Bessere Benutzererlebnisse mit Analysen und In-App-Anleitungen

Wir dachten, wir bräuchten nur Analysen, aber der eigentliche Wert lag darin, dass wir Pendo nutzen konnten, um auch Maßnahmen auf Basis dieser Daten zu ergreifen.
John Thorpe, Hauptproduktmanager, TraceGains

The power of data-backed decision making

Today, it’s difficult to pinpoint an industry that doesn’t run on software—and the world of food, beverage, and dietary supplement ingredients is no exception. TraceGains was founded to help companies in this space maintain compliance in their supply chains. It began with a focus on document exchange between suppliers and manufacturers, and has expanded into an enterprise software platform rooted in supplier compliance and new product development.

John Thorpe (principal product manager at TraceGains) and team recently launched a freemium marketplace platform called TraceGains Gather, a global alerting system for businesses’ supply chains that also includes tools to facilitate better collaboration and ingredient discovery. More specifically, the team is working to implement product-led growth strategies for the new platform—which is why they turned to Pendo.

TraceGains first started using Pendo for its analytics capabilities. They wanted to make decisions based on how customers were actually using their product and its key features. “With Pendo, the ability to configure what we’re measuring ourselves and then translate that into our product strategy and prioritization was very useful,” Thorpe explained.

Thorpe also noted that no longer needing to rely on engineering to access these usage insights was a major benefit for the team. In fact, it was Pendo data that helped solidify the company’s decision to launch TraceGains Gather. 

Nach der Implementierung von Pendo Analytics war einer der Bereiche, die das Team sofort untersuchte, der interne Marktplatz, der zu diesem Zeitpunkt nur für TraceGains-Kunden und deren Lieferanten zugänglich war. Die Daten zeigten eine starke Nutzung einer Reihe von Marktplatzfunktionen – einschließlich eines hohen Maßes an Kommunikation zwischen den Partnern im Netzwerk. Und dieses Engagement nahm im Laufe der Zeit stetig zu. „Als wir die Nutzung mit Pendo weiter analysierten, gab uns das wirklich das Vertrauen, ein produktbasiertes Wachstumsmodell zu lancieren und unser Netzwerk und unseren Marktplatz allen anzubieten“, sagt Thorpe. Dieser Marktplatz ist jetzt TraceGains Gather.

While utilizing Pendo for product analytics, the TraceGains team realized the opportunity to leverage Pendo’s in-app communication capabilities after seeing guides in the Pendo platform itself. “As we were using Analytics to understand engagement, help define our roadmap, and justify prioritization decisions, we started seeing in-app guides promoting new Pendo features and upcoming webinars, and also started using the Resource Center,” Thorpe explained. “Seeing the guides in action made us say, ‘We want to do that for our customers.’”

Using the Pendo platform to turn data into action

Von dort aus begann TraceGains, In-App-Anleitungen in Pendo zu nutzen und erweiterte die Gesamtstrategie. „Damals begannen wir mit der Umstellung von einem Anwendungsfall für das Kern-Produktteam hin zu einer Nutzung von Pendo, das heute aus verschiedenen Gründen in fast jeder Abteilung unseres Unternehmens eingesetzt wird“, sagt Thorpe. „Wir dachten, wir bräuchten nur Analysen, aber der eigentliche Wert lag darin, dass wir Pendo nutzen konnten, um auch Maßnahmen auf Basis dieser Daten zu ergreifen. „Als wir anfingen, Pendo als ein Engagement-Tool und nicht nur als ein Analysetool zu betrachten, wurde uns schnell klar, dass uns die Skalierung damit deutlich leichter fallen würde.“ 

Thorpe wies auch auf die Bedeutung der Segmentierung in Pendo hin, die für eine effektive Kommunikation mit ihrem Netzwerk von über 55.000 Marktplatznutzern entscheidend ist. Er erklärte: „Wir benötigten ein Tool, mit dem wir in großem Umfang, aber gezielt und mit begrenzten Ressourcen unsererseits kommunizieren können.“

Emma Karp, Produktmanagerin bei TraceGains Gather, betonte den Wert von Pendo, als das Team auf ein produktbasiertes Wachstumsmodell für die neue kostenlose Plattform umstellte. Da TraceGains über begrenzte Ressourcen verfügte, ermöglichte die Kombination von Produktanalysen und In-App-Anleitungen dem Unternehmen, Daten effektiv zu sammeln und Maßnahmen zu ergreifen. „Wir waren in der Lage, die Daten zu analysieren, auf die Daten zu reagieren und dann die Tools innerhalb von Pendo zu nutzen, um einige unserer wichtigsten Initiativen zu starten. Und wir haben es in einem Umfang gemacht, der ohne Pendo nicht möglich gewesen wäre“, erklärt Karp.

One of those initiatives was to increase usage of key features in Gather. This started with understanding how users were currently engaging, and if they were utilizing features the TraceGains team knows are valuable. Karp explained, “Using Pendo, we were able to identify that quite a few of our users in one of our target audiences were not engaging with certain features in the way we’d expect them to.”

So, the team ran segmented tests based on job title and created in-app guides driving to different marketplace features. “We were able to create different messaging based on what we thought a user with a particular role was interested in,” said Karp. From there, Karp and team could see how the guides impacted users’ behavior, leveraging reports in Pendo to measure the impact of the targeted messaging.

“We were able to use Pendo throughout the whole process of seeing what users were doing, identifying a page or feature with low engagement, using in-app guides to drive certain behavior, and then using analytics to see whether our efforts were effective,” said Karp.

Die Nutzung der vollständigen Pendo-Plattform hat TraceGains auch dabei geholfen, ihren Benutzern ein besseres Lernerlebnis bereitzustellen und die Belastung ihrer Kundenerfolgs- und Support-Teams zu verringern. Kathleen Kasel, Designerin für Lernerfahrungen, erklärt: „Mit Pendo konnten wir die Unterstützung, die wir unseren Nutzern bieten mussten, reduzieren und letztendlich ein besseres Produkterlebnis schaffen.“ Kasel hat In-App-Anleitungen erstellt, um Erstbenutzern die Navigation durch das Produkt zu erleichtern, sie durch wichtige Aufgaben zu führen und sie auf zusätzliche Ressourcen zu verweisen.

As part of the improved learning experience, TraceGains used Pendo to create an in-app product tour for new users—and over 50% have started and completed the tour in its entirety. Kasel also shared that 25% of their seven product walkthroughs have been viewed over 3,000 times. “I think this demonstrates how valuable of a tool Pendo is to really get our users engaged in learning the product on their own, rather than reaching out for help.”

Since implementing in-app guides in addition to analytics, TraceGains has benefited immensely from being able to reach users while they’re already engaged in the product. “One of the things we’ve noticed is that email isn’t the way to communicate with people anymore,” said Karp. “In-app guides give us a direct path to our customers. Combine that with the visibility into what they’re doing, who’s doing it, and for how long, and we get this really full story of our customers—and it’s just so powerful.”

Beyond improving the experience for their users, Pendo has also helped TraceGains improve collaboration across the organization. “It’s really broken down walls, and I think we’ve all been able to work together much more closely,” said Kasel. 

Thorpe noted that the product and customer success teams now have a shared measure of customer health that’s rooted in product engagement data in Pendo. And the sales and marketing teams use Pendo for more targeted upsell outreach to existing users. “Even our finance team uses Pendo In-app Guides as an effective communication tool for billing, because we know customers are more likely to read these types of messages,” he added. “The biggest unexpected benefit of using Pendo is that it’s actually helped break down barriers in our company, because we’re all using the same centralized set of engagement data.”

Pro tips

• Get the most out of Pendo by leveraging product analytics and in-app guides together, for example by using product usage data to determine who to target for an in-app adoption campaign, and then to measure the impact on user behavior
• Customer education doesn’t stop after onboarding—use in-app guides in Pendo to deliver continuous education when and where users need it
• Encourage teams outside of the product organization to use Pendo to communicate with users more effectively and make data-informed decisions