Best User Activation Tools to Increase Retention
Discover the top user activation tools to boost retention and turn new users into loyal customers with our expert guide.
Product tours are essential for SaaS products, yet their impact can vary significantly. Many companies miss out on their full potential due to ineffective design.
In this guide, we delve into best practices for creating compelling product tours that enhance user onboarding and engagement. We’ll walk you through key strategies to design interactive and informative tours and recommend some of the best software tools available for building them.
Whether you’re looking to refine your current product tour or start from scratch, this guide provides valuable insights to help you maximize the effectiveness of your onboarding experience. Ready to get started?
TL;DR
- Product tours are interactive guides in SaaS products that help users navigate features and achieve their "Aha! Moment." They boost feature adoption, engagement, and reduce customer support needs.
- Types include modals, interactive walkthroughs, tooltips, hotspots, explainer videos, and checklists.
- Top product tour software options include:
- Appcues: Great for mobile apps, offers tooltips, modals, and checklists.
- UserGuiding: Affordable, good for small SaaS, includes tours and checklists.
- WalkMe: Robust but complex, suited for large enterprises.
- Pendo: Provides deep usage insights, less focus on content creation.
- Userlane: User-friendly, best for SMBs.
- UserPilot: No-code, interactive tours with user metrics tracking.
- HelpHero: Budget-friendly, easy to use without coding.
- Chameleon: Customizable with minimal coding, supports various platforms.
What Are Product Tours?
Product tours are interactive guides designed to help users understand and navigate a SaaS product. Typically, they feature a sequence of in-app UI elements, such as modals or tooltips, that appear on the screen to offer step-by-step guidance on using various product features.
Product tours are essential for both primary onboarding—when users first log in—and secondary onboarding, as they explore new or advanced features.
Why Are Product Tours Important?
Product tours are crucial for user onboarding, and here’s how they make a difference:
Guide Users to the Aha! Moment
Product tours help users reach their "Aha! Moment," where they see the product’s value. This is crucial for product-led growth, as users are more likely to subscribe once they understand the benefits.
Foster Feature Adoption
Product tours not only reveal the product’s value but also encourage users to adopt and regularly use its features. They guide users through the product, making features part of their routine.
Boost Engagement and Satisfaction
Interactive tours keep users engaged with the app by highlighting its features. This ongoing engagement helps users achieve their goals and enhances satisfaction.
Reduce Customer Support Loads
Product tours reduce the need for customer support by addressing common questions and issues. This lets support teams focus on more complex problems or high-priority customers.
Types of Product Tours for User Onboarding
The term "product tour" encompasses various in-app experiences designed to guide users. Here’s a look at some of the most common types:
Modals
Modals are pop-up elements that appear centrally on the screen, either individually or as part of a sequence. They can be used to:
- Display welcome screens for new users to begin the onboarding process.
- Introduce and explain new features, including their benefits and usage.
- Recruit beta testers or make important announcements.
Interactive Walkthroughs
Interactive walkthroughs are guided tours, typically composed of tooltips, that help users reach key milestones or learn new features. They are called "interactive" because they prompt users to take specific actions. Users can skip or revisit stages based on their relevance, making these tours more flexible than traditional linear guides.
Tooltips
Tooltips are small, context-sensitive pop-ups that appear when users hover over or click on a feature. They can:
- Provide contextual information or guide users through specific actions.
- Include call-to-action (CTA) buttons that initiate further tours or direct users to additional resources.
Hotspots
Hotspots are visual indicators, such as highlights or arrows, that draw attention to particular features within the product. They are unobtrusive yet noticeable, and can be interactive, offering additional details when clicked or hovered over. This makes them a valuable tool for highlighting key features.
Explainer Videos
Explainer videos, embedded within modals, offer step-by-step instructions on using features or completing tasks. They are particularly useful for explaining complex processes that might be confusing through text or images alone. These videos are quick to create and consume, catering to users who prefer visual and auditory learning.
Checklists
Checklists provide a structured approach to onboarding, outlining tasks that users need to complete to achieve specific goals. They leverage the Zeigarnik effect, which states that people are motivated to complete tasks to resolve the psychological tension of unfinished business. Checklists often include gamification elements, like progress bars, to enhance motivation and engagement.
Best Practices for Creating Interactive Product Tours
Creating a great interactive product tour can make all the difference in helping users feel comfortable and confident with your product. Here’s a friendly guide to the best practices to keep in mind:
1. Personalize the Tour for Different Users
Not all users are the same! Tailor your tours based on who’s using your product, whether they’re beginners or experienced pros. Use data (like surveys or user behavior) to create personalized tours that speak directly to what each group needs.
2. Keep It Short and Sweet
Nobody likes to sit through a long, drawn-out tour. Highlight the key features that will help users succeed quickly. Stick to the essentials so users don’t get overwhelmed—less is more!
3. Let Users Skip the Tour
Sometimes, users just want to dive right in. Make sure they have the option to skip the tour if they’re feeling adventurous or already know the basics. Giving them the freedom to explore at their own pace is key.
4. Use Clear, Simple Instructions
Keep your instructions easy to understand. Tell users exactly what they need to do in a clear and friendly tone. If writing isn’t your thing, AI tools can help create engaging microcopy to make your instructions shine.
5. Make It Fun with Visuals and Rewards
Use progress bars, highlights, or checkpoints to keep users on track. You can even add a bit of fun with rewards or milestones—like little “You Did It!” moments that make users feel accomplished.
6. Get Users Involved
The more interactive, the better! Encourage users to click buttons, fill out forms, and try things out as they go. Letting them actively participate helps them learn by doing, which is a great way to make the tour stick.
7. Offer Extra Help
Once the tour is done, make sure users know where to find additional support, like help articles or tutorials. That way, they have everything they need if they run into questions later on.
8. Ask for Feedback and Keep Improving
Check in with users after the tour—how did it go? Use feedback to tweak and improve the experience. Keep an eye on engagement and feature adoption to see what’s working and where you can make things better.
9. Test and Try New Ideas
A little experimentation goes a long way. Run A/B tests to see which tour versions are most effective. This helps you figure out what really resonates with users and keeps them engaged.
10. Make Sure It’s Mobile-Friendly
If your product is used on mobile devices, make sure the tour works perfectly on smaller screens. It should be just as smooth and easy to navigate on mobile as it is on a desktop.
By following these tips, you’ll create a product tour that not only teaches users but also makes them feel welcome and excited to explore your product!
Best Examples of Effective Product Tours
It’s common for mobile apps, SaaS tools, and web portals to include intuitive onboarding flows. Here are several standout examples of great product tours:
1. Evernote
Evernote’s product tour helps users create their first note and introduces more advanced features like note organization and editing. It includes a task list that encourages users to complete specific actions, which builds a sense of accomplishment throughout the tour.
2. Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4’s product tour consists of 8 modals and tooltips that guide users through its complex interface, introducing the key reports and their features. The minimalist design and straightforward microcopy make it easy for new users to understand, while advanced users can skip the tour and jump straight in.
3. Asana
Asana’s tour begins by prompting users to create their first project, which is the core of its project management tool. The bright, branded pop-ups are clear and easy to follow, showing users how to minimize the tour and later re-enter via a beacon hotspot. This tour ensures users complete the most important actions to quickly grasp the platform’s value.
4. Canva
Canva kicks off its product tour with a short, 2-minute video before guiding users to choose a template and start designing on a blank canvas. The interactive tour concludes with instructions on how to download or share the design, making it a practical and engaging experience from start to finish.
5. Dropbox
Dropbox’s tour focuses on core functions like file uploading and sharing. It’s concise, walking users through each feature step-by-step, allowing them to interact with the product as they learn. This hands-on approach builds user confidence quickly.
The Best Product Tour Software Available
Product tour software is a user onboarding tool that enables product teams to easily create contextual, interactive onboarding experiences for SaaS products or web apps. This type of software allows you to build guided user experiences without needing any coding skills or development support.
Using product tour software can be a more efficient and practical solution compared to developing an in-house product tour, which typically requires additional budget, time, and expertise from skilled developers or product teams.
Here are some of the top SaaS tools for creating effective product tours:
- Appcues is a solid choice for mobile apps and offers features like tooltips, modals, slideouts, pins, banners, and onboarding checklists. While it lacks a resource center and its analytics are somewhat basic, Appcues stands out with its mobile app support, making it ideal for mobile-first companies.
- UserGuiding is a budget-friendly tool that’s great for smaller SaaS companies. It allows you to create product tours, onboarding checklists, and various UI elements such as tooltips, modals, and hotspots. With a resource center and sufficient analytics for personalized user flows, UserGuiding is an excellent option if you’re looking for cost-effective solutions without needing advanced analytics.
- WalkMe is a comprehensive digital adoption platform favored by large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. It offers a wide array of features and no-code content creation tools. However, due to its complexity, it may require IT support for creating and managing product tours, making it less accessible for smaller teams.
- Pendo excels in providing deep product usage insights, which helps in designing effective product tours based on user behavior. Although it offers fewer content creation and distribution features compared to some competitors, Pendo’s strength lies in its ability to analyze and understand user interactions.
- Userlane is user-friendly and tailored for small to medium-sized businesses. It provides ample content creation features for effective product tours. However, larger enterprises with more complex needs might find it lacking in flexibility and customization.
- UserPilot offers a no-code platform that facilitates the creation of interactive product tours and walkthroughs. It also tracks user engagement metrics, helping you refine and enhance the customer journey continuously.
- HelpHero enables you to build product tours and walkthroughs affordably and easily, without requiring coding or extensive design skills. It’s an excellent choice for businesses on a tighter budget that still want to deliver a quality onboarding experience.
- Chameleon provides customizable product tours and in-app surveys with minimal coding required. Its flexibility allows it to be implemented across various websites and apps using a JavaScript Snippet or Chrome extension.
These tools make creating engaging product tours simpler and more effective, helping businesses provide a seamless onboarding experience while gaining valuable insights to improve their offerings.
Conclusion
Product tours play a crucial role in user onboarding for SaaS products and web apps by providing interactive, step-by-step guidance that helps users understand and utilize the features effectively. They streamline the onboarding process, encourage feature adoption, and reduce the need for customer support, ultimately enhancing user satisfaction.
Utilizing product tour software allows teams to create engaging and personalized experiences without extensive coding or development resources.
By choosing the right tool, businesses can offer seamless onboarding experiences, improve user engagement, and gain valuable insights to continuously refine their product.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are some effective product tour examples?
Effective product tour examples include Evernote’s feature walkthroughs that guide users from creating their first note to more advanced organization, and Asana’s interactive tour that focuses on project creation. Other great examples are Canva’s brief onboarding video and Google Analytics 4’s minimalistic tooltips, which simplify complex interfaces. These examples illustrate how tailored, interactive tours can enhance user understanding and engagement.
- What tools are available for creating product tours?
There are several tools available for creating product tours, including Appcues, UserGuiding, and WalkMe. These platforms offer features like modals, tooltips, and checklists to design engaging onboarding experiences. Some tools also provide analytics and feedback functionalities to refine your product tours further.
- Are there any free product tour software options available?
Yes, there are free product tour software options available. Tools like UserGuiding offer a free plan with basic features, which can be suitable for smaller projects or startups.
- What should I consider when choosing the best product tour software?
When choosing the best product tour software, consider features such as ease of use, customization options, integration with your existing tools, and analytics capabilities. Evaluate how well the software supports your specific needs for creating engaging product tours and whether it fits within your budget.
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