In-App Guidance: Pointing Users In the Right Direction at the Right Time

Product tours, product guides, product walkthroughs—whatever you want to call it, in-app guidance makes your product better. It removes friction from the user journey and enables your users to find what they’re looking for with ease. It pre-empts issues and provides contextual guidance. Consider it the signpost at a crossroads.

At a time when things could go awry, in-app guidance steps in and saves the day. Today, we’re looking at why it’s important and how you should approach it. Read on to find out what in-app guidance applied the right way can do for your product.

In-app guidance not only enhances user experience but also boosts user proficiency and self-serviceability. It empowers users to perform tasks and resolve issues without needing assistance from IT or support teams. This self-help model fosters an environment where users learn independently, leading to more proactive, efficient employees and customers who feel self-empowered.

In-app guidance consists of providing users with the support that enables them to use your product as seamlessly as possible. It includes product tours, tooltips, onboarding checklists, and self-serve support options you give to users throughout their journey. While the ultimate goal is to create intuitive products, users will inevitably run into friction when using your SaaS solution. Providing contextual help through in-app guidance ensures that users are able to overcome issues and continue using your product.

Moreover, this guidance plays a pivotal role in driving users to faster realization of a product’s full capabilities, effectively reducing the time-to-value. By offering onboarding experiences contextual to the specific use cases of different types of users, you enhance the onboarding journey.

• Reduced Time-to-Value: By directing users to key moments swiftly, they achieve their goals faster.

• Customized User Experience: Tailoring experiences based on user needs ensures that each user receives the right information at the right time.

• Continuous Engagement: With frictionless support, users stay engaged and are more likely to maximize their use of the product.

In-app guidance is not just about aiding users; it's about strategically guiding them toward success, ensuring they can fully harness the potential of your solution from day one.

Let’s consider the following scenario to highlight why in-app guidance is successful.

You recently started using a new invoicing solution and—until now—everything’s been going to plan. You’re trying to view transactions from the past year but can’t seem to figure it out. You’re getting impatient. How hard could it be?

In order to find answers to your issue, you’ve got a couple of options. Which of these would you prefer when looking for a quick fix?

1. Contact customer support

2. Leave the app and look online for solutions

3. An in-app prompt directing you to the transaction history page

We know what we’d pick—and we’re not alone in that. In fact, 67% of SaaS users prefer self-serve support. In other words, your customers would be grateful if you provided them with in-product guidance when they need it the most.

By integrating in-app guidance, you take a significant load off your support representatives and IT team. With tools like self-help widgets and tooltips readily available, users can easily access the information they need without needing to contact support. This proactive approach not only enhances the user experience but also plays a crucial role in reducing the number of customer support tickets.

Ultimately, this means users can solve their own issues more efficiently, minimizing interruptions for both themselves and your support staff. As a result, your team can focus on more complex inquiries, improving overall service quality.

What makes in-app guidance so successful is that it reduces friction and improves the user experience when using new products or features. It needs to add value. Here is Jay Filiatrault, Chameleon's Head of Growth, explaining it in under 30 seconds.

When done well, in-app guidance appears before users encounter problems. This involves anticipating user problems and proactively addressing them—but we’ll have more on that shortly.

For now, let’s look at why you should care about in-app guides.

To understand the importance of engaging in-app guides, we first need to consider the user experience. 

Do users want to face scenarios like the one mentioned above, day in, day out? Probably not.

Do they want to feel like they’ve been thrown into the deep end with no floaties when using your software? Unlikely.

Do they want to go through hundreds of documents and hours of training to get to grips with your product? Certainly not.

Users want to start using your product with as little friction as possible. A strong user onboarding flow is a great start, but you never stop onboarding users.

In-app guidance is one of the ways you continue onboarding customers throughout their time using your product. And you want your users to enjoy using your product.

When users fully acclimate to the product, they know exactly how to resolve their problems and understand the product's value. This understanding fosters successful user adoption, as users are more eager to include the product in their daily routines.

That's why in-app guides are great for:

• User activation: In-app guidance helps users engage with your product to its full potential. It’s the moment when they’re engaging with the product in the way it most benefits them.

• Customer satisfaction: As we demonstrated in the earlier scenario, in-app guidance increases user satisfaction by giving customers what they need, when they need it.

• Customer retention: Happy users that understand your product are users that stick around. In an industry where MRR is everything, retaining customers and minimizing churn should be a top priority.

User engagement is a big ask when you’re one of the thousands of products vying for your users’ attention, but excellent in-app guidance helps users separate the good from the great.

In-app guidance doesn't just help users understand features; it builds confidence and ensures they can integrate the product seamlessly into their work or lifestyle. No matter where users fall on the product adoption curve, in-app guidance is key for ensuring confident product adoption.

In-app guidance fosters learning by doing through intuitive, on-the-job support that empowers users. It provides interactive, contextual tips right where users work, ensuring they receive the help they need at the exact moment of need.

By integrating step-by-step instructions directly within the application, users can seamlessly acquire new skills while remaining focused on their tasks. This approach minimizes disruption and allows for immediate problem-solving without needing to step away for external resources.

Furthermore, in-app guidance offers dynamic feedback and resources, enabling users to adapt and learn with practice. This hands-on learning style boosts retention, as users apply what they've learned in real-time scenarios. The result is a more efficient workflow and empowered users who develop their capabilities organically and effectively.

Before you begin implementing in-app guidance in your product, you want to consider a few questions.

First, consider what you want to achieve and how you’re going to measure it. It’s impossible to calculate improvement without a benchmark, so make sure you understand the current user experience.

You’ll want to identify key metrics to follow and conduct some UX research to gather qualitative data on the existing user experience. We’ll have more on both of these later.

Next up, consider who you’ll need to involve to get the job done. These teams will likely be interested and involved in implementing in-app guidance solutions:

• Research team

• Product team

• Design team

• Marketing team

• Customer Success team

• Customer Education team

That’s a lot of coordination depending on the departments at your organization. Each team brings different insights and knowledge to the project and ensuring everyone knows their role is key to successful in-app guidance.

Now, it’s time to examine the in-app guidance options available to you. Knowing that in-app guidance is a must is good, but how exactly do you provide users with contextual support?

Here are three ways you can provide in-app support to users:

1. Tours: Create flows that guide users through new products and new features.

   • Example: Loom recently launched a feature tour to introduce its AI capabilities. The tour guides users through the process of using AI to auto-transcribe recordings, create JIRA tickets, and draft communication messages—all with a simple click. This hands-on experience helps users quickly adapt to and adopt new functionalities.

2. Tooltips: Provide in-line help to unblock users when they encounter issues.

   • Example: Serpstat, a leading SEO tool, uses smart tooltips to explain industry-specific terms and metrics. This contextual help ensures users can understand complex data without interrupting their workflow, enhancing both learning and retention.

3. Launchers: Add in-app widgets that guide users through product discovery.

   • Example: Slack incorporates self-help widgets that allow users to search for help topics directly within the app. This seamless integration means users can resolve queries without navigating away from their current tasks, maintaining a smooth user experience.

You can also support users with Customer Education content, including in-app knowledge bases and help centers. While this might not be direct in-app guidance, it’s helpful for users with more complex issues.

Moreover, considering the impact of well-structured in-app guidance, several companies have seen significant improvements. For instance, by implementing interactive walkthroughs and contextual self-support, one company reduced its support tickets substantially while saving countless hours in employee training. This blend of self-reliance and immediate assistance fosters a more engaged and efficient user base, proving the undeniable value of comprehensive in-app guidance.

Using a combination of these solutions will ensure users can engage with your product satisfactorily.

Finally, consider how you’re going to turn your in-app guidance ideas into a reality. There are ample in-app engagement solutions available—the right one for you depends on your specific wants and needs.

You want an intuitive solution that offers highly-customizable in-app guidance options. Ideally, you also want your chosen solution to provide behavioral analytics, so you can understand how effective your in-app guidance is. 

Another consideration is the quality of support—some issues can’t be solved with in-app guidance and knowledge bases. Find a tool with a dedicated support team ready to help guide you through issues.

Integrating digital adoption platforms into your product strategy offers numerous benefits that significantly enhance user adoption. Let's delve into some compelling reasons why these platforms are a game-changer.

Digital adoption platforms streamline the onboarding process by delivering contextual guidance tailored to each user's needs. This approach helps users quickly reach their "aha!" moment—the instant they perceive the product's value in their personal or professional context. By shortening the time it takes to realize a product's full capabilities, users are more likely to integrate it seamlessly into their routines.

Instead of traditional methods like release notes or training sessions, digital adoption platforms offer innovative ways to engage users. Features like interactive walkthroughs and to-do lists provide an immersive experience directly within the application. This not only educates users about new features but also keeps them actively engaged, paving the way for deeper interaction with the product.

Users often forget details learned during initial product demos. Digital adoption platforms address this by enabling "learning by doing," where users receive real-time, contextual help as they navigate the software. This method ensures that users can apply what they've learned immediately, leading to better retention and mastery of the platform.

These platforms empower users to solve problems independently, bypassing the need for IT or support team interventions. By accessing self-help tools and guidance readily available within the application, users enhance their proficiency and become more effective and confident in using the software—ultimately resulting in a more empowered user base.

Successful user adoption is achieved when users fully integrate a product into their daily operations, comprehending how it resolves their issues. Digital adoption platforms facilitate this journey by perpetuating users’ understanding of the product’s value, thus encouraging regular use and integration.

Digital adoption platforms significantly lighten the workload for support and IT teams. By equipping users with self-service options like tooltips and interactive guides, the reliance on external support diminishes, leading to a notable reduction in support tickets and inquiries.

In summary, digital adoption platforms provide a robust framework for enhancing user adoption through personalized guidance, experiential learning, and efficient self-service tools. By cultivating a more engaged and proficient user base, these platforms contribute to smoother integration and sustained usage of digital products.

Effective in-app guidance anticipates and removes friction for users. In order to build the best user experience and in-app guidance possible, you’ll need to follow some key steps. Remember, in-app guidance isn't just for new users, it’s also key for supporting existing users. A combination of high-touch and low-touch onboarding is essential throughout the user journey.

Interactive walkthroughs play a crucial role in user engagement by providing real-time, step-by-step guidance that helps users master a product's features. These walkthroughs encourage users to engage with the software immediately after learning new functionalities, such as adding contacts to a CRM system. By allowing users to practice in real-time, they reinforce their understanding and promote active engagement with the product.

Let's go over four simple steps for building great in-app guidance.

When users sign up, ask them for some basic info on their roles and jobs to be done. This enables you to create and trigger in-app guides that are targeted at specific users and highlight their specific pain points and solutions.

For example, consider our previous scenario. Corporate finance managers are likely to be using an invoicing solution differently from a freelancer. They’ve got different needs, different pain points, and a different approach to how they engage with the software.

Knowing who your users are will enable you to better anticipate specific issues and friction, which then informs your in-app notification and guidance placement, timing, relevancy, and more.

Ask users for this information right from the get-go, it’s a useful audience demographic to have at your disposal.

In order to provide relevant in-app guidance to your segmented users, it’s crucial to know what each segment needs. Conducting user research enables you to get a better understanding of how different roles engage with your software, thus enabling you to identify features and functionalities that’ll be of use to them.

Remember, in-app guidance isn’t just for unblocking users—it’s also to help guide them towards solutions they weren’t aware of. You may offer a game-changing solution to a certain segment of users, but they won’t use it if they can’t find it.

Whether you conduct interviews, hold focus groups, or send out surveys, UX research is how you begin to understand your users and how you can best support them.

Once you’ve got your segments and you know your audience, it’s time to consider how you’ll support them in-product.

Tours, tooltips, and onboarding widgets all provide in-app guidance for users that ensure proactive support throughout the user journey. They provide training to both new and existing users with in-app widgets, banners, modals, and more.

Interactive walkthroughs, in particular, help users not only learn but immediately apply new skills within the product, enhancing retention and engagement.

Our Benchmark Report has shown there’s definitely a right way to do product guidance. You don’t want lengthy tours and tooltips that do more to drive users away than engage them.

Consider the following when creating in-app guidance prompts.

Tour length: The length of your product walkthroughs matters greatly for completion rates. Our Report shows that tours with three steps are most effective and achieve an impressive 72% completion rate. Adding or removing a step drops the completion rate to 45% and 42% respectively. Include six steps in your tour, and this drops to 23%—far from ideal.

Tour step length: We just discussed tour length, but now we’re looking into the tour step length—the amount of copy you want to include in your tour steps. Our research found that the ideal length for a tour step is 25 words—your copy needs to be clear and compelling to get the message across. Use plain language, and be specific and accurate. That way, users are left with little to no doubt.

Additional media: Finally, consider adding images or videos to your product tours and widgets. Images are a great way of engaging users, and videos are even better. In fact, tours with a video hold your users’ attention for 30 seconds longer than tours that don’t include videos.

The design and styling of your product tours may seem insignificant, but it’s not. Video tutorials, informational images, checklists, and more all improve the user experience and encourage users to continue their journey through your product.

Attributing improvements in any metric is really tough when it comes to in-app guidance. While it can greatly impact customer retention, satisfaction, and more—it’s really difficult to prove it. 

So leave the traditional SaaS metrics behind and turn to your users for qualitative data. You can ask precise questions that focus on the specifics of your product experience.

There are ample product surveys you can use to gather the insights you need on the in-app experience, such as CSAT, CES, NPS, and more. By altering the questions to ensure they’re feature-specific or action-specific, you can gather insights into how the user experience has improved.

For example, you can use in-app widgets to show surveys to users following an in-app guidance flow. This gets their immediate feedback on your guidance and allows you to learn from users.

You can then reflect on this information alongside your in-app guidance tool engagement analytics to consider the effectiveness of your tours, tooltips, and launchers.

Navigating digital tools in the workplace can be daunting, but in-app guidance significantly eases this process, enhancing productivity and reducing inefficiencies. Here are key scenarios where in-app guidance proves invaluable for employees:

Onboarding New Software

Bringing a new software application into your business environment requires more than a simple introductory session. Employees will need tailored onboarding experiences integrated within the application. By collaborating with software providers or utilizing solutions like digital adoption platforms, you can create comprehensive onboarding sequences for all tools in your technology suite.

Providing Self-Help Support

Questions and uncertainties can arise even after a thorough onboarding. To address this, embed a self-help widget within the application. This feature empowers employees to resolve common queries on their own, especially when simple tooltips fall short.

Managing Operational Changes

When internal processes evolve or new workflows are introduced, clear in-app guidance is essential. Whether it’s adapting to a new workflow, performing rare tasks, or transitioning to another software provider, keeping your team informed through structured in-app instructions is crucial.

Launching New Features

When new features are rolled out, it’s vital to communicate these changes effectively. Relying solely on service provider updates might not suffice, especially if you’re using custom-developed software. In such cases, deploy in-app notifications to ensure your employees are aware of and can efficiently use the latest functionalities.

Effective use of in-app guidance can transform how employees interact with software, making their work experience more intuitive and streamlined.

Tooltips are dynamic, on-demand tooltips designed to guide users through digital interfaces more effectively. Unlike conventional product tours that users often overlook, tooltips provide helpful insights exactly when needed, enhancing the overall user experience.

• Contextual Guidance: Tooltips appear when users hover over or select specific elements within a digital application. This provides immediate access to information relevant to the task at hand, reducing the need for extensive searching or guesswork.

• Field Validations: They can alert users to errors or necessary corrections in real time, minimizing mistakes and streamlining processes.

• Process Reminders: Tooltips can gently remind users of changes or important steps within a process, ensuring that they are consistently aligned with current best practices.

1. Improved Onboarding: By offering timely guidance, tooltips can drastically improve the onboarding experience for new users, allowing them to become proficient with a tool or system more quickly.

2. Increased Engagement: With information available precisely when needed, users are more likely to engage with all the features an application has to offer.

3. Reduced Frustration: As users receive immediate clarification and assistance, frustration levels decrease, leading to higher satisfaction and a better overall user experience.

By integrating tooltips into your digital applications, you cater to users’ needs intuitively, enhancing their journey and encouraging continuous interaction with your product.

Alerts and tooltips enhance in-app guidance by ensuring users navigate applications smoothly and effectively. Here's how they contribute:

1. Error Notification: Alerts promptly inform users when they encounter an error or operate a feature incorrectly. This immediate feedback helps prevent frustration and assists in troubleshooting, facilitating a more seamless user experience.

2. Feature Discovery: Tooltips can highlight new or underutilized features. By drawing attention to these areas, users are encouraged to explore and engage with the application in fuller capacities, boosting user satisfaction and feature adoption.

3. User Education: Alerts serve as educational tools, guiding users on the correct application usage. They provide step-by-step corrections and suggestions, helping users make the most of the app's capabilities without feeling overwhelmed.

4. Timely Alerts: Alerts ensure that users receive pertinent information exactly when they need it. Whether it's a system update or a critical feature change, timely alerts keep users informed, maintaining the application’s reliability and trustworthiness.

Incorporating alerts and tooltips within your application's framework enriches the user journey by offering structured guidance and minimizing the learning curve. This leads to a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, encouraging continued usage and exploration.

In-app guidance greatly improves the user experience. It reduces churn, increases adoption, and improves customer satisfaction with a customer-centric strategy.

Creating an incredible product isn’t worth much if nobody knows how to use it. In-app guidance takes their hand and shows them the ropes.

If you’re looking to provide 5-star in-app guidance that seamlessly blends with your product and branding, sign up to Chameleon for free. It’s got everything you need from an in-app guidance solution, and plenty more.