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ProductCraft 
The Software experience gap And why you need to close it.
Sometimes small changes in the world get intensely scrutinized while big ones just seem to… slip in unnoticed.
This is about
one of those big ones...
Something
pretty huge
has happened to the world
and it directly impacts
everything you do
Here's what
we mean...
In the old days,
A bank was a
bank…
An insurance company was an insurance company…
And a car manufacturer was…
(you get the idea)
Every. Company. is a software company.
For your customers:
Software is part (or all) of your products and services.
Software shapes — or defines — a huge part of the customer’s lifecycle.
For your employees:
Software is where
work happens.
Software governs every process and workflow.
Software defines
a huge part of your employee experience.
In short,
Your business is the
sum of its software.
But here’s the problem...
There's a huge
Software Experience Gap
between what users* expect from the software you
ask them to use
and what they actually experience.
*Users = your employees, customers, partners, and suppliers
The experience
users expect:
• Intuitive
• Simple
• Fast
The experience
users get:
• Clunky
• Bloated
• Frustrating
Now multiply the software experience
gap by the number of different
applications you deploy.
The average enterprise maintains 288 SaaS applications—around 10 applications per employee— and that’s growing
30% a year.
— Blissfully 2020 SaaS Trends report
And you start to see the scale of
this problem...
All the things you care about
from sales, marketing, product
adoption, and customer loyalty
to employee efficiency,
productivity, and happiness
to strategic innovation and
transformation.
They’re all held back by the software experience gap.
That's a lot of impact.
The impact
20%
of software budgets
are spent on
applications that
nobody ever uses.
— Insight Enterprises
70%
of digital
transformations fail
to hit their targets.
— Boston Consulting Group
And the software experience gap is
a key driver of McKinsey’s infamous
"Digital Achievement Gap."
"Digital Leaders grow 2-3x faster than competitors"
— McKinsey & Company
If you’re more moved by stories than data, here’s one:
A major international bank (okay, Citigroup), lost $500 million recently because of a confusing internal user interface in its loan operations software.
Ouch.
The good news:
When you close your software experience gaps, great things happen:
Customers get more value so you capture more value.
Lower cost of sale
Greater usage
Less churn
Employees adopt and use software more
so their work is happier.
Process excellence
Digital adoption
Faster transformation
Closing your gaps
also drives down
these costs:
Onboarding
new employees and customers.
Training
so people turn software into value.
IT helpdesk support
for users and customers.
Custom software
and point solutions (that don’t scale).
All these costs go way down when you close your software experience gaps.
The really good news
Software experience is something you can control, even if you didn’t create the software.
It works in any software (whether you built it or bought it).
It’s a two-step thing.
First, you have to know how users are using the software.
Where they’re getting stuck.
Which features they use regularly and which they avoid.
Which steps are most important for the outcomes you want.
That’s the analytics and feedback part.
Then you can use that insight to help them...
With little guidance boxes.
And contextual tips.
And workflow helpers they see as they’re using the software.
That’s the
in-software guidance part.
And the analytics then let you see the impact of the guidance—an important feedback loop.
We all agreed that every company is a software company.
(including yours)
And we saw how the software experience gap hurts everything you value
product experience (for your customers) and
employee experience (for your people & partners)
In short:
A better software experience improves all the great things your company cares most about
Serving customers.
Helping employees do their jobs.
Minimizing frustration, mistakes and foul language.
Improving productivity, efficiency and whatever KPIs you’re tracking.
Accelerating digital transformation.
Driving down IT support and helpdesk costs.
Speeding up onboarding and training.
Creating a wonderful work experience for everyone.
All that, just by paying attention to how people experience the software that drives your business.
TL;DR
Your business is the
sum of its software.
Make it delightful.
We're Pendo
We help companies like yours give their customers and employees insanely great software experiences.
It’s kind of a mission.
If you’d like to explore ways to improve the software experience in your business - get in touch!
Not ready to talk? Take a look around our product.