Best SaaS User Adoption Strategies for 2021

There are lots of SaaS products for all kinds of business and industries. Every SaaS product is designed for a defined goal. Hence, one has to differentiate and adopt the right one for his requirements.

Getting a SaaS user to adopt a product is a tough process and companies pamper customers as if they are royals, even for a starter plan. The hallmark of a successful SaaS product is a great user adoption strategy that will help achieve that level of adoption with the users.

All major companies tend to focus time and effort on product adoption to move their users along the pathway from basic conversion to becoming regular, loyal users to create a base of customers that believe in the value of what the company produces. When the end-users get substantial value from a product instantly, it easily becomes a part of the organizations’ day-to-day activities and also cuts down the negative probability of them switching to a near competition

Acquiring users is the first step. Real success comes from making sure those users fully adopt the product. For an organization focused on product-led growth (PLG), continuous up-gradation of user adoption tactics is required to help the SaaS business, and product, go from strength to strength. User adoption strategies bind the business, preventing all types of churn and building the in-demand retention KPIs

. The following strategies help to create a user adoption strategy that works and helps in increasing user adoption-

Convincing top-level executives to buy-in for use- The first step is surely getting top- level client executives on board during the purchase process. Step two, to be minutely focused, is getting these leaders to support their IT department. Parallely, this can be expanded by promoting users across the organization. It is important to support and convince the client IT department to gain the executive buy-ins, not only for purchase but for use too. An executive’s scope of promotion has always been a great indicator of the success of a product. Therefore, many SaaS companies are focusing on redefining their content strategies around supporting the IT department with requisite resources and tools to stay engaged with their user teams.

Clear, Concise, and Easy Communications-Clear communication makes your client users feel comfortable. The importance of adopting a SaaS user model should be highlighted to them. Aside from this, the process should be made super simpler by breaking it down into sub-points. Also, timely meetings and discussions should be done with the user members about their issues, and challenges, if any. Support the team to take ownership in adoption by asking for feedback on the layout and process. 

Build Products first for the cloud – Cloud-first products almost always succeed since the products intend to alleviate end-user pain points. This facilitates easy adoption since the products are super easy to use. Additionally, this can be done with or without the help of IT teams as well. If rebuilding the product from scratch is difficult, it is preferable to invest in customer research to deeply understand end-user challenges. Once done, the marketing efforts can be leveraged to be specific about how these challenges are to be addressed.

Flexible, Accessible Training for all-Schedule training monthly, quarterly, or annually instead of being a ‘one-time thing’ by including even new employees. Regular training will ensure that the new ones are looked after well as well as help the experienced users, also. Key people have to be appointed at each location who ‘run point’ on the onboarding process while online collaboration tools to do training sessions and sharing information are used.

Review of Sales strategy – It is vital to revisit your sales process to ensure that the right expectations are set up. It is a known fact that low product adoption is usually a key indicator of churn. Ensure and confirm that the businesses’ need and expected value specified by the customer during the buying process is documented.

Share that with anyone focused on driving success at that account after the sale is complete. Apart from just documenting their need and expected value, it is preferable to define the deployment and customer success plan during the later stages of the sale so that customers and anyone supporting them can start the implementation immediately post-sale.

Provide Full Support to users –Strive to support the users to get their much-needed requirements from the software. For example, creating meaningful and actionable dashboards for each important user as well as assisting them with technical implementations too. This process may need co-ordination of shop personnel, maintenance, IT staff, or simply troubleshooting when things get stuck up.

Survey how self-sufficient and technical proficiency the users are and streamline your answers. Try to avoid frustrated users that lack timely support and eventually churn away from you.

Conclusion & Summary for the Best SaaS adoption strategies 2021-

By Implementing these six product adoption strategies the level of SaaS user adoption will surely boost up. These tips are expected to enhance the user experience and be a catalyst to promote the product and its features. The target for achievement has to be defined and tools used that support that goal.

Companies with high user adoption numbers have higher marketing ROI and lower marketing costs. Overall, the gain for the company will be increased revenue in the long run. The whole company should be aligned and motivated towards driving product usage at the client end. This is a crucial aspect of retention because it’s in the best interest of everyone in the company.