When creating a successful enterprise application, launching the app is never the finish line—real success also requires your users to find value and stick around.
In conversations about enterprise application development, a lot of emphasis is placed on what it takes to actually build the app. Before your application makes it off of the production room floor, your development team will have to sort out the UX/UI research, the codebase (or lack thereof!), and the front-end design decisions at the very least. All of these steps are vital, but successful enterprise app development doesn’t stop at the end of the build—it also includes deployment and adoption.
With almost two million apps in Apple’s App Store, nearly three million on Google Play, and an even more overwhelming number of web applications, how can you ensure that your app is the one that users will utilize again and again? Developing an effective user-adoption strategy is key.
What Is a User Adoption Strategy?
User adoption is the process by which new users transition from an old product or system to a new one, and then (this part is key) decide to keep using it. The good news is that a well-designed app is its own best advocate to the extent that it will offer something users need, like better customer experience or a more streamlined workflow. It’s relatively easy for innovative apps to gain new users, but there is always a little bit of resistance when it comes to getting those users to stick around.
According to the latest statistics, user adoption rates for enterprise applications are low across the board. In fact, SAP found that 78% of mobile apps are abandoned after only a single use, and web applications and software don’t fare much better. In the financial services industry, for example, only 38% of users return to an application after the first day. Only 5% of those users are active after a full 30 days. For software as a service (SaaS), these adoption rates are even worse. According to research conducted using anonymized data from 1.3 billion unique users, the average SaaS eight-week user retention rate hovered in a disappointing 6-20% range.
It’s hard to know exactly why users pick up and put down apps so frequently, but you should never stop trying to find out. The backbone of a smart user adoption strategy is research into users’ needs, frustrations, motivations, and environments. Once you have this information, you and your team will be better able to guide users through the onboarding process and ensure that users find value, stick around, and adopt your application.
Learn more by watching our webinar overview of no-code in the enterprise space.
The Adoption Equation
It’s helpful to think of user adoption rates in terms of an equation—adoption equals value over effort, or A = V/E. If the value of your application outweighs the effort it takes to use it, users are more likely to continue using your application. If effort outweighs value, they’re more likely to abandon it. To tip the scales in your favor and boost adoption rates, companies can either try to increase the value of their app or decrease the effort needed to adopt it. It’s even better if you can do both at the same time.
To increase value, organizations can start by creating a channel for customer feedback. You can leverage this information in a lot of different ways, from rolling out frequent platform updates based on what users want to see, to tinkering with your existing features to facilitate a more user-friendly experience.
To reduce effort, provide users with easily accessible resource guides, instructive e-books, and in-app training sessions to help them learn how to use your app. If legacy technologies are a factor, make sure that they’re fully integrated into the platform and that user data can be transferred from the old system to the new system to provide a seamless user experience. Make sure your staff knows enough about the application to answer any questions that cannot be found on the FAQ page.
Using Metrics to Guide Adoption Strategies
Once you have an adoption strategy in place, you’ll need a way to measure adoption success to understand how well your app is doing. There are a wide variety of metrics to choose from, but the metrics you land on should be tailored for your use case. What matters for your app? For example, tracking adoption by counting the number of applications submitted through the app might make sense for real estate or insurance, but not necessarily for a student academic portal. Think about what your organization does, what your goals are, and what metrics will offer you the best insight into those factors.
To track metrics like this, robust user analytics is crucial. Luckily, apps created with the Unqork platform come with built-in customizable performance dashboards. From one centralized console, you can monitor user engagement, gain insight into the metrics of your choice, and proactively solve performance issues by integrating with your favorite incident response system.
As a comprehensive no-code enterprise application development platform, tracking your app’s success after adoption is as easy as building the app itself.
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