First impressions matter, so it’s critical to nail your product tour to set new users up for success.
Great product tours help increase product adoption, customer activation, and retention. Think of them as a helping hand, guiding new users through a product or app while introducing key features and benefits.
With that, in this post you can expect to learn about:
- Elements of good (and bad) product tour design
- Tips for building a successful product tour
- Top product tour software tools
- Real-world product tour examples for inspiration
Let's get started.
What Is a Product Tour?
Product tours are short tutorials that simplify user onboarding and tell new users how to get the most out of a SaaS product. This doesn’t mean a product tour should include every little feature and detail, but rather it should point out key elements that can help lead users to experience value or the first strike. (More on that later.)
Bad product tours can mislead the user, or leave them feeling confused and unsure of what to do next. This of course leads to frustration and poor product adoption — clearly, all things that brands should avoid.
What are the signs of a poorly designed product tour?
Well, unsuccessful product tours often:
- Try to show way too much at once.
- Are displayed in the wrong place at the wrong time (ex: no proper segmenting).
- Don't help the user understand how your app solves their problem.
- Don't let the user skip or opt out of the tour if they want to learn on their own.
Now, let's dive into the elements of designing a winning product tour for SaaS in the next section.
6 Tips for the Best SaaS Product Tour Experience
The following tips explain crucial traits that help you ace your product tour to win over new users and get more trail-to-paying consumers.
1. Always Provide Value
It seems so simple, yet some product tours fail to do this one thing — provide value.
A product walkthrough shouldn’t be made to just show off cool features. Its core purpose is to help onboard new users quickly and efficiently, without wasting their time. To do this well, it needs to be something valuable to the end-user, by helping them get better use out of the product or app.
2. Do Constant Testing
It doesn’t matter what you think makes a good product tour, in the end, it should be the data that drives your decisions. That’s why you should always be testing your product walkthrough to see what testing sticks, and what flops.
Before running any tests, make sure to look into what data already exists or can be performed, such as:
- When people stop or leave the product tour, or drop-offs/kick outs.
- Honest product reviews and feedback from current customers, power users, and people who have churned.
- Sticky features or actions that make people stay around for longer.
There are many methods for testing — such as A/B or multivariate — but the key is to follow a set schedule and track everything.
3. Get Users to Experience the “First Strike”
Whether you’re a product manager or a CMO, you know your product's value prop inside and out. The trick is getting your user to clearly see and experience the value they can get from using your tool — this is often referred to as the first strike or “Aha! moment.”
For Canva, the first strike is a user exporting or sharing a finalized design.
For Zoom, that’s joining or creating a meeting. The quicker you can get users to the first strike, the better; it won’t have the same effect when it takes days or weeks to happen.
Beyond the first strikes and "Aha! moments", product tours should really focus the user on the very next action that will help them to see the value in your product. Don’t spend all of your time perfecting this one big moment — instead, optimize each step!
4. Clarity is Key
The point of taking users through the tour is to make their lives easier by getting them better acquainted with the software.
Making information complicated or unclear is one of the worst mistakes you can do in a product tour.
So, when in doubt:
- Use clear language with a less is more approach.
- Don’t overcomplicate details.
- Ensure everything makes sense in the order you’re presenting it.
5. Have a Sequence
There should be no guessing when it comes to customer onboarding tours. Users should know exactly what they’re getting into, and what the main outcome is. It’s important to have a really good sequence in place that takes users from one spot to the next in a very organic way.
For example, if you have a graphic design tool, the walkthrough should take the user on a journey, covering features, tips, and tricks to creating a knockout design.
Do research to see how users best interact with your SaaS app and let this data inform what the best sequence is for your onboarding.
Also, if you’re already doing sales demo calls, you probably touch on some information that could be included in your product onboarding tour. Try recording one of these calls, and watching it back to pull out steps and language to include in your product tour.
6. Make It Fun
Your product tour is a huge interaction point in a user onboarding journey, so you have to make an impact. Adding fun or delightful to the product tour experience can really stick with a person.
So, use your product tour as an opportunity to build brand affinity. Show off the brand personality, and make it enjoyable for the user. The little details matter.
Some ways to make a product tour more fun are:
- Include a few emojis.
- Add an illustration, video, or gif to one/several of your steps to add visual interest.
- Use language that reflects your brand's voice/tone, and makes the user feel welcome.
That wraps up the six key traits of successful product tours. You can see these traits in action in the examples section later in this article. First, let’s take a look at some product tour tools that you can use in your app.
12 Helpful Product Tour Software Tools
Product software gives product-led teams the tools they need for constructing product tour guidelines and in-app onboarding. The twelve product tour software for SaaS listed below range in price and features. Your criteria determine the best software for you.
1. Hopscotch
Pricepoint: $
Hopscotch offers interactive product tours and in-app messaging. The aim of the software is to help you convert trials into paid customers through in-app education.
Think of it more like a chef's knife than a Swiss-army knife, as it is a precision tool that does one thing and does it well. For this reason, it stays focused on product tours and is simple to use.
It's also built by and for independently-owned small business owners, even offering early-stage pricing for companies that are just getting started.
2. Intercom Product Tours
Pricepoint: $$
Similar to Hopscotch, Intercom Product Tours enable companies to onboard users into their product and highlight new features via in-app product tours. It is easy to set up and use, but it is limited in terms of features and functionality compared to some of the other AI tools on this list.
The main drawback is that you need to be already bought into the Intercom stack since it is only available as an add-on. This makes it great for existing Intercom users, but not so much for everyone else and can get pricey when you consider the cost of an intercom subscription plus the product tour add-on.
3. UserGuiding
Pricepoint: $$Similar to the above options, UserGuiding allows you to build interactive product guides in minutes with a user-friendly no-code solution.
Customers say the platform allows for fast and flexible tours, including individual training and guides.
4. Userpilot
Pricepoint: $$$
The software tools offered by Userpilot pack a ton of features and aim to help with user onboarding, product adoption, customer retention, account expansion, in-app marketing, and scaling self-service.
For teams who are looking for a wide range of tools, and don’t have super tight budgets, Userpilot is a great choice.
5. Stonly
Pricepoint: $
Stonly lets you build interactive guides to lead your customers to activation, issue resolution, and success on their terms. You can deploy their guides directly in your CRM and your support team can use the guides to identify troubleshooting issues.
The product software is also one of the only tools that are focused on educating your own employees.
6. HelpHero
Pricepoint: $
HelpHero is another affordable option for companies that are aiming to improve their feature adoption.
Create interactive, easy-to-follow product tours that will help your users get started and adopt new features quicker than ever. The software tool doesn't involve coding or big budgets.
7. Nickelled
Pricepoint: $Overall, Nickelled is a simple product tour software tool at an affordable price.
Nickelled shows your visitors how your software works. They also claim to make it easy to create guided tours, tooltips, banners, and more. Need integrations? No problem. You can integrate Nickelled with google analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Zendesk.
8. Userflow
Pricepoint: $$
Userflow lets your whole team build customized in-app tours, checklists and surveys, without code.
Touted as the fastest flow builder on the market, it’s a great solution for when your developers are too busy.
9. Chameleon
Pricepoint: $$$
Chameleon offers a suite of products for user onboarding, feature launches, and continuous feedback.
Although the price tag is more expensive than most on this list, which can certainly scare some businesses away, they do offer many product features/tools, such as micro surveys, tooltips, tours, and in-product widgets.
10. Appcues
Pricepoint: $$$
Appcues was built to empower non-technical teams who want to move fast, with the goal of helping improve product adoption. Their onboarding tool also includes custom dashboards for tracking performance, with the flexibility to design on-brand experience, and app integrations with Salesforce, Heap, Segment, and more.
Worth the price tag? You decide. The standard Essentials plan, recommended for startups and small businesses, starts at $249 per month.
11. Usetiful
Pricepoint: $
Useitful is an affordable software option for customer onboarding, empowering customers to use your SaaS product faster.
It’s a no-code tool, quick and simple to set up, and GDPR compliant. They also offer a free 14-day trial and a free version.
12. Helppier
Pricepoint: $
Helppier is an affordable SaaS software option for startups that may not have as many monthly active users. The company's Standard plan starts at $49 per month.
With Helppier you can create user guides, automated tours, and in-app messages to help users interact with your product.
4 Real-World Product Tour Examples for Inspiration
Now that you’re armed with the tips and tools to create a knockout product tour, it’s time for inspiration. You’ll notice that each tour has some points about why it’s good, but also some around what can be improved.
Does the perfect product tour exist? Maybe… but there will always be room for improvement or changes! Never settle, and always test.
Simple Product Tour Example 1: Cloudinary
After signing up for Cloudinary, a media experience cloud, you are greeted personally and then guided through a product tour.
Why it’s good:
- Quick and to the point (only two steps).
- This leads users to the first strike of uploading their first image by highlighting the element.
- Fun branding with an emoji, playful colors, and a video.
Visual Product Tour Example 2: WordPress
WordPress is a website builder. With so many options, the SaaS company needs to be effective at introducing standout features to a variety of users all while demonstrating ease of use.
Watch this WordPress product tour example below:
Why it’s good:
- More visual approach with the use of gifs to demonstrate how features work with higher fidelity than text or images.
- Ability to interact with the product while viewing the guide so users can do the action as they learn about it.
Where it falls short:
- Some of the steps seem pretty obvious (ex: how to bold text), so hopefully, they’re testing with real users to see what’s valuable and what can be cut or changed.
Long Format Product Tour Example 3: Hubspot CRM
Hubspot CRM software entices new users with a free account and quick demo (i.e. product tour).
Why it’s good:
- Interactivity has the user learning by doing, not just by seeing.
- Walks the user through a real process they want to learn.
Where it could be improved:
- 11 steps are a bit long, which means a potential risk for high drop-off.
- No way to cancel the tour, forcing people to go through it.
- Branding/experience could be a bit more fun, but that may be what they’re going for.
It’s also interesting to note that after registration, Hubspot sends an email where they link directly to the interactive product tour, allowing users to revisit this link and opt into a tour rather than showing it automatically.
Flexible Product Tour Example 4: Get Plan
Watch the Get Plan product tour example below.
Why it’s good:
- Very intuitive steps that a user can quickly run through.
- Gives the user a very clear option to leave the tour with a “no” button, though they could change it to “no thanks” to be more friendly.
What it’s missing
- No way to restart the tour, or come back to it after you exit if you want to see it again (perhaps a button to replay the tour).
Hopefully, you’ve taken a few things away that will help you to create your own successful product tours that educate your users without getting in their way.
Create an Onboarding Experience With Great Product Tours That Will Help You Activate, Delight, and Retain More Users
Getting your onboarding and product tours right is just one key element of building a successful product-led business. In ProductLed Academy, we cover experience as part of the ProductLed Method, so you can build a self-serve model that converts.
ProductLed Academy is a 12-month coaching program, where you'll work directly with Wes Bush to master each of the nine components of a successful product-led business (we spend around six weeks on each of these):
- Vision: What is your company really good at?
- User: Who do you serve best?
- Model: How do you create a ton of value for your users to win?
- Offer: Have you crafted an irresistible free offer for your ideal users?
- Experience: Have you created an effortless path to value for your users?
- Pricing: Is it easy for users to upgrade without talking to anyone?
- Data: Do you know where users are getting stuck in your product?
- Process: Do you have a growth process that enables your team to build out experiments, prioritize the high-impact ones, and launch the ones that are easiest?
- Team: Is your team full of A players capable of taking you to the next level?
While you can have one or more of these dialed in perfectly, if you’re missing one of these key players, you’re going to have a hard time with growth.
Apart from focusing on those key areas of your strategy, ProductLed Academy comes with:
- Weekly 60-minute group coaching call with Wes Bush, where you'll go through each of the components of the ProductLed Method (including pricing) to master a self-serve model.
- Weekly non-negotiable tasks to keep you accountable.
- Access to an exclusive ProductLed Founder Community so you can meet other ambitious founders and receive support 24/7.
- Access to the ProductLed Vault, where you'll gain access to all of our programs (including ProductLed Acquisition and Accelerator), templates, and frameworks.
If you're ready to break through to the next level and master your onboarding and product tours, be sure to check out ProductLed Academy.
