Category: Product Manager

  • Unlock the Secrets of Black Friday Success with Contextual User Onboarding!

    Unlock the Secrets of Black Friday Success with Contextual User Onboarding!

    In case you thought it was too early to be talking about Black Friday sales, think again.

    This period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday is make or break for retailers, accounting for up to 40% of annual sales. With the holiday season just six weeks away, data.ai reports a staggering 22% increase in visits to mobile shopping apps as consumers eagerly research, compare prices, and hunt for discounts.

    But here’s the catch: while downloads are important, user engagement on mobile shopping apps has grown nearly twice as fast. The time users spend in these apps directly correlates to higher retail sales. As the world faces an acute shortage of software developers, retailers struggle to quickly adopt a mobile-first strategy to capitalize on this massive trend. Additionally, inflation continues to impact consumer wallets, making the upcoming holiday season even more challenging.

    To win over mobile users and maximize sales, retailers and service providers must do more than simply release a mobile app. They need a solid strategy for mobile app user onboarding and ongoing user engagement. Mobile shopping apps, in particular, are prone to high user churn, making it crucial to guide users to the “Aha moment” swiftly. This moment occurs when users experience the initial value of the app, such as finding a desired product and making a purchase—also known as “Activation.” Activation aligns with the methodology of Product Teams, ensuring the app fulfills a potential customer’s needs to be done (JTBD). Since users invest only a few minutes or even seconds before moving on, a well-designed mobile app walkthrough is essential for them to activate and return to the app repeatedly.

    When it comes to mobile app user onboarding, best practice involves designing contextual mobile app walkthroughs. Contextual mobile tooltips deliver the right information to the right user at the right time, enhancing the onboarding flow and ensuring a seamless user experience.

    Experienced retailers understand the art of maximizing customer spending by optimizing impulse buying decisions. Mobile app shopping is unique because time is of the essence, and users will quickly move on if their needs aren’t met within seconds. This is where contextual mobile in-app tooltips come into play, helping users achieve their goals and nudging them toward the next desired action, such as checkout and continued shopping.

    As mentioned earlier, software development resources are expensive and in high demand. They are also slow. To catch the wave of mobile e-commerce consumers, app developers, designers, and product managers must move faster than traditional software development sprint cycles allow. The market is evolving too rapidly for current methodologies to keep up. That’s where Contextual, a no-code SDK plug-in, becomes invaluable. It empowers product teams to create mobile app user onboarding guides, in-app tooltips, onboarding carousels, mobile app videos, and user feedback surveys through an Engagement layer, without the need for extensive coding. This preserves precious development resources, allowing them to focus on the app’s feature layer.

    Don’t miss out on the incredible opportunities presented by Black Friday and beyond. Embrace Contextual User Onboarding to supercharge your mobile app success and leave your competition in the dust!

  • Product Led Growth – App User Onboarding Strategy and Execution

    Product Led Growth – App User Onboarding Strategy and Execution

    In this Product Led Growth (PLG) webinar, we had three great speakers looking at PLG essentials:

    • David Jones, CEO of Contextual
    • Mark Hayes, Head of Growth at Plexure
    • Dennis Kibirev, Chief Growth Officer at Mesh Ai

    The webinar was packed with loads of PLG info, so contact us if you’d like to get the slides. We’ll definitely be stealing, err…borrowing some!

    In this article, we’ll focus on the section where David covers contextual onboarding and activation.

    Contextual Onboarding and Activation

    Contextual onboarding is a personalized, in-app experience that guides users through the app’s features and functionality. It’s more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective than traditional onboarding methods.

    The goal of contextual onboarding is to help users get up and running quickly and easily, so they can start using the app and experiencing its value.

    Contextual Mobile Tooltips

    Contextual mobile tooltips are a type of contextual onboarding that provides users with help and guidance at the right time. They can be used to explain features, provide instructions, or answer questions.

    Contextual mobile tooltips are a great way to increase user adoption and engagement. They can help users get up and running quickly, and they can also provide ongoing support and guidance.

    Digital Adoption Platforms

    A digital adoption platform (DAP) is a software solution that helps you create and deliver contextual onboarding experiences. DAPs offer a number of benefits, including:

    • A centralized platform for creating and managing onboarding content.
    • The ability to personalize onboarding content for each user.
    • The ability to track user progress and measure the effectiveness of your onboarding efforts.

    DAPs are a great way to automate your contextual onboarding process. They can help you create personalized, in-app experiences that will help your users get up and running quickly and easily.

    How to Enhance Contextual Mobile User Onboarding

    There are a number of ways to enhance contextual mobile user onboarding. Here are a few tips:

    • Start with the user in mind. What are their goals? What do they need to know in order to get started?
    • Keep it short and sweet. Users don’t have time to read through long manuals or watch lengthy videos. Get to the point quickly and concisely.
    • Use visuals. People are more likely to remember information that they see, so use images, videos, and other visuals to help explain your app’s features.
    • Make it interactive. Don’t just tell users what to do, show them. Use interactive elements to help them learn how to use your app.
    • Personalize the experience. The more personalized your onboarding experience is, the more effective it will be. Use triggers to deliver content that is relevant to each individual user.
    • Measure your results. Track user progress and measure the effectiveness of your onboarding efforts. This will help you identify what’s working and what’s not so you can make improvements.

    By following these tips, you can create contextual mobile user onboarding experiences that will help your users get up and running quickly and easily. This will lead to increased engagement, retention, and ultimately, success.

    Conclusion

    Contextual mobile user onboarding is a powerful tool that can help you improve the user experience of your app. By using a DAP, you can create personalized, in-app experiences that will help your users get up and running quickly and easily. This will lead to increased engagement, retention, and ultimately, success.

    Full Webinar Summary

    Once again, contact us if you’d like to see the whole webinar, attend the next one or see the slides. The full topic was: “How to Automate Product-Led Growth” – we’ll discuss what it means to be a product-led software business and provide insights into how to automate your software company’s PLG strategy:

    ✅ HOW PRODUCT LED GROWTH is transforming in 2022

    ✅ EVOLVING YOUR SOFTWARE product’s Product-Led Growth (PLG) model

    ✅ TOOLKIT TO AUTOMATE PLG: from onboarding to retention

  • 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

    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.

  • Standups, OKRs, Rituals & Cadence

    Standups, OKRs, Rituals & Cadence

    In this video, I discover that our team is the only one in the room NOT doing daily standups!

    Seriously, Richard explains the disciplines they use in a remote WFH world (Melbourne was locked down hard, hard, hard at the time of recording). So we discuss some of the challenges they have in executing on the OKRs.

     

    You can get this on Soundcloud or see all our podcast links here.

    The summary is:

    • Airwallex form “squads” that are spear-headed with Product Manager, Designer and Lead Engineer
    • There is an over-arching SME strategy.
    • Quarterly and Annual OKRs trickle down through the organisation.
    • opportunity decision trees (Teresa Torres, see Opportunity Solution Trees for Product Teams to ideate potential solutions to OKRs”
    • Triaging of solutions (see Don’t build shiny objects)
    • Monday planning meetings – where broader goals for the week within sprints are agreed
    • Daily standups (!)

    Transcript

    David: but what’s what’s your approach today: how does onesquad really work? What’s thewhat’s the way you attack things? Is it okrs? Is it JTBD? (“jobs to be done”). How do you get things into sprints etc Richard: OK, so in terms of how we make decisions and work.So quarterly OKRs are used to govern essentially the outcomes that the team is shooting towards. Those OKRs ladder to our to our SME strategy so we’ve got our SME strategy.We start with. We then develop OKRs on a quarterly basis and an annual basis thatstrategy and then what the team does is identifies the opportunities they think are best placed to move those OKRs and essentially that then eventually translates to a bunch features they (the squad) want to deliverwe then run a a fortnightly uma fortnite cadence which is essentiallyaboutwhich includes a bunch of rituals aplanning meetinga showcase it’s got uh some weeklyplanningto segment that up and and dailystand-upsokay so just ritual is that a productproduct word or is that an air will xword or is that a secretjust a ritualit’s a rich word is it maybe it’s a richword but we have these yeah we have aset of meetings that essentiallyderive that fortnightly cadence and thatfortnightly cadenceessentially when you put a bunch ofthose together um they’re constantlytrying to make progress towardsthose outcomes those akr’s that we’dagreed at the start of the quarterright right okay all right and is thereis there one of those particular ritualsthat actually really matters a lot morethan the others like which is thewhich is the one that you must keep ormust not miss orum in terms of the ones that arecritical look ii’m a really big fan ofstand up i think stand-up’s reallycritical to have that daily check-inand as part of that trying to ensurethat the team is consistentlyfocusing on the outcomes that we’retrying to deliver it’s very very easy tomy my view is that if you if you’re notdisciplined around stand upit’s very very easy to kind of graduallyveer off the path over the course of afortnight andyou have a goal at the start of thatfortnightlyum tayden so you’re like at the start ofthe fortnight you outline a goal this iswhere we want to get to in two weekstimeif you’re not reinforcing that on aday-by-day basisbasis it’s very easy to get to the endof the fortnight i’ll look back and gobooks uh i’m not where i wanted to gohow do i end up hereso i think when i you knowso much of what is done in productdevelopment is it’s about collaborationand communication and so much of itabout is just reinforcing the samemessage all the time and we can get intothis in terms ofsome of the lessons that i’ve learnedover my career but it’s very very easyforteams to veer off the path away fromoutcomes towards outputit’s very easy to veer off the path ofexperimentation uncertainty and tryingto nail down something that is certainwhich isin many cases look at this shiny thingthat i’ve builtand so trying to embed that into yourday-to-dayum check-in with the team i thinkand so we’re doing we’re doing tuesdaysand thursdays for stand-up for stand-upsyou know our team our team’s about nineandand so tuesdays and thursday afternoonswe make sure we time it so that theoffshores cancan can be involved as well too we usedto and this is areally interesting transition from acovert perspective was thatwe used to get together in a physicalspace and talk about things andjust by default we would exclude peoplethat weren’t in the time zoneand it was really bad it was reallyculturally bad to do thatso we fixed that just by us being allremoteand you know it’s improved communitycommunication a lot but tuesdays andthursdays are you saying that you’redoing every daywe do every day far out okay yeah and onon mondayon monday we plan and that includes atthe end of the planning it’s like righthang on where are all the tickets whereare we atbut then uh tuesdays to fridays there’sa stand up every dayand this would you know that that’si’ve i think i don’t think i’ve everworked in a teamthat hasn’t had a stand up every dayright so we’re lazy we should be ashameddeeplyi don’t know whether i mean we mighthave it wrong right like this who’sdoing daily stand-ups hereeverybody but me okaythat’s it team’s in troublebut uh you know so that’s that’s anessential discipline for you in thatsituation do you find people now thatyou know remote that people are kind ofdrifting off and maybe they’re justworking on something else while they’relistening to the other people talk howdo you how do you actually make surethat’s a great that’s a that’s that is aum that’s a major risk and and what youknow what people can do is they can putthe screen that they want to work on infront of the camera and be looking atthe camerawhile apparently looking at a camera anddoing work right and doing other stuffthat that’s a that’s a key issue youknow how do you get around that the onlyway to get around it is teams reallybought into the outcome they’re tryingto deliverum and where the team’s going aheadbecause when they are bored in they aregoing to be paying attention becausethey know thatum paying attention in that moment isreally important togetting you know helping the teamachieve what they want solike i think in some respectspeople’s engagement in meetings in avirtual in a virtual worldis a really good gauge of the level ofengagement your team has withwith you generally um i mean i don’tknowit’d be great if there was some way imean it’s a little bit creepy andyou know it’s invading privacy but insome respects you could actually seewhat people were doing on their screensduring meetings in a virtual environmentyou’ve got a nice measure of facebookyeah yeah it’s interesting thatsomebody’s going to solve this sort ofremoteyou know body language thing as a way ofunderstanding itit’ll probably be a snapchat a snapchatfilter or something like thatthat’ll do it

  • Product Features and the RICE Score

    Product Features and the RICE Score

    “Impactful” product features are the backbone of every product-led company. “Impact” is one of the axes of the RICE prioritisation method – we revisit this valuable approach to getting the right tasks into your sprints.

    Like most product companies, we struggle to triage and prioritize the mountain of tickets into sprints. Luckily at Contextual we can use our own product to add contextual help instead of making even more tickets for engineering.

    Your Mobile and Web Apps are competing with other apps to get your users attention. You need each of your product features help the user get their Job Done (JTBD) – this means the right features at the right time and with minimum user confusion.

    In the routine of a product-led company, user journey mapping is a crucial task in order to ensure the greatest possible user experience. As there are a lot of things to consider in user journey mapping, prioritisation helps you be more organised with your product features, and it enables your App to become more impactful.

    But, (you may ask ????,) based on what criteria should you prioritize product features? A great place to start is the RICE scoring model, a prioritization framework that shines light on the value of your ideas. It helps your user journey mapping through four factors: Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort. Together, they form the acronym: RICE.

    RICE – Grain by Grain

    A good prioritization framework can help you see your product features in a new light, so that you can make sure you’re making a good decision for your company. So, when you make time for user journey mapping, having a system that allows you to see your product clearly and objectively comes to your advantage. RICE helps you evaluate the four main areas of any project idea. 

    Reach 

    How many people can you reach with a new product feature in a given timeframe? Will they benefit from it? The score in this case is the number of people you estimate to be reached by the new feature. 

    Impact 

    The Impact score represents, as its name suggests, the estimated impact the new product feature can have on the people you reach. For instance, you could ask: ‘How much will this feature affect product adoption/conversion rates?’ Or, ‘How will the user experience benefit from this?’

     

    As Impact is hard to measure, a multiple-choice scale is usually used for estimation purposes: 

    • 3 – massive impact
    • 2 – high impact
    • 1 – medium impact
    • .5 – low impact
    • .25 – minimal impact 

    Confidence

    A product-led company is always enthusiastic about great ideas and implementing them when it comes to product features. However, to be more realistic, the RICE scoring model advises that you factor in the level of confidence you might have with product features and their releases. In the long run, this estimation will help with product adoption among your users.

     

    Percentages score Confidence, as follows:
    100% – high confidence

    80%   – medium confidence

    50 %  – low confidence

    So, how confident are you about the reach and impact of a new product feature? 

    In order to achieve your product feature’s RICE score, you have to follow the following formula: 

     

    Reach × Impact × Confidence
    ___________________________
    Effort

    Why is Effort Crucial in Prioritization?

    Effort is the denominator in the RICE equation. This factor represents the cost a product-led company pays when implementing a new product feature.

     

    To quantify Effort in this score model, you estimate it in the same manner you do with Reach, Impact, and Confidence. In this case, Effort is estimated by analyzing the work one team member can do in a month. 

     

    The highest possible Impact with the least possible Effort is desirable when it comes to product features and their releases. By minimizing the time and human resources you put into a feature release, you gain them back for other areas of your product. 

     

    Effort is the most important out of the four RICE factors, as it can make or break a good idea. If you have great Reach and Impact, but the feature you envisioned requires most of your team and a significant amount of time, it might be better to rethink the idea or to use a different approach for it.

    How to Minimize Effort?

    That’s an easy question to answer: use Contextu.al!

     

    Of course we jest – there is so many features you have to implement and those require solid development work. But Feature Announcements and Guidance – in fact all elements such as videos that deepen user engagement can be helped by using Contextual.

     

    We strive to deliver product-led growth through announcements, guides, tips regarding product features, the onboarding process, and even feedback!

     

    With Contextu.al, you wouldn’t have to worry about hard-coding, because the Effort on your part would be minimal. Your top priorities are even higher priorities for us!  Putting more effort into implementing new releases is the thing of the past with us. 

     

    As an added bonus, with Contextu.al, the Impact and Confidence are also increasing. How, you ask? With us, you can get rapid feedback and measure results in no time. This will give you and your team the confidence to implement the desired changes later by hard-coding. 

     

    If you want to make your app fly, don’t hesitate to book a demo with us today! You won’t regret it. 

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