How UserTesting drives adoption and customer satisfaction with Pendo

UserTesting at a glance
UserTesting is fundamentally changing the way digital products and experiences are built and delivered by helping organizations get insights from customers–from creation through execution.
Challenge
UserTesting needed a more personalized approach to make the first 30 days of their customers’ experience as productive as possible.
Pendo’ing it
They created an immersive and personalized onboarding experience by tracking user behavior, segmenting users, and targeting and streamlining communication.
Results
With usage data and guides personalized for each persona, UserTesting drove a 1100% increase in platform adoption and a 43% increase in their PES score.
Contents
Product relationships aren’t that different from dating. A good first date often leads to future dates, while a bad one typically leads to moving on to other prospects.
Like dating, product companies need to woo users or risk losing 70% of their users after three months. With such a huge drop-off, the first few interactions are crucial to cementing a strong relationship that drives long-term adoption.
Speeding time to value is critical for companies aiming to support product-led growth. Best-in-class software companies have a time-to-value of .2 days, while the average for software companies is 1.5 days.
So, what does it take to get customers to realize value quickly?
Make the first 30 days count
For UserTesting, a platform that helps companies gather qualitative and quantitative insights on user experience (UX), the first 30 days in their customer lifecycle is the make-or-break timeframe for long-term loyalty.
Gina Frazee, Sr. Director of Digital CX and Education at UserTesting, saw an opportunity to improve the early customer experience (CX). She wanted to create a more personalized onboarding experience with more cohesive messaging across channels to get customers to that ‘aha’ moment in their product journey faster.
Frazee and her team set a clear goal to increase time to value: get users to launch a test within their first 30 days—a long-term predictor of retention.
To reduce barriers to usage and fine-tune their UX, UserTesting turned to Pendo.
Low user awareness of features hurts platform usage
UserTesting knew that once customers started using their product, they saw its value quickly. However, keeping those customers on the platform long enough to fully understand UserTesting’s vast product offerings was a challenge. This lack of user awareness resulted in low platform usage and churn risk.
Another pain point was the lack of accurate customer segmentation. With three unique types of users, non-tailored messaging hurt communications efforts, resulting in inconsistencies that confused customers.
Five steps to usage success
Diving into several Pendo tools, Frazee and her team took a five-step approach to improving the CX.
- Behavior tracking: Using Pendo Analytics, they analyzed how customers interacted with the platform during their first 30 days, identifying key milestones, common pain points, and areas for improvement.
- Segmentation: Segmenting customers based on their behavior, industry, and other relevant factors enabled UserTesting to tailor product communications to specific user groups, delivering more valuable experiences and increasing conversion rates.
- Targeted guides and tool tips: Frazee’s team designed interactive guides that walked customers through key features and workflows, providing step-by-step instructions and contextual help. These guides were personalized based on customer segments, ensuring each user received the most relevant guidance.
- Streamlined in-app communication: They consolidated communication channels and used Pendo Guides to deliver timely and relevant messages within the platform. This approach minimized distractions and ensured that customers received the right information at the right time.
- Dashboards: Leveraging data explorer to compare segments and benchmark data, they also used funnels to understand guide performance and how long it took customers to launch a test (the ultimate 30-day goal).
1100% conversion increase and improved customer satisfaction
The combination of user data and personalized communication created a smoother CX that empowered users to become product experts. Within the first 30 days, customers who completed the new onboarding experience launched tests at a 54.4% conversion rate, compared to only 4.5% for those who didn’t engage with the guides—a whopping 1100% increase.
“Pendo is really valuable because we can build out specific persona-based segments so people are getting the right guides at the right time and can select into the right journeys,” explained John Anistranski, senior program manager at UserTesting.
Customer satisfaction also drastically improved. UserTesting’s Product Engagement Score (PES) soared from 58 to 83—a 43% increase. The new personalized approach with Pendo’s tools fostered positive customer sentiment, improving the overall experience and helping customers achieve their goals.
These impressive results did not go unnoticed internally. UserTesting’s CPO and other C-level executives saw the value of the team’s customer-centric approach, which fueled investment in creating more Pendo-powered experiences across the entire customer journey.
Covering the entire customer journey with Pendo
After such a significant success, Frazee and the team continue to build their Pendo initiatives to serve their customers and create significant business value. They’ve identified three areas to focus their Pendo efforts moving forward:
- Adoption: UserTesting can create more context-based guides to help customers discover and use advanced platform features.
- Engagement: Personalized in-app messaging to deliver time-sensitive content and feature updates that keep customers informed and engaged.
- Renewal: Frazee’s team will develop outreach campaigns to proactively address potential churn risks.
Pendo keeps opening doors for Frazee’s team to deliver positive first impressions and usher customers to value. “With Pendo, we have gained valuable insights from these initiatives that will lay the foundation for our future adoption, engagement, and renewal strategies going forward,” Frazee explained.