We recently took a top-level view on the Scaled CX methodology: using the best of product-led and sales-led motions to unlock new paths to scale.
Let’s go deep on a concrete example of how product and revenue teams can align to discover new business and grow customer accounts.
This guide shows you how to use omnichannel messaging – notifications, emails, interactive elements – to support the key retention, upsell, and expansion moments that your sales and customer success teams own. We’ll learn how to unlock a shocking amount of revenue growth by harnessing product nudges.
Understand Nudge Types
Nudges are subtle prompts designed to guide users towards desired actions within your product. Nudges form the backbone of your omnichannel customer engagement strategy – they’re the messages your users will see most frequently from you.
There are many channels for delivering nudges, including:
External Experience
- Emails: Targeted messages that provide users with relevant information, updates, or offers based on their behavior and preferences.
- External Chat: Both mass messaging and direct collaboration in Microsoft Teams and Slack, often via tools like Thena.
- Surveys and Feedback Requests: Short forms asking for user feedback or offering to help with specific challenges, improving engagement and product refinement.
Product Experience
- In-App Chat: Personalized chat messages sent through platforms like Intercom. These can be fully AI-generated or configured by your team.
- In-App Notifications: Real-time browser alerts that prompt users to take specific actions, such as completing a setup process or exploring new features.
- Tooltips: Small, contextual help pop-ups in your product that provide users with additional information or guidance when they hover over or interact with certain elements.
- Guided Tours: Step-by-step walkthroughs that help new users understand key features and how to use the product effectively.
- Push Notifications: Alerts sent to users’ devices to re-engage them with the product, such as reminders to complete an action or notifications of new features.
- Modals/Pop-ups: Dialog boxes that appear on screen to capture attention and prompt immediate action, such as completing a survey or acknowledging important updates.
- Gamification Elements: Badges, rewards, or progress bars that encourage users to complete tasks and engage more deeply with the product.
- Custom Dashboards: Personalized views tailored to users’ roles or usage patterns, highlighting important actions or data.
Typically, the product and customer success teams own the implementation of each nudge.
Map Nudges to the Customer Journey
To quickly align your messaging system across team objectives, first itemize those key actions you want users to take in your product and map them to the stages of their customer journey. You’ve probably already mapped some actions users take to get product value, configure the platform, or get social benefit – their “jobs to be done.”
For each of those actions, select the most effective nudge that is:
- Timely: Sent at the moment when the user needs information.
- Concise: Provides the right amount of information without overwhelming the user, making it easy to understand and act.
- Actionable: Clearly indicates the next step the user should take.
- Personalized: Tailored to the user’s specific context, behavior, and preferences, increasing relevance.
- Contextual: Appears in a context that makes sense to the user, such as within the app when they are performing related tasks. Tailored to the user’s specific behavior and preferences.
- Value-driven: Highlights the benefit or value to the user, motivating them to take action.
- Non-intrusive: Does not disrupt the user’s workflow or become annoying, maintaining a positive user experience. Grabs the user’s attention without being obtrusive. This goes for messaging as well – never deliver serious news that affects their business via automation.
If in doubt, just remember that convenient T.C.A.P.C.V-D.N-I. acronym.
Here’s a generic nudge map to get you started:
Product Nudge Map
Onboarding
- In-app Notifications: Guide new users through key setup steps.
- Guided Tours: Provide interactive walkthroughs of essential features.
- Welcome Emails: Send personalized welcome messages with tips to get started.
- External Chat: Walk through the nuances of onboarding and collaboration in real time.
Initial Engagement
- Tooltips: Highlight important features and provide contextual help to new users as they explore the product.
- Interactive Demos: Offer in-app or video demos to showcase how specific features can solve user problems.
- Surveys and Feedback Requests: Collect initial user feedback to understand their needs and improve their onboarding experience.
Feature Adoption
- Push Notifications: Alert users to new features or significant updates that could enhance their workflow.
- In-App Chat: Send targeted messages based on user behavior, encouraging the use of specific features.
- Gamification Elements: Use badges and rewards to incentivize the adoption of new features.
Proactive Support
- In-App Chat: Offer instant support and guide users through troubleshooting common issues or exploring advanced features.
- Proactive Emails: Send tips and best practices to help users maximize their product usage, preventing potential churn.
- Surveys and Feedback Requests: Regularly ask for feedback to identify issues early and address them proactively.
Renewal
- Renewal Reminders: Send timely reminders and special offers to encourage subscription renewals.
- Emails: Highlight the value received over the past subscription period and outline the benefits of renewing. Send personalized offers and case studies showcasing the benefits of upgrading or adding new features.
- Push Notifications: Notify users of upcoming renewal dates and any associated actions they need to take.
- Modals/Pop-ups: Display targeted offers for upgrades or additional features based on user activity and needs.
Customer Success Check-ins
- In-app Notifications: Prompt users to submit feedback and update them when a feature they requested is live.
- External Chat: Remind users of upcoming meetings or to share important updates.
- Custom Dashboards: Display personalized reports and insights during check-ins to highlight progress and areas for improvement.
Align Nudges to Revenue Touchpoints
Now, form a working group that includes representatives from product, customer success, and sales.
Think about how each key action you’re nudging users into, can also support a retention, upsell, or expansion objective. In addition to providing user value, how does each key action build trust, create new signals or predictive data, and bring customers toward becoming evangelists?
Fill in the gaps – what actions and nudges are you missing?
Here’s an example revised map with revenue context and additional ideas for engaging users:
Product + Revenue Nudge Map
Onboarding: Retention
- In-App Notifications: When a new user signs up, they receive notifications guiding them through the setup process, such as creating their first project or connecting integrations, to get immediate value.
- Guided Tours: Right after signup, users are offered a guided tour that walks them through the most important features.
- Welcome Emails: A welcome email is sent, providing an overview of the product, links to getting-started guides, and contact information for support.
Initial Engagement: Retention
- Tooltips: As users navigate the product for the first time, tooltips appear to explain the function of different buttons and features.
- Interactive Demos: Users are invited to watch short, interactive demos that show how to use advanced features.
- Surveys and Feedback Requests: After the first week, users receive a survey asking about their initial experience and any difficulties they encountered. Customer success immediately addresses concerns to keep ramp-up smooth.
Feature Adoption: Retention
- Push Notifications: When a new feature is released, users receive a push notification highlighting its benefits and inviting them to try it.
- In-App Messages: If a user has not used a critical feature within the first month, a message is sent to encourage exploration of that feature.
- Gamification Elements: Users earn badges for completing certain actions, such as setting up a new project or integrating with other tools.
Proactive Support: Retention
- Chatbots: If a user encounters an error or spends too long on a single page, a chatbot offers assistance and solutions.
- Proactive Emails: Monthly emails provide tips on using the product more effectively, tailored to the user's activity.
- Surveys and Feedback Requests: After significant interactions or changes in usage patterns, users are asked for feedback to ensure their needs are being met.
Renewal: Retention, Upsell
- Renewal Reminders: One month before the subscription ends, users receive reminders with options to renew or upgrade their plan.
- Emails: Detailed emails outline the benefits received during the past year and the advantages of renewing the subscription.
- Push Notifications: Notifications on mobile devices remind users of the upcoming renewal date and any necessary actions.
- Modals/Pop-ups: When a user reaches a usage limit on their current plan, a pop-up offers them an upgrade to a higher tier.
- Emails: Periodically, users receive emails with success stories from other companies that upgraded to higher-tier plans, showcasing the added benefits.
- Custom Dashboards: Users see a personalized dashboard highlighting how additional features could save them time or improve their workflows.
Customer Success Check-ins: Retention, Expansion
- In-App Notifications: Users receive notifications reminding them to book quarterly reviews with their customer success manager.
- In-App Messages: Messages from the customer success team check in with users to see if they need any assistance or have questions.
- Custom Dashboards: During check-ins, dashboards display key metrics and progress, helping users visualize their achievements and identify areas for improvement.
- Feedback-driven Lead Generation: After a positive feedback loop or high satisfaction score, chatbots or pop-ups to ask users if they know any other teams or departments that could benefit from the product, effectively turning positive feedback into potential leads.
- Referral Requests in In-app Notifications: After users have achieved success with the product, they receive a notification prompting them to refer colleagues or industry peers, offering incentives such as discounts or additional features for successful referrals.
- Emails: Following positive customer interactions or satisfaction surveys, users receive emails encouraging them to refer others to the product, highlighting referral benefits.
- Surveys and Feedback Requests: Surveys include a section asking if users know others who might benefit from the product, making it easy to submit referrals.
- Interactive Demos: At the end of an interactive for a new feature demo, users are prompted to share the demo with peers or colleagues who might also benefit, making it easy to forward a link or schedule a session for them.
- Content Sharing: Encourage users to share helpful content, such as whitepapers, case studies, or eBooks, directly from the app. Include prompts like "Know someone who might find this useful?" with easy sharing options.
- User-generated Content Campaigns: Encourage users to create and share their own content (e.g., case studies, success stories) about how they use the product, with a prompt to tag or refer colleagues who might benefit from the product.
- Exclusive Webinars: Invite users to exclusive webinars where they can bring a colleague or peer. Use in-app notifications and emails to promote these events.
- Feature Announcements: When announcing new features via in-app notifications or emails, include a call-to-action for users to share the news with colleagues who might be interested.
- Promotional Pop-ups: Use pop-ups to offer users special deals if they refer others during specific campaigns, such as holidays or product anniversaries.
Integrate Product & Revenue Strategies
These maps are raw examples – you’ll find a lot more nuance when your teams work together to visualize key actions, nudges, and revenue objectives on one timeline.
Here’s how you can complete your team alignment exercise:
- Identify Key Touchpoints: Map out the customer journey to identify where product nudges can complement sales activities. Key touchpoints may include onboarding, feature adoption, and renewal periods. Done. Nice.
- Align Messaging: Ensure that the messaging in product nudges, customer success interactions, and sales interactions is consistent. This reinforces the value proposition and reduces confusion for the user.
- Measure: Use product usage data to inform sales strategies. You can identify high-potential expansion leads based on engagement metrics and tailor your approach accordingly. Similarly, you can predict accounts that are likely to churn and surgically handle their pain points. Experiment with your retention efforts to find a repeatable journey that gets customers maximum value quickly.
- Segment Users: Differentiate between self-serve and sales-assisted segments. Self-serve users can be nurtured with automated product nudges, while high-value accounts receive personalized attention.
- Coordinate Campaigns: Synchronize product-led campaigns with revenue initiatives. For example, in-app notifications promoting a new feature can be followed up with a sales call offering a personalized demo.
TL;DR
Sometimes you can discover amazing growth loops just by laser-focusing on one component of the customer experience like nudges. By creating prompts that guide users to success and create moments for your sales and customer teams to build trust, you’ll create evangelist customers and unlock new revenue sources.
At Praction, we specialize in helping B2B businesses implement these strategies through our automated Chief Revenue Officer platform and consulting services. Our tailored solutions are designed to increase revenue, refine GTM operations, and enhance customer value, accelerating your path to an exit, acquisition, or IPO.
Ready to scale? We’d love to meet you.