This worrying trend in SaaS isn't funny ??

Good morning everyone, except the customer support managers who say they will pass my bug reports on to their devs, but never do.?

It's not funny.?

And by bugs, I mean serious bugs. Bugs that make me look even blonder than I really am.?

Like this bug in the variable fields of?a LinkedIn outreach automation tool:

Now - we recently talked about being data-driven, right??

But why collect all the data if you don't do anything with them later???

(P.S. All marketing experts say I should be including the links I want you to go to in the first half of my posts, because we're all a bunch of lazy red bean buns and don't read until the end. So here it is -?a great article about Product Journey Maps ?I'm telling you upfront you should read. I know it doesn't make any sense in the context of this newsletter?yet, but hold your horses, keep reading...)?

Like - why pretend you care about user feedback, if you don't? (You guys?- I'm looking at you!)?

Over the last few weeks, I've been logging into dozens of freemium/free trial tools to collect information about their onboarding UI patterns for our 3rd edition of the annual State of SaaS Onboarding report.?

And I noticed a disturbing trend while doing the trials:?

Most of the questions SaaS companies are asking their users during the signup process/ onboarding are completely?redundant!?

Several times, I had to answer long surveys about my role, company size, goals, previous experience - and yet, I didn't see the information being used to personalize the onboarding flow for me in any way.?

How do I know??

I created multiple accounts and selected different options to see what happens. (I'm an expert-troll, I know.)?

?

Having to answer these questions was adding a whole lot of friction to my already challenging first-run experience, without adding any value.?

Now folks, let's be honest here:

*Why*?collect information from your users if you don't put it to action??

Feedback, feature requests, bug reports, demographic info, jobs to be done, company size, number of employees, shoe size, coffee preferences...

The "FOMO data-hoarding" in case you "might use it in the future" can do more harm than good.?

Because that?future?may?never?come to be if you annoy your user in the present.?

Collecting more data than you need:?

• creates an expectation that you will actually fix that bug.
• that you are going to add that new feature you're asking for.?
• that you will actually personalize the onboarding experience to get your user to value faster, based on their JTBD.

Collecting data =/= being data driven.?

So what should you do instead??

?

Collect the data?when?you actually need it?

You know new user onboarding is not the only time and place where you can ask your users questions??

Let that sink in.?

What would happen if, instead of bleeding your new signups on that super-long signup form, you simply waited until they've seen your dashboard, got their job no. 1 done (no puns intended?), activated, and only then you'd ask them how many people there are in their team, in case they wanted to invite some??

Of course - if your tool relies on collaboration to work, you should ask that question up-front. It all depends on your product.?

Know *why* you're collecting each data point, what you're going to do with it, and how you're going to measure success?

Going back to that question about team members:?

- why is it important for you to know?

- how are you going to use this info? Build a flow to show your user how to add teammates, or nudge them to upgrade to a team plan??

- when exactly are you going to collect and use that information? Pin it on your?Product Journey Map ?- not sure how to build one? Now you know why I included?that link ?earlier...

- what is your goal? How are you going to measure it??

If you can imagine it, you can build it.?

Now, when it comes to actually acting on your user data, feedback, bug reports and insights - you can pepper your product journey map with perfectly timed experiences targeted at the exactly right persona really easily (and I'm happy to say that?Userpilot ?has made a contribution to this?)?

It's not hard to build in-app experiences. It's hard to decide what, when, and why.?

Need help with this??

Book a free?onboarding consultation ?with me!?

See you next week!?