobile releases for each change that you want to make to the FEATURES in your product.

But each Feature is discovered and mastered throughout the user’s unique JOURNEY. You can think of a Feature as a city and the journey as the road. Along a road the signposts are the contextual help.

To add these contextual signposts and contextual help to your App, there is no need to stop developing Features. The signposts can be crafted, released, changed instantly (or scheduled) from our dashboard – without writing code.

Each user journey will be unique, but you can optimise for common roads by targeting audiences in your App.

Your hardcoded platform does not have audience targeting embedded from the beginning and no default analytics to help you deliver relevant content.

Contextual one offers you point-and-click and real-time audience targeting with no-code tools and built-in guide interaction analytics.

Credit: superiorwallpapers.com

Element 2: User-centric Focus

Ditch Campaigns – Focus on Customer Journey

Marketing is initially impersonal and the more personal it gets, the better. Context is crucial for building confidence and contextualising the message increases your prospective customer’s perception of you.

Context marketing means distributing the content the right way, not just spamming it.

Moreover, some form of targeted marketing is now employed by 49% of marketers – but it’s outside the App.

So targeting is sophisticated when Acquiring users (type of ad placement, demographic targeting, geolocation, or behavioural targeting) – but once the user gets into the App there is little sophistication for personalized Customer Journey’s – this is where Contextual Marketing will grow over this decade.

Remembering Pirate Metrics in our previous post – targeted marketing occurs at the acquisition phase.

Context Marketing starts with the Activation stage and continues throughout the funnel (Retention, Referral and Revenue). It’s clear that great execution of Context Marketing is super valuable.

Element 3: Methodology

Ask yourself: What is the best way to create an awesome experience that is accessible for every client?

Let’s break down the key elements of context marketing:

Access the User’s Full Journey

Although the user onboarding process is important, getting some insights into people’s preferences – focusing on the overall user journey allows you to personalize their experience and activate certain engagement tools for the right audience.

It makes use of real-time data to enhance users’ profiles and analyze engagement or feature adoption behavior, allowing for more intelligent engagement between businesses and customers.

Customize for Contextual Engagement

Content and Help based on segmentation or App Usage

As the main purpose of context marketing is to deepen product adoption (and feature adoption), create and spread content along the journey for the purpose of engaging and retaining an audience.

Target an audience, segment, or cohort

It takes a suite of tools for a full user journey: emails, newsletters, inApp content, push notifications and customer support. All of these should converge to contextual by leveraging the specific timeframe and circumstances for the user in your product journey.

It’s near impossible for most Product Teams to customize to the exact user (like Amazon does with Product Recommendations) but the macro easier (achievable) solution is audiences/segments.

Let’s say you want to focus on a new segment of your target audience. Customer retention, product-led growth, and campaign depth are all aided by relevant help/guidance content provided to individuals: right time, in the right screen, and on whichever device they want.

Cut Through the Noise and Spam

Newsletters, promotional emails, pop-up notifications usually end up in the spam folder or being ignored by users. Yes, you still need to use them – it’s a numbers game – to hopefully get the user back in the App.

But…its easier to get the user to their “AHA” moment while they are using the App rather than trying to pull them back.

Fast No-code Tools to Engage and Educate the User

Remember that you should stop wasting developer time? Coding can become one of the toughest tasks when it comes to your business, so instead of focusing mainly on a hardcoded platform, a contextual one already has no-code tools that allow you to use marketing to your advantage and craft users’ experiences.

Analytics to Evaluate Product Features and Engagement Rate

You can’t improve what you aren’t measuring – the only way to increase conversion rates and your revenue is by measuring the impact of feature adoption and product retention based on the Contextual Marketing you serve. Setting a Goal: did a guide, a video, a tooltip increase users completing that Goal?

Then you can iterate or double-down.

Element 4: Use Contextu.al Tools ????

Our platform was designed specifically to focus on context. Besides that, we offer you some no-code tools that are easy to use and ready for you to integrate with your strategy:
- Contextual tip: Web Tooltips and Mobile Tooltips designed for feature adoption and onboarding and it helps you emphasize features or functions to your users.
- Onboarding carousel: gives your users an overview and lets them swipe through pages of pictures and text
- Announcement: gathers all the relevant announcements and pop-ups in one place and can be used for welcoming messages or feature updates
- InApp Video: creates a more interactive experience by showing users a video from YouTube or any other source
- Survey: enhances your feedback strategy and lets you get valuable insights from your users.
Contextu.al understands your consumers’ needs and helps you display only relevant material based on their user journey. By making product adoption simpler and faster, we help your business grow without writing code.

You can book a demo with us today!

^* Banner image credit: freepix.com
^** Full Name: “Why Product & Marketing Need to Collaborate to Create Digital Experiences”
March 31, 2022