Introduction
Technology has changed a lot about how businesses and day-to-day life processes are run, and more organizations can now get more for themselves using digital tools and software.
And Understandably, Digital adoption in a time where technology is so common might seem like such an easy-to-achieve feat or a no-brainer because “Isn’t everyone online somehow these days?”
However, it's usually not that straightforward.
Employees need to understand the various software and tools they have to use at work to optimize company processes and stay profitable.
Consumers also need to be fully able to utilize a tool and get value from it in order to stick around as paying customers.
It’s an interwoven design, and sometimes even the easiest-to-use software can be challenging for new users to get familiar with.
In order to enable easy and faster adoption of all these new tech stacks and innovations, businesses need to find a middle ground with employee training and customer education programs. To do it better, they need to use digital adoption platforms (DAPs).
In this article, we look at what digital adoption is, 8 different digital adoption platforms, their significant features, and things to look out for when choosing a digital adoption platform.
What is digital adoption?
Digital adoption is the process by which users can utilize a software to its fullest potential and get maximum value from it to transform their life, business or achieve a set of goals.
Digital adoption happens when users understand a product, what it is supposed to do, and how to use its features to achieve that goal(whatever it is to them).
Why you need software to support digital adoption?
Using Digital adoption platforms hastens the process of digital adoption. You will agree that it would take a really long time to try and teach every single person how to utilize a product maximally manually, not to mention language and location barriers amongst other limiting factors.
With digital adoption-friendly softwares, digital adoption can happen with simple tutorials, lessons, online training, and documentation.
A perfect example of this scenario would be a tool like Scribe, which allows you to document any process instantly and auto-generates it into a tutorial.
Another benefit of using software for digital adoption is that it enhances and speeds up user onboarding processes.
Employee performance is also not left out as more employees can learn faster, especially if the learning takes place using work tools they frequently use and are familiar with. This also gives you a competitive edge, considering the time you save and the expertise and skills your employees would gain
We will get into a few of these digital adoption softwares shortly but before then here's a quick guide on how to approach digital adoption.
How to approach digital adoption
How you approach digital adoption depends solely on what you’re trying to achieve. Here's a quick evaluation Criteria:
- What do you want to use the Technology for?
- How would the Technology help you achieve your goals?
- Why do you need that Specific technology ?
- Do you have existing frameworks to support the introduction of this new tech?
If you've answered this confidently, you can now move on to search for the right digital adoption platform to achieve your goals and objectives.
What is a digital adoption platform (DAP)?
A digital adoption platform is a software that helps users understand how another software/product works to facilitate digital adoption and transformation.
Also known as DAPs, digital adoption platforms are created to simplify the user onboarding experience, by providing them with a range of resources from tutorials to in-app guides that coach them from beginner stage till they become power users.
Power users understand every feature, how to use it to get a desired result. A significant number of power users is a good sign for a product or software. It means people are getting value from this product and they are staying.
We will go on to look at 8 different types of DAPs in the remaining part of these articles. The functionality of each highlighted software varies, but a good number of them have been proven to help get the job of digital adoption done for numerous companies with ease.
- Scribe
- Pendo
- Apty
- Whatfix
- Walkme
- Usetiful
- Appcues
- User guiding
1. Scribe
 |
Although Scribe is not directly a digital adoption platform, it aids digital adoption through its easy-to-use tool for capturing any process into a step-by-step tutorial.
When you install the Scribe extension, you can easily capture your screen and share any process. These can be converted to tutorials and documentation shareable during a digital adoption training session for employees.
{{banner-default="/banner-ads"}}
Scribe comes in convenient for a lot of employee training sessions, as at least 70 percent of things taught to employees are forgotten in less than 48 hours. So you don't have to keep going over processes every time they forget or whenever there's a new hire, use Scribe to document things down.
You can also organize Scribes to cover one topic at a time with Scribe Pages. This means you get more flexibility and you can add documents, images, videos, gifs and more while you create and edit your scribes.
For example, here's a Scribe on how to integrate Salesforce, a no-code tool with your Gmail.
While a Scribe might be unable to provide you with tracking, onboarding checklists and other features of digital adoption platforms, it makes for an affordable way to store your documentation and you can use scribe on any web or desktop application.
Scribe G2 rating: 4.9 out of 5.0
Scribe Capterra Rating: 4.3 out of 5.0
Scribe Pricing:
- Free plan
- Pro plan starts at $23 per month
- Reach out to the Scribe team for Enterprise Plan.
2. Pendo
 |
Pendo is a DAP that supports cloud and web-based softwares/ applications to help employees do their jobs effectively with the software they use. It also enables businesses to streamline operations that improve customer retention.
The tool built by product managers boasts of very robust features, from providing portfolio management to cover data that inform better decision-making and leads to positive business results to in-app support for users to understand the softwares they use better, to personalization and customizable onboarding flows.
Pendo offers analytics features that allow its users to access the metrics that matter most to them.
With Pendo, you can provide customers with walkthroughs, tips, and resources to enhance their experience with your app, learn how frequently customers visit your app, how much time they spend, carry out customer surveys and access other relevant data to track customer behavior.
Pendo also offers integration with third-party softwares, like Figma, HubSpot, Jira, Slack, and Salesforce.
Pendo Pricing:
Pendo’s pricing is available on request, and support is extended via live chat, documentation, FAQs, phone, and email but the starter plan starts from $7000 a year.
Pendo G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5.0
Pendo Capterra Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
3. Apty
Aptly is a digital adoption perfect for helping employees leverage the full potential of all its existing software or tools by showing them what to do as they are inside each application which allows businesses to get the most out of their investment in new software.
 |
Apty is heavily focused on helping businesses improve their outcomes and employee productivity levels.
There are also plenty of analytics features to help team leads manage and monitor how employees use software to improve workflow. Apty also easily integrates with any web-based application so you don't have to worry about integration.
Apty Pricing:
Contact the Apty team for a quote via the website
Apty G2 review: 4.7 out of 5.0
Apty Capterra Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0
4. Whatfix
Whatfix is an easy-to-use, no-code Digital adoption platform [DAP] that helps businesses manage and personalize customer and employee engagement.
 |
Whatfix supports its users with in-app management, data analytics, personalization, and a self-serve mode feature.
Users can also segment customer data based on app usage, watch and create live walkthroughs to understand the software or send informative in-app alerts to their customers. The analytics feature gives a lot of insight into customers’ progress with product adoption and product usage levels.
Whatfix also comes with an auto content generation tool to allow users convert the information they get into different content formats. You can also seamlessly integrate with third-party applications. Even though employees can use it too, Whatfix is more of a customer-focused adoption tool.
Whatfix Pricing:
- Free trial
- Pricing is based upon requests and the requirements of businesses. Support is however provided via a help desk and over the phone.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
Capterra Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
5. WalkMe
 |
WalkMe is a cloud-based interactive guidance and digital adoption platform that helps you teach your employees about your software.
The software also allows you to build an on-screen experience that helps drive customers to specific actions through in-app communications. This feature is known as "Walk-throughs”, a play on their name, “Walkme”. The feature is very customizable and flexible for users. Users can embed content such as videos, articles, Gifs and more into these “Walkthroughs.”
Walkme also has a very impressive analytics and reports feature. This guides strategy and decision-making when it comes to customer segmentation. Users can be segmented based on their roles, location and language. The software is well integrated with search engines and other relevant third party applications.
However, Walkme might be slightly tricky for users without technical backgrounds as it's not a no-code tool; it can also be a bit pricey compared to other DAP software on the market, providing the same service.
Walkme Pricing
Pricing is not listed on the website but is available on request depending on your need.
G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Capterra Rating: 4.4 out of 5.0
6. Usetiful
Usetiful is optimized and built to make user onboarding as straightforward as possible.
It allows you to create interactive product onboarding tours, clever tips, and checklists in-app. The very visual no-code tool also comes with ready to use templates available for app tour guides to educate users on your product.
 |
Another catchy thing about Usetiful is it's UI that is super easy to understand. Like most DAP, Usetiful also has analytics features to help track how people use your app and what new features to prioritize for faster adoption. It can be used to automate customer onboarding, self-service help, and encourage new feature adoption, you would also be able to identify hotspots in-app.
You can create a product tour tailored to each stage of the users' journey with Usetiful’s segmentation tools and easily integrate with a third-party software. It's also easy to install it into your code. Simply copy and paste in one click.
Its functionalities might not be as good as the other alternatives in the market but it's a good place to start from and get your money’s worth especially if you are on a budget. It's very friendly for users with no prior technical knowledge.
Usetiful Pricing:
- Free version allows one product tour
- 14 day free trial
- Starts at €29 monthly
- €99 monthly for premium plan
- Contact team for Enterprise plans
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
Capterra Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
7. Appcues
Appcues is one of the oldest cloud-based digital adoption platforms with various easy-to-use tools designed to help increase product adoption and customer retention.
Appcues enables users to easily create guides and checklists, product tours and customize user onboarding flows with their own code.
 |
It is not a no-code tool which means you need a technical background or relevant experience to get full value with this tool. It's also quite expensive compared to other market alternatives.
Appcues Pricing:
- 14-day free trial
- Essentials Plan: $249/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Growth Plan: $879/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Custom Quotation Available for Enterprises
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
Appcues Capterra rating: 4.8 out of 5.0
8. Userguiding
 |
Userguiding is a digital adoption and user onboarding platform that enables businesses to build interactive product guides with no code. UserGuiding is equipped with segmentation features to design better-personalized onboarding experiences.
You can put together different onboarding flows with pre-existing templates, track the performance of your content with it's built-in analytics tool, identify hotspots, conduct NPS surveys and integrate with third-party tools like Intercom, Mixpanel, Slack, Google Analytics, amongst others.
If you are switching from another DAP to user guiding, the process is also made seamless to help you cut costs.
It also has a resource center for you to learn more on the product. It's less technical than other common DAP tools so if you are looking for something non-technical to start with.
Userguiding Pricing
- 14-day free trial
- Basic Plan: $69/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Professional Plan: $299/month when billed annually for up to 20000 MAU with unlimited guides
- Custom Quotation Available for Larger Companies
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
Capterra Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
Conclusion
Digital adoption Softwares are meant to make onboarding and customer adoption easier, so you don't need software that's extremely difficult to understand or set up.
When choosing a digital adoption platform, we will recommend you consider a few evaluation metrics like:
- Ease of creating onboarding flows: If you are not technically inclined, then you want to choose a no-code tool that you can set up and embed in a matter of minutes
- A clean user interface: The easier it is to use, the better the experience for customers or employees
- Customer support: Easy to reach customer support or resources for customers if they get stuck is another good sign to look out for.
- Available features: Depending on what you are looking to achieve with the DAP you choose, features vary from software to software but ideally, you should be able to track analytics, identify user hotspots, create onboarding flows in a DAP.
- Pricing: Are you on a budget, small team, large team? Look for one that helps you achieve your goal at a very reasonable price point.
This list has covered eight different tools, we hope it was robust enough to help you make a choice.
If you are looking to document a process to use subsequently with no stress, You can create your first Scribe for free here,
.jpg)