Building a user adoption strategy isn’t just about ticking boxes—it's about solving real problems. For SaaS companies, achieving high user adoption means creating seamless onboarding experiences, driving engagement, and keeping users coming back by giving them a strong understanding of the value of your product.
Some tried-and-true approaches include:
- Streamlining onboarding: Optimize the onboarding process to ensure users quickly understand your product's value. Use targeted surveys to identify friction points and improve the customer journey from the start.
- Conducting user behavior analytics: Analyze how users interact with your product to identify patterns, pain points, and opportunities. Tools like heatmaps and session replays can provide actionable insights for improvement.
- Segmenting users: Group users based on behavior, demographics, personas, or needs to tailor messaging, features, and support. Segmentation helps prioritize high-value users and address their specific challenges.
- Running feedback loops: Establish a continuous cycle of collecting, analyzing, and acting on user feedback. In-product surveys and AI-driven analysis ensure you address user needs and track satisfaction over time.
- Driving feature discovery: Encourage first time and existing users to explore and adopt lesser-known features by using contextual prompts or surveys to surface their value at the right time. This boosts successful user adoption, engagement, and retention.
- A/B testing workflows: Test different workflows, designs, or features to determine which variations resonate best with users. Use analytics and feedback to guide iterative improvements and boost user adoption rates.
But let’s skip the generic advice. Instead, this article dives into real-world examples from product managers who’ve tackled challenges head-on.
You'll see how strategies like in-app messaging, AI-powered insights, and user-driven product roadmaps come to life across a host of use cases.
1. Ramp: Triggered in-product surveys and AI analysis
Challenge
As Ramp, a modern finance platform, grew in size, maintaining a customer-first focus became increasingly challenging. The product team faced competing demands from internal stakeholders, making it harder to prioritize user needs. Ramp needed a solution to consistently uplift the voice of the customer and ensure that user feedback remained central to product development.
Strategic approach
To create a customer-centric product operations program, Ramp implemented Sprig in-product surveys and Sprig AI. Their approach included:
- Targeted survey delivery
Ramp used Sprig’s platform to create tailored surveys, delivering them to the right users at the right time through Segment-triggered events. To reduce survey fatigue, they applied a 30-day global filter, ensuring users didn’t receive more than one survey within that timeframe. - Streamlined feedback analysis
Sprig’s AI features (AI Explorer and AI Recommendations) processed thousands of survey responses, uncovering key insights and identifying recurring themes. This allowed Ramp to understand what feedback applied to new features, upcoming enhancements, or opportunities not yet on the roadmap. - Customer-centric feedback loop
Ramp integrated feedback into their product operations program through a five-step process:some text- Sending in-app surveys with Sprig.
- Using Sprig AI to synthesize responses into actionable insights.
- Sharing findings regularly with product teams.
- Hosting weekly calls with users providing constructive feedback.
- Incorporating prioritized insights into the product roadmap.
Results
Ramp’s efforts delivered impressive outcomes:
- Increased feedback volume: By pairing surveys with targeted user segments, Ramp collected over 10,000 responses, significantly improving their NPS program.
- Time-saving AI analysis: Sprig AI saved hours of manual work by clearly surfacing themes and user trends, enabling product teams to make faster, data-driven decisions.
- Customer-centric product development: The continuous feedback loop ensured that user needs directly informed new and upcoming features, reinforcing a user-first product strategy, improving adoption metrics and customer lifetime value.
“This cycle is where the magic happens,” said Read Ward, Product Operations Lead at Ramp. “Through Sprig, we build a customer-centric program that continuously uplifts the voice of the user.”
Ramp’s strategic use of Sprig has transformed their product operations, enabling them to scale while keeping the customer at the heart of their development process.
2. Invoice2go: Segmenting and surveying drop-offs
Challenge
Invoice2go, a popular SaaS invoicing tool, faced a typical yet significant problem: They saw drop-offs for new customers at multiple stages of their onboarding flow. While a lot of new users were signing up for the platform, many were failing to complete their setup, resulting in churn—a common issue in the SaaS world.
Invoice2go’s team found that these users weren’t making it past certain key steps in the onboarding process, like setting up invoicing templates or linking their bank accounts.
The question was: Why? What was causing the drop-offs, and how could they fix it?
Strategic approach
To tackle this challenge, Invoice2go leveraged Sprig’s user segmentation and surveying tools.
- Segmenting users based on behavior
The team first segmented users based on where they exited the user onboarding flow. This segmentation allowed them to tailor their approach and send targeted follow-up surveys to users who dropped off at various stages. - Targeted surveys
Using these surveys, Invoice2go uncovered a common theme in user feedback: unclear in-app guidance was the main culprit. Users were confused about where to go next or how to complete critical steps, which led them to abandon the process. - Survey data plus AI analysis at scale
Sprig’s survey data helped the Invoice2go team quickly pinpoint these pain points and understand the specific areas of friction.
Based on the insights gathered, they implemented more intuitive and contextual in-app messaging, offering clearer tutorials and helping guide users at every stage of the onboarding flow. They also refined the user journey to make it more streamlined, minimizing unnecessary steps and simplifying complex tasks.
Results
Invoice2go’s data-driven updates paid off with measurable improvements: By addressing users' pain points early in the user adoption process, Invoice2go not only improved their onboarding experience—decreasing drop-off by 25%—but also fostered better long-term customer success.
The result was a smoother transition from new sign-ups to active, satisfied users—leading to more robust customer engagement and a reduction in overall customer churn.
3. ClassPass: User-driven product roadmap
Challenge
ClassPass, a subscription-based fitness platform, was facing a user adoption challenge: While the search feature had the potential to greatly enhance the user experience, it wasn’t originally built to handle the diverse array of options that ClassPass could now offer customers.
But before just launching into building a new feature, the ClassPass team wanted to better understand how they could translate real user needs into a renewed search experience.
Strategic approach
ClassPass wanted to learn what exactly were the problems with the current search experience—the feedback they gathered provided valuable insights into what was missing in the feature’s design and user experience.
- In-app surveys targeting specific experiences
To understand the underlying issues, ClassPass turned to Sprig’s user feedback tools to survey active users. Through the surveys, ClassPass discovered that users didn’t fully understand how to filter classes or weren’t aware the feature existed in the first place. - Survey data to inform product decisions before building new features
Additionally, the ClassPass team used a secondary in-product survey strategy to analyze user sentiment about their map search tool.
Results
ClassPass introduced a multi-category filtering feature that allowed users to select multiple activity categories and apply additional filters to refine their search within each category. These updates significantly enhanced user engagement by making it easier to discover relevant options.
They also revamped their map search, building in clustering for pins when zoomed out, which directly addressed user feedback saying the maps were too cluttered to be useful.
By leveraging “always on” in-product surveys to measure feature performance continuously, ClassPass saw a 16% improvement in their app's search usability rating over the next three quarters.
This use case showcases the importance of real-time user feedback and ongoing feature measurement in driving adoption success, and underscores the importance of integrating qualitative user insights into your product roadmap to ensure that new features align with end-user expectations and effectively meet their needs.
4. Chipper Cash: Continuous user research
Challenge
Chipper Cash, a leading African fintech platform offering no-fee peer-to-peer payment services, faced low adoption rates for its new cryptocurrency feature. Despite significant effort and high expectations, the feature failed to resonate with users, particularly in Uganda. The team needed to understand why adoption lagged and how to address the barriers holding users back.
Strategic approach
To uncover the root cause, Chipper Cash partnered with Sprig to conduct a continuous cycle of user research and feedback:
- Break down key questions
The team segmented the challenge into smaller, actionable questions, such as:some text- Are users familiar with cryptocurrency?
- Do users know Chipper offers a cryptocurrency feature?
- What prevents users from trying it?
- Deploy in-product surveys
Using Sprig, Chipper launched targeted, in-product surveys to collect real-time insights directly from active users. These surveys achieved high response rates, offering immediate feedback on user awareness and sentiment. - Analyze results with AI tools
Survey results revealed that 58% of Ugandan respondents were unaware of the cryptocurrency feature, while others expressed hesitation due to limited knowledge about cryptocurrency. Sprig’s automated sentiment analysis highlighted actionable themes and next steps, reducing manual effort while accelerating decision-making. - Act on insights
Chipper invested in targeted awareness campaigns via social media and in-app messaging. Additionally, they launched a cryptocurrency education initiative, offering resources to help users understand Bitcoin, Ethereum, and basic investing concepts. - Iterate based on metrics
The team monitored feature adoption rates and iterated based on performance data. Continuous feedback loops allowed Chipper to refine their strategy and maximize impact.
Results
Through a data-driven approach and actionable insights, Chipper Cash achieved a 194% increase in feature adoption within a few months. Awareness campaigns, in-app prompts, and educational efforts proved instrumental in overcoming adoption barriers, setting a strong foundation for sustained growth.
This success demonstrates the power of combining continuous user research with AI-driven analysis to adapt strategies dynamically and improve outcomes.
5. Nova Credit: Revised product messaging during onboarding
Challenge
Nova Credit, an award-winning fintech company, faced a critical challenge: While their website attracted solid traffic, conversions lagged behind. The team struggled to understand why visitors weren’t taking action. Data from traditional analytics tools (like Google Analytics) provided metrics like traffic and conversion rates but lacked the qualitative insights needed to answer pressing questions:
- Were they attracting the right audience?
- Were visitors having a good on-site experience?
“We could see where the problems were, but not how to solve them,” said Kevin Thrams, Consumer Growth Lead at Nova Credit.
Strategic approach
To tackle these issues, Nova Credit partnered with Sprig to implement a series of targeted, in-product surveys to uncover actionable insights:
- Understanding visitor intent
Nova Credit deployed multiple surveys to learn more about their visitors. Using advanced targeting settings, they displayed surveys only to users who met specific criteria, such as visiting multiple pages or staying on a page for at least 15 seconds. - Iterative testing
After limited results with open-ended questions, the team shifted to simpler, multiple-choice formats. This approach revealed that while visitors valued the site’s content, they often misunderstood Nova Credit’s core offering: credit cards for non-U.S. citizens. - Refining messaging
Further surveys confirmed Nova Credit was attracting the right audience but highlighted a major gap in their website messaging. With 70.3% of survey respondents unaware of the primary service offered, the team completely overhauled their homepage design, layout, and copy to focus on clarity and relevance.
Results
Nova Credit’s data-driven approach yielded transformative outcomes:
- 47% increase in homepage conversion rates, achieved virtually overnight after implementing the redesigned homepage.
- Real-time insights enabled swift iteration, with surveys and website updates rolled out over a few weeks.
- Enhanced messaging and country-specific pages created a clearer, more user-friendly experience.
“Sprig helped us understand our users in real-time and take swift, impactful action,” said Kevin Thrams. “The impact has been significant, not just for conversions but for our overall brand and communications.”
Sprig’s in-product surveys proved to be a game-changer, delivering targeted insights that transformed Nova Credit’s website and user experience.
6. Coinbase: AI-driven feedback loop
Challenge
Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency platform, wanted to improve its tax center to help users input accurate financial information and make tax filing smoother. However, they faced two key challenges:
- Identifying pain points that caused confusion or frustration for users.
- Understanding how these issues differed between basic users and advanced users with more complex needs, such as those transferring crypto between platforms.
These insights were essential to enhance the tax center interface and ensure users could easily prepare for tax season.
Strategic approach
To address these challenges, Coinbase leveraged Sprig’s in-product surveys with targeted audience segmentation:
- Audience segmentation
Using Sprig’s targeting capabilities, Coinbase segmented users into two groups: basic users and power users. This allowed the team to tailor their surveys to uncover pain points unique to each group, such as difficulties editing cost basis data for advanced users. - Collecting qualitative feedback
Coinbase deployed a CSAT survey in their tax center to gather open-text feedback. Sprig’s AI-powered analysis transformed this feedback into actionable insights, highlighting user frustrations like confusing forms and trouble downloading reports. - Real-time bug detection
The surveys also revealed a critical issue: tax reports were not generating properly on certain browsers. This feedback allowed Coinbase to quickly address the bug ahead of tax season.
Results
Coinbase’s targeted approach yielded significant results:
- A revamped tax center interface, simplifying the user experience and making tax preparation smoother for both basic and advanced users.
- Early detection and resolution of a browser-specific bug that impacted report generation, ensuring users could seamlessly download necessary tax documents.
- Improved user satisfaction through actionable insights derived from in-product surveys.
“These improvements made a huge impact ahead of tax season,” said Lucy Aziz, Senior Product Manager.
By prioritizing user feedback and acting on real-time insights, Coinbase ensured a smoother tax season for its customers and reinforced its commitment to providing a seamless financial experience.
Turning insights into action
Every SaaS business faces unique challenges with user adoption, but the best teams rely on data-driven approaches and direct feedback to tackle them. Whether it’s using in-app surveys, refining onboarding processes, or leveraging AI, the key is to meet users where they are and guide them toward success.
You can apply the same principles to your own product adoption strategy and see measurable gains in customer retention and engagement by addressing their specific needs, highlighting customer milestones, and optimizing customer support with AI analysis at scale.
Ready to build a better strategy? Sprig’s tools can help get you there faster. Book a demo today to see how Sprig’s intuitive platform can deliver results like these for your team.