7 Key User Flows to Unlock Your SaaS Growth – with Peter Loving [410]

This is a machine-generated transcript.

[00:00:00] Omer: Peter, welcome to the show.

[00:00:01] Peter: Hey, Omer. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to be here.

[00:00:05] Omer: My pleasure. It, this is one of those interviews that it's taken forever, forever to schedule but we made it happen. Really glad to have you here. So, before we, so you know, we're gonna talk about the seven key user flows to help founders and teams unlock their SaaS growth.

[00:00:23] And before we get into that, why don't you just tell us about your company, UserActive. What do you do, who do you help, and what, what's the main problem that you're going out there and solving?

[00:00:35] Peter: Yeah, sure. So we're a, a design team for SaaS companies really. So we have a subscription-based design model where we become an extension of the SaaS companies team and really help level up design across the business.

[00:00:50] So we fundamentally work on product design really improving ui ux, improving con conversion rates and CRO in a product. But we also support in design across the business, so website design and optimization and, and other, you know, marketing-based collateral. So yeah, you can just think of it as a, a design team for SaaS.

[00:01:12] Omer: And you are based in Barcelona?

[00:01:15] Peter: That's right. I'm from London, the uk, but we're based out here in Barcelona.

[00:01:19] Omer: And are your clients mostly in, in Europe or, or you, you're working with, with, you know, clients in the US and all over the place.

[00:01:26] Peter: Yeah, we have a, a bit of a mix actually. So I'd say probably 60% are based in the us.

[00:01:34] And then yeah, Europe makes up, yeah, it's more or less like 60, 40%, 40% based in Europe. And then occasionally we'll have, we'll have a client in, you know, based other one, other places. We've had one in New Zealand and Australia too. It's just slightly trickier time zones, but we've, we've got a pretty flexible team and some remote designers too, so yeah.

[00:01:56] Omer: That's a new world, right?

[00:01:57] Global customer base and no sleep,.

[00:01:59] Peter: So it's got, yeah, so it's good when you can wake up and see progress on things being done.

[00:02:05] Omer: Yeah. That's nice too. Let's take a quick breather here. You know, I've come to realize that some tools can really change the game when it comes to building a business. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Leadfeeder, a tool that helps you cut through the data and turn those website visitors into solid leads.

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[00:02:45] That's Leadfeeder.com/try. Alright, let's get back to the show. All right. So let's get into this. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about each of these user flows that is, is, is part of, you know, running any, any SaaS business and growing any SaaS business. And we'll just deep dive into each one, just help people understand what each one is, why it's important, common mistakes people make the best practices and, and some real world examples.

[00:03:16] If we have them, we'll share them along the way. So with that, why don't we get started and just frame this thing for me and just tell me like, at a high level. What is a use of flow? Why is it important? Why are we even having this conversation?

[00:03:31] Peter: Yeah, good question. So really you want to think about a product as being something that users come and experience.

[00:03:41] They, they're, they're using the product to get value from, they have a problem or they're looking to achieve something in an easier, faster way. And they don't just interface with the product at, at one moment or one at one point. They're always having touch points with a product in terms of steps or a journey or a task.

[00:04:02] So what we, we always want to design a journey that, or, or an experience that facilitates the journey or the task that they're looking to achieve. And the goal of that is to make it very easy, make it intuitive, and really remove the requirement for users to have to make cognitive effort. To, to think.

[00:04:24] So if we can reduce that, make it easy and make make it flow for them then we've done a really great job in helping them to achieve the, the result that they're looking for with the software. And as we've designed, you know, many, many SaaS products, what you get to see over time is that there are very common flows from one sile.

[00:04:45] So very common user flows. And when you start to look at a product as a series of flows, you can then it really then helps you design an experience that's enjoyable, that's easy to use and that builds up loyalty with within your user base.

[00:05:02] Omer: Yeah, no, I, I think that's a great way of, of, of framing it and just thinking about this in terms of flows.

[00:05:07] So let's dive in. The first one. Signup flow. I think everybody knows what that is. You gotta get people to sign up for your SaaS product. Otherwise, nothing else. We're gonna talk about matters. I, I mean, at the end of the day, EE every product has, has a, a signup form, a signup process. They're pretty much, you know, largely all the same.

[00:05:31] What kind of issues do you, you still see when, when you work with, with clients?

[00:05:35] Peter: I would, I would say one of the key issues that we see over and over again is friction being present within a sign up flow. So you, you can think of a signup flow as a, as a fairly brief kind of process, but for some SaaS companies, it can actually be a bit longer and require more.

[00:05:53] But it, it, we think of it as starting on the website. So visitor lands on the website now I. Is it really easy for them to just sign up and try out the product and actually get from the website to being into the account? How easy is that? First of all there's one thing you wanna do is communicate the value and of the product and what it can achieve and help your visitor visualize your product, being able to solve their problem.

[00:06:19] Okay? Does this, does, is this thing gonna be the, the tool that's gonna help me achieve X or Y? If that's compelling, then they'll likely take the next step. And there are also some other competing factors as well, because nowadays SaaS is pretty competitive. So quite often visitors are coming with an idea of different options.

[00:06:42] So they're exploring whether your product is a solution and they might also be switching from another, from another SaaS product. There might be another tool that's not quite delivering what they need. So the, your product has to position itself to solve that problem. Also, it also depends what model, what acquisition model you are running for your software.

[00:07:01] So is it product led? Are you operating free trials or do you operate through a demo process? Is do you still have a very sales led approach? Do you sell to enterprise? Does does that sales process involve more? So that's where things can be a bit more complex. But generally speaking, you wanna be able to articulate the value of your product clearly and make it easy to, to click on that free trial, enter your credentials, and sign up and, and start using it right away.

[00:07:29] What other, what other mistakes do we see? Sometimes there's unnecessary steps being, being there. There can be unnecessary steps. There can be too much information, there can be conflicting information. Sometimes you'll see on say just a website hero section for a SaaS. There'll be book a demo, there'll be a free trial button.

[00:07:48] There'll also be a try it now, but you're not really sure if that's a free trial or a call. And we sometimes see conflict in call to action. So it's just about simplifying the message, simplifying the step, and reducing friction for somebody to actually get inside the product.

[00:08:03] Omer: Yeah. My favorite one was a few months ago when I was checking out a, a new product.

[00:08:09] I came across, I got to the signup page, and before I even filled out one field on the signup page, there was a popup giving me a discount for the product. And I was like, I don't even know what the product is yet. Like why would I do? And it was just getting in the way. Right? It was just like, look, you could have got me in there.

[00:08:30] And so, and you're already trying to sell at the wrong time? I think.

[00:08:34] Peter: Yeah. I mean the discount that would, it would be, I ideal if that came at a point at which, you know, that the, the free trial ended or something like that, and you, and you're trying to hook that user in or give them an offer to see if you can convert them if they haven't converted through the free trial.

[00:08:48] So yeah, it does take a lot of thinking and it, it, yeah, and simplifying and, and thinking about that experience for, for the user,

[00:08:56] Omer: we should be clear that we're not trying, you know, the goal here isn't to try and convert everybody who visits your website into a signup, right? That's, there's no way that you're getting a hundred percent of your traffic is your, your ideal customer profile and customer.

[00:09:11] So, so almost the, the, the po the purpose of the website in many ways is to qualify the right people, disqualify the wrong people, and get the right people to get to the signup page, to, to sign up. Because otherwise, if you're just getting any random person to sign up, you might have an amazing signup conversion rate.

[00:09:31] Until you look at the churn and you're like, well, they kind of all kind of, you know, don't stick around at all. And so it tell me about like, so what are you, you looking at, so you're looking at the signup page and the conversion rate of people who visit that page to signing up.

[00:09:49] Peter: Yeah. So you are looking at website visitors to signups and, and you'd count the sign up for someone who's actually getting through and landing in, in the, in the product.

[00:09:58] So yeah. Was visitor to, to sign up conversion rate. And you yeah, I like your point about getting the right is in, so that's why the website has to communicate effectively the value and, and do justice to the product. So if you have a really good product, but your website's really not getting that message across, then some of those users that are the right fit might not get through that step to see, to see the product.

[00:10:22] And one thing we like to do there is also just show the product on the website. So it's amazing how many software companies, they might either feel that the UI isn't sexy enough or they're not completely proud of how it looks. But we always encourage getting the product on the website so they can, you can actually see the, see the product, get a feel for what it is, what it does, and communicate the value of it.

[00:10:46] Obviously that's a lot easier said, if you have a really sexy ui, you want to show it off. But that's why, you know, we, we design across, you know, the whole, the whole spectrum of, of like, you know, a SaaS company to make sure that that impression of your product's really high. And that shows on the actual homepage and on the website.

[00:11:04] Omer: Yeah. Yeah. Actually thinking of that, I was looking at profit well or metrics. A couple of days ago, and obviously Profit World's being acquired by Paddle and, and you know, it's, it's part of bigger org. Now, what I liked about what they're doing, and I don't know if, if it was always there, maybe it was before you sign up, they have a link to a demo of a product and it's not, click a demo, fill out some form, wait for some sales rep to contact you or whatever.

[00:11:34] It's literally you click the link and you are in the product and you are, you are kind of getting a feel of some dummy data. You're able to click through the navigation and. What, what I liked about that was that you, you, you're giving people a quick feel on and, and what to expect before they get in. You are also avoiding this thing where you sign up a bunch of people who are just curious and tire kickers, and then you're emailing them forever and nothing ever happens out of that.

[00:12:04] So I, I kind, I like that and I just wondered why. More SaaS companies didn't do that. It seems like a great way of just saying, here's, here's a really easy way, frictionless way to get a feel of the product before you even sign up. It's a

[00:12:19] Peter: really good point that you've just touched on. We, we've seen this becoming a little bit more popular now.

[00:12:25] It's this login list, demo or login list experience of the product. So we've actually been designing one. So if, if rather than landing on the homepage and having, you know, all of this communication and signing up for the product, if you can provide the product experience right away in the URL, the, the user is already in there.

[00:12:45] They're already getting activated. So it's a great way to do it, especially if you have a very intuitive product that does a easy to perform task. So one, one company that we work with. List kit. They, they're a a competitor of Apollo and, and you, you can go there to gather data on, you know, prospecting data.

[00:13:04] So emails and, and phone numbers of decision makers. But, you know, part of their free trial is you get some credits to actually get some data and get a feel and, and experience the data, but they have a really great searching functionality. So one test that we're doing is to just provide an experience of that search right on the website.

[00:13:24] So you land there and you can go straight in and start finding contacts that you're looking for. And that, and that's essentially, you are in a free trial already, but you, you haven't had to have that friction of signing up. So it, it's a really neat way for the right kind of product to, to get the user, you know, in invested in the actual experience.

[00:13:45] Omer: Yeah. And, and the other one that just came to mind was card. So. aj, who is the founder of Card, I think he's been doing this for years. So people who aren't familiar card is basically like a one page website builder. And what he does, or what he did was you can go to the site, I think it's card with double r.co, I think.

[00:14:09] And you can start building your website without signing up. So he lets you go through the process, like, okay, pick a template, fill out content, do this, bum, bum, bum. And then at the end, okay, you wanna save this, sign up and we can, you know, keep going or you don't care. You know, you, you can move on And

[00:14:27] Peter: yeah, it's great.

[00:14:29] I mean, that's great. It gets people to see how easy it is. If you've built a really great intuitive experience, it's great for people to see how easy it is. And then also they've done a little bit of work, so they might want to use that. You know, they might not just want to, you know, abandon that, that process.

[00:14:43] And then it's more compelling for 'em to, to make an account. There's more incentive for them to just sign up and say, okay, well I've made something there. I wanna save it or I wanna use it.

[00:14:52] Omer: So we, we should move on to the, we've got six more flows to, to talk about, but what I really like about this is I, I know you said track website visitors to sign up conversion, but also is it about the actual conversion rate of the signup?

[00:15:10] Page, do you also track that?

[00:15:13] Peter: Yeah. We, we do. So yeah, we those pages can be pretty simple and sometimes they can even start right on the homepage. So for a lot of SaaS you see the, put your email right there in the hero section, and then you put your email and you hit login. And then the next thing is, okay, you put fitting in a little bit of details about your name and maybe your company, and then you are in for others you'll, you'll click on it and you might land on that screen, which is just, you know, set your username, password, put your name and email address in.

[00:15:39] But what, you know, you, there is an opportunity there to, to do some kind of promotional or marketing content. So on those kind of screens, we like to give a bit more of an idea of value of the product. So one, one of the, you know, the key desirable outcomes for using that software. Some social proof maybe some accolades.

[00:15:58] You know, companies always like to show their G two or cap error, but it just makes them look, you know, have, have a few credentials there. So we do measure, measure the conversion rates of that, of those pages too, and sometimes iterate on them, maybe test them and, and get a sense for what works better.

[00:16:14] That's obviously better if you are a SaaS who has a high number of visitors and a high number of signups. 'cause when you are, you know, at an early stage, you don't have a high volume of traffic. Working on increments and improvements on those pages is probably not the best. You know, use of time is too, too detailed and, and finite.

[00:16:32] Omer: Yeah. Great. Okay. So what I love about that is we talked about some of the. The best practices in terms of conversion rate and testing that, tracking those metrics, but also some, I think, more innovative ways to improve that signup process. Like the card example, the, the list kit and you know, profitable metrics.

[00:16:50] So those are, I think, good examples of, you know, things you could do, do differently with your, with your signup process. So number two, the second flow, the user flow is onboarding. And so this is, we've got people signed up, but we actually need to get them to a point where they activate and start using the product.

[00:17:11] And this is where we see you often low activation rates. So just kind of explain that, this, this flow a little bit to us and, and you know, what, what some of the mistakes you see there.

[00:17:21] Peter: Yeah. So onboarding. You really want your user to be impressed in your product. You want 'em to come in, you want 'em to get value, and you, what you wanna avoid is them signing up, planning in it, being, feeling underwhelmed and also confused on what to do next.

[00:17:38] So common mistakes we see is a bit of like throwing too much information at the user. You know, you, you, they might see popups, they might see checklists, they might see a walkthrough. They might have like conflicting journeys and, and things to do. So that can be tricky also, if there's a steep learning curve for a product.

[00:17:58] User onboarding isn't always easy. And and that's really true if you, if you have a simple product that's intuitive and product led can be a lot easier. Like say imagine a loom for an example. You, you, you are, you are in there, shows you how to record a video, you hit record and you, before long you've got your first video done and you kind of feel this like, oh, that, that was nice and easy, but there's a lot of SaaS out there that's a lot more complex than that and has a lot, a lot of different functionality.

[00:18:23] So it does require some learning. So, and the challenge is how do you do that? How do you make that easy? The other aspect of this that can be difficult for software companies is that you have different user profiles. Not all SaaS just has one type of user, and those different user profiles might have a different experience.

[00:18:44] They might have to do different, you know, tasks or have different jobs to be done. So their onboarding. Probably needs to be different, you know, so personalized onboarding is one thing that we, we think about a lot here because what, what might work for one user profile as an onboarding flow will not work for another one.

[00:19:04] So that's something to be careful, especially if it's enterprise SaaS. So the more, the more complex products with complex workflows.

[00:19:12] Omer: Yeah, I think that's a great point. I, I think too often we, we see like a one size fits all onboarding journey or process and, sorry, I should say flow. That's the word we're using today.

[00:19:23] The flow, right? And o often that can work. If your product is straightforward and people get it, there isn't too much effort involved. But if you've got a product that serves potentially someone who's not that tech savvy, I. And you know, it doesn't like you and me play around with SaaS products day in, day out.

[00:19:50] They, they, they need a much simpler kind of experience versus someone who is a more sophisticated user. They're gonna get very frustrated if you're like, getting in the way of them actually just, you know, getting to, to start using the product.

[00:20:07] Peter: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Sometimes you, you, you can get in the way with too many yeah.

[00:20:13] Journeys and popups and, and things like that. There's a couple of ways that I like to think about this to make it easy or, or at least give an analogy to it. One thing that we want to do with the user when they come in is to orientate them. So you, you are welcoming them into your product and you just wanna say, okay, like, here's what, what you can do, here are the options and here's what's available to you.

[00:20:36] And then you lead them, lead them in the right direction. So the analogy I often give is, it's similar to if you went to a five star hotel when you arrive at the five star hotel. You are, you are usually impressed because the, the lobby is impressive, right? You walk in and you want, you're like, oh, wow, this hotel is, is, is pretty, pretty special, right?

[00:20:56] And then when you get there to check in, the person at the check-in helps you sign in. You know, there's, that's a bit of hassle. You usually tired, you've been traveling. You've gotta give them your passport. You have to do a few things that are gonna give you a room key. So there's a little bit of logistics, but then what they usually will do is say, okay, so, you know, we've got the a gym and spa.

[00:21:15] You can go to the first floor for that. There's breakfast at seven till nine or whatever your, your rooms in such a place. We also have these events. So they kind of talk you through and make you feel comfortable, just make you aware of the facilities. Then maybe somebody's gonna come and help you with your bags, and then they'll show you how to go and get set into your room.

[00:21:35] So once you are there, then you are free. You're like, okay, right. I do. I want to go and check out. The gym or a spa, or, or I think I'll go to this event and it's really similar in a product. You just want to, you know, take away the hassle, help 'em feel like, oh, this is gonna solve my problem. And for them to be impressed by the product, ux ui.

[00:21:55] And then you want to kind of like, steer them and, and, and let them kind of explore on their, on their own. So I, I usually use that as a kind of analogy to how you wanna think about users coming into your SaaS.

[00:22:07] Omer: I, I, I think that's a great analogy. And, and I think sometimes products try too hard, right?

[00:22:12] And, and kind of going to your analogy would be like, like saying, okay, you checked in, here's the here's, here's where the fitness center is. Here's a map for the fitness center. Here are the instructions on how to use each piece of the equipment inside the fitness center. You know, and, and all, all of this stuff, it's like, yeah, I probably want that at some point, but you're just giving me like a pile of, you know, a hundred pages to go and take away with me right now.

[00:22:37] It's like.

[00:22:38] Peter: It's like a lot to think about. And, and the other thing is like, imagine they, they, they told you about the gym and then they walked you down there straight away, like, okay, yeah, let's go and we'll show you the gym. And you're like, okay. But actually I, I just wanted to get my bags in the room and have a shower.

[00:22:51] So you can do that in onboarding too. Just steer them in different directions, which might not be the one I. That they were coming for that problem to be solved.

[00:23:00] Omer: Yeah. Yeah. And my pet peeve, which I've mostly experienced on iOS apps, but I'm sure there are SaaS products out there that do this as well, is if I've, if I've used an app and gone through some kind of onboarding, which is pretty painful and I didn't really need it, you know, it was like 50, 15 steps or something, and then I, I maybe I, I, I deleted the app and then I reinstall it or something, and they make me go through all that stuff again.

[00:23:28] It's like, like, I just did this. I know how to use the product. I just, I just didn't have it on my phone right now. I just reinstalled it. I want to continue using it. But for some reason, they've just got this really rudimentary logic, which is if someone installs the app, they must be a new user. Even though we know they're not a new user, and so we're gonna force them through this, this painful onboarding so they know how to use our product.

[00:23:52] Right. What are, what are the metrics that, that are most important here when it comes to onboarding?

[00:23:57] Peter: Well, we do look at things like utilization. I mean, if, say, imagine you're running a 14 day free trial. We, we wanna see that this user is logging in and they're actually completing tasks. So utilization is like, you know, how, how many times are they logging in?

[00:24:14] How long are those sessions? But then there's also some behavioral metrics. A lot of SaaS companies will use their North Star metric at this time. So I'll give you an example. We worked with Stat Stone, that's an affiliate management software. And for Stat, Stat Stone, during that free trial period, they want to see how many people come in, set up their account, and then add one affiliate.

[00:24:39] And that affiliate can then start, you know, do you know, doing their affiliate marketing for that account. So that's one of their North Star metrics. And then the other, the other one is like, how many accounts add five affiliates, because that gives them a real sense in the f in the free trial period of how active this user's gonna be, how important it is for them to get up their, their affiliate campaigns, get them up and running.

[00:25:00] So yeah, it's really good to have some kind of north star metric that you track in that period. And yeah, and then things like login, we do, we do consider the, the, the upgrade conversions during onboarding 'cause really that that's part, part of the process. Some software obviously has a lot of different, you know, models.

[00:25:22] So some might have a free trial, some's a demo. Some they might need to put in their credit card, you know, at sign up. We didn't touch on that and sign up, but that's also something that's often high level friction. But for some companies it works better. So yeah, there's, that, those are the types of, those are the types of metrics, yeah.

[00:25:40] Activity. And then sometimes if it makes sense, the upgrades or, or conversions.

[00:25:45] Omer: With onboarding. The, the example you gave there about adding the first affiliate to, to their account, that's really about whatever that time to value is, right? So we often talk about getting users to that aha moment where they've not only signed in, but they, they understand how to at least complete something that demonstrates the value of your product.

[00:26:15] And I think most founders will know, okay, if, if I could just get them to do this one thing, I know they'll, they'll see, see, value, value in this. What's the best way to, to track something like that?

[00:26:30] Peter: Yeah, I mean, well, it's, it's different for each, for each company because you, you learn to see the pattern of, of what works.

[00:26:38] And that's how that, that's why it's important to choose a North star metric that makes sense to, to customer success with your product. So yeah, there's just a, a number of, you know, what, what's interesting is how different the North Star metrics are for, for each SaaS company. And, and it's all, all tied to the customer.

[00:26:59] Yeah. The customer objective or, or what, what success looks like for them using the product. But yeah, yeah, it's, it, I think the best way for that is, is, is examples. You know, like for list kit that you know, there, there, there's a free trial which includes 50 free credits. If a user comes in. Does a search, uses up those 53 credits, downloads them.

[00:27:24] And then it's coming back, logging back in again, and then buys more credits. I mean, that can happen in, in onboarding, but that's obviously a really good sign of intent. Because with, with things like that, you could have somebody coming in using the credits, then they go away, they don't use the product again.

[00:27:39] They just want it to get the, you know, get some free credits. So yeah, it's very case by case specific that, that one.

[00:27:46] Omer: Yeah. And, and so let's, let's, we've already sort of, there's some overlap between onboarding and activation, and activation is the third flow that we're gonna talk about, and we've kind of already veered into that, just talking about, you know getting, getting to that aha momental value and stuff like that.

[00:28:03] So, can you just explain, like, you know, for people who, who aren't quite clear, like how, how, how would you draw the line between onboarding and what activation is? What are we trying to do?

[00:28:15] Peter: Yeah, so the main, the, the thing about activation is that you want users to be aware of your valuable features and to start using them.

[00:28:26] So it's raising awareness. It's also motivating or incentivizing users to get started on using those, those features. So it's those two, it's those two things. Now that relates to onboarding, because you might have a period of onboarding where, you know, something we do quite often when we're designing is during that orientation we, we might highlight a few key features within a product.

[00:28:52] And, and, and so that the user, you know, gets awareness of them and can visualize, okay, if I use that feature, I'm gonna get this, this value out of it. And that's where activation starts. It, it may take a few times of seeing a feature or clicking on a screen to get, get familiar with it. And if that starts in onboarding, you are already working on activation, then, then that's a really good step to get users to actually make use of all of their, of all of the features in your SaaS.

[00:29:22] That can go way beyond onboarding because I'll give you an example from, even from from us. We use Active Campaign, and I know for a fact we're not using all of the features in our plan. So there's still quite a bit of activation that's not happened. And we've been, we've had our account for a year.

[00:29:39] Omer: I, I should just say I, I use ActiveCampaign and I've had, I've been a user for, gosh, 10 years and I consider myself a tech savvy user and I still feel like I'm not using.

[00:29:55] You know, a whole bunch of features, but because, and, but I know they're there and I can, I, I'm aware of them. Right. So that's, I guess that box gets checked, checked, but at the same time, I understand the core features well enough and I'm able to use them, that I feel like I, I get value from the product and I'm happy with it.

[00:30:18] Right. So I think that's, that's also an important thing, you know, just, just because you have all of these features, it's not like you need users to use every single one. You just need to make sure that they're using, they're aware of them, and then they're using the ones that they get the most value from.

[00:30:31] Right. Is that fair?

[00:30:32] Peter: Yeah. I mean, that's really fair. The thing that you. Only one necessarily is that you have some really powerful features that your user would benefit from them if they use them, but they're not aware of them or they're not sure how to use them. So this happens quite a bit in activation.

[00:30:49] Sometimes I'm surprised how often I see this 'cause I, I spend a lot of time with founders in their product looking, you know, we, we'll screen share, we are in the product and we're having a look around doing something like an audit. It's often, like, before we start a big design project I'm always surprised how many times I'll see really powerful features I.

[00:31:09] Hidden in a settings menu or a reporting menu or somewhere in some of the core functionality of a software. And the thing is that it's ended up there because they've been working on this product for years, they've been releasing great features and functionality. And when they released them, there wasn't necessarily a section in the navigation or a, you know, in the structure of the navigation that made sense.

[00:31:34] So they, they, they've kind of found a place where it, it works. So part of activation. A lot of the work we do in activation is saying, Hey, that's a really valuable feature. And the founder will be like, yeah, this is, this is one of our best features. And we're like, well, we need to pull that out, surface that feature, highlight it, it should be in the main navigation.

[00:31:54] If you, you have a mega menu of features, we wanna bring that, bring that out front and center. We might have a screen dedicated to it with an empathy state and a, which explains the feature and then has a nice call to action to get started on a, you know, get started on the flow to actually doing that.

[00:32:10] So activation can be quite a big part of, of you know, the, the, the jobs to be done in, in doing great, delivering great software. And that's one of, that's one of the things I find a lot good, good features and functionality that users are maybe not aware of or dunno how to find them.

[00:32:26] Omer: Do, do you think there's a danger with that where you can end up, like what we talked about earlier where you wanna highlight these features, but now you've given the user 100 navigation links that they could potentially go to?

[00:32:39] Peter: Yeah. Well that's, this is what happens when I, I often call this like a sprawling navigation. So what happens when you, you have a software company that's either shipping or releasing really quickly. You have a big dev team, or you've been operating for years. Sometime I'm speaking with founders who've been operating their SaaS business for 10 to 15 years, and over that time, a navigation can get pretty cluttered.

[00:33:02] So a good exercise is to kind of sit back, take stock of all of the functionality, group them into say three to five. Top level categories and then, and then underneath those, organize them even if you need to categorize them again. But, but you see this with tools like yeah, like ActiveCampaign or HubSpot or some of these, you know, big software companies.

[00:33:27] And what they start to do is segment out the product. So you've seen this with both of these companies, that they'll have a sales plan and a marketing plan and then a kind of cm, and then you can bundle them up together and get those plans. So this does get a lot more challenging as your product grows.

[00:33:44] But yeah, that's why it's so important to kind of take a step back and logically assess, you know, is our navigation. Logical. Is it easy for somebody to just get a sense of, you know, what the features are? Is it cluttered? And Yeah, sometimes, you know, if, if you don't do that over a long period of time, the, the job is a lot bigger.

[00:34:05] You know, when you do have to go back and restructure that navigation. But it's a really valuable and worthwhile piece of work to do.

[00:34:12] Omer: One thing, I mean, it it strikes me is that you, you know, you, you've gotta be, you've mentioned conversion rate optimization, you've gotta be ab testing all the time, really to know, like from what you described, there's so many different ways you could implement a flow.

[00:34:30] There's no one size fits all answer where you can, you know, oh yeah. You know, Peter can go to your any size product and say, oh, move this link from here to here, and. You know, your activation will skyrocket, right? It's a matter of like trying different things and testing and seeing what works. The, the one thing I've noticed with like conversion rate optimization tools, most of 'em have moved so up market that if you are a, you know, an early stage founder, like you're gonna have to spend like, you know, a thousand bucks a month or something to get access to some of these tools.

[00:35:04] Like I, I remember like Optimizely used to be you know, a great product. I mean, I think they had a free plan. It was pretty affordable. And now it's like, you know, they're, they're focused on a completely different type of, of customer. Do you have any favorite tools? That you, you might recommend?

[00:35:19] Peter: Sometimes I'm surprised how often we, it's Google Analytics still within, within a product. There's some goals set within there. We've been using Bare Metrics one, one of our client accounts. So they were already using it and then set us, set us up with you know, user profiles for their company so that we are in their bare metrics account, checking it and, and using it.

[00:35:41] We've used Heap on another project before. I think those are the main ones. Oh, Stripe, believe it or not, you get some really good analytics from, from Stripe, so you can kind of see, especially if you're segmenting plans, you know, how many users are on which of the plans. We've been optimizing a pricing page recently, so we wanted to see the conversions and where, which plan they end up signing up on and what, what's the split between, you know, the, the three different plans.

[00:36:09] And you can actually get quite a bit out of, out of the Stripe analytics. So sometimes it's a combination. But yeah, you, you are right. The, the, some of those tools they get pretty expensive, pretty complex. It can be, you know, quite technical to set up. So and, and one, one thing, what you see is like, you don't always get accurate data.

[00:36:28] From them. So even from those, we've seen some, some some, some tools where the data, we kind of know that it's not right, but not really sure why. So that you can have cha Yeah. That it's, it's not really an easy thing. So it can be a bit challenging.

[00:36:43] Omer: Yeah. Okay, great. So let's, you mentioned plans. Let's talk about that.

[00:36:47] The next flow is what you call the upgrade flow. What, what, what are we talking about here? Because we've kind of got them, we've got them onboarded, we've got them through activation. Are we, why did, why does kind of upgrade, fit in at this point here?

[00:37:06] Peter: Yeah. Sometimes there can be some overlap, some crossover depending on the product, depending on the acquisition model, but upgrade flow.

[00:37:15] Essentially it's that moment at which the, you are taking the user on the, on the journey of the buying decision. They, they might start to feel like, Hey, this, this tool is the, the, the right solution for us. We, we, we figured we can get the results from this tool. So I. They might, you know, go to that upgrade.

[00:37:37] Now, there can be a var, a variety of, of steps to get there because if you're operating a free trial, there's a time bound aspect to this. So whether that's seven or 14 days, you come to a point at which they're forced to make that decision. If you have a freemium model, though, that's more open, so your, your upgrade flow can start in many different places.

[00:37:58] And then also you, you know, for, for demos where if you have a kind of sales led approach or some kind of hybrid approach, then this varies a bit too. But it's really that buying decision and how you take them through that journey within the product. Activation can still happen after, because sometimes.

[00:38:18] You, you wanna activate a user on a plan as well. So say, say you, you take your free trial and then you upgrade to a premium plan. You, you really want to activate that user the minute they sign up to make them feel like that was a good buying decision and now they're invested. Because the last thing you want them to do is upgrade and then feel like, oh yeah, I'm still not kind of sure was this right.

[00:38:40] And then not really get busy in, in the product, so want 'em to get active. So that's why we, we really think about upgrade flow as a very, a very critical user flow for SaaS.

[00:38:50] Omer: I, I, I wanna try, maybe you, you have an example here that you might be able to share and it, it is hard because like you just said, there's different di people could upgrade at different points depending on what type of product you have, what type of model you, you have.

[00:39:07] It could ha it could happen, you know, three, six months after they've been using a free plan or a basic plan or whatever. Or it could happen right at the point where they, they're using the product for the first time. One thing I've experienced is. Have you, you ever watched Frazier, the TV show? Yeah.

[00:39:30] Yeah. Love it. So there's this, there's this episode with Frazier and his brother Niles, and they go to this exclusive spa or some kind of, you know, membership thing. And they're like so excited to get into this place. And they're there and, and you know, soaking all out. And then they, they see a, a door and they like, they ask somebody always like, what's that door?

[00:39:53] It's like, oh, that's for our VIP people. Wait a minute, I thought I was a VIP. It's like, suddenly this experience that they were having feels lame because there's a better experience there. Right? And then, and then it's a really funny episode because then they go through that door and then they're like, yeah, we made it.

[00:40:08] This is the place. And there's another door that goes to the V-I-V-I-P people, right? And I, I kind of feel like that was some products where I've gone and, and upgraded and paid for the product and immediately I'm seeing. Upgrade buttons on screen and telling me about features that I don't have. And it, it feels like at some point that might be useful when I'm trying to use those features.

[00:40:39] But it's that Frazier experience where I've just feel like I paid like this better experience and you're telling me there's something better that you don't have. Right. It's like, it's almost like an anticlimax.

[00:40:50] Peter: Yeah. That's the thing that's, you don't want people to feel after making a buying decision.

[00:40:55] You don't want 'em to feel an anticlimax. That's it. Because the message you're giving them is the thing you just bought isn't good enough. 'cause we're hitting you with the next better version of it. So we, we, when, when we're designing that kind of experience, it's very intentional. It's like we want to build loyalty, reinforce that that was a good buying decision.

[00:41:15] And then, and then. Enable them within that plan. So it's almost like sometimes you are almost doing some activation design or some onboarding design for that plan to really make them help them get the most out of what they just paid for. So yeah, get the most outta the features and, and, and get using it and, and, and build that utilization and, and lifetime value, essentially.

[00:41:38] Omer: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's almost like when somebody pays, you don't want 'em to have buyer's remorse and you, rather than trying to do the upgrade, you almost wanna reinforce that buying decision. Congratulations, you made this, you know, you made the right decision. Let's just show you all the things that you can do now, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

[00:41:59] Right. That seems like a better experience.

[00:42:01] Peter: Yeah. Like going back to that affiliate management platform. You say, say the upgrade. I. And, and pay the screen. We wanna land them on is like, right, let's get you set up and on the way to making more money from affiliates for your SaaS. And that's a compelling message.

[00:42:16] That's what they're there for. So then they're on the journey. Okay, let's add your first let's set up your first campaign, add your affiliates, send the message out, and, and that, that's the kind of thing we'll facilitate a flow for that. With the upgrade flow, it's, it's the, it's usually the bit before that, that we are really working on.

[00:42:35] So it does start during onboarding because we want the user to be really clear about what the different, what the options, what the buying options are, you know, what are the plans. We want them to be easy to understand. We want them to be easy to identify which plan is for them. And we also want 'em to understand the, the model, the signup, you know, and acquisition model for the SaaS.

[00:43:01] Because if they're on a free trial. We, we wanna, we wanna frame it. Okay. 14 days will help you get the most outta this product in this time. But you know, we do, you do see the kind of, oh, like, you know, you have 13 days left, or, you know, five days left, sign up, upgrade. Now, you know, we will design those things, but they're very contextual and they're very, you know, you have to be intentional about where you put them.

[00:43:27] If, for example, you are running a freemium plan. We would do that very differently. So you might have a premium feature when they click on that screen, you'll introduce the feature and explain what it is. You know, say, okay, get started. Now if they click on get started, we're gonna show them a paywall or a signup or to, to say, okay, upgrade onto the plan to pay for this feature.

[00:43:52] And then we're gonna educate them on that. The key thing about making it easy is it's a bit like that sign up where I said re you know, frictionless. We're trying to remove friction. So simplifying the decision making simplifying the, the, the features or the complexity of what's in that plan so they understand it and can go through.

[00:44:11] So ideally we want 'em to have one click. Land on the pricing screen in app. I'm, I'm also surprised how many times I see that taking a user outside the app onto a kind of pricing screen back on the website. And for us, this's like a, a big mistake. So we want to keep them in inside the product and then go through the upgrade payment.

[00:44:35] We've seen prob, we've seen mistakes with this as well before, which is, you know, annual plans usually have a 20% discount, something like that. We've seen some flows where. You're not telling the user that they're paying for the whole annual plan, but the fee there's for the annual plan, then they pay for it and then they're like, oh shit, I've signed up for annual and, and now I wanna refund.

[00:44:55] So it's just like highlighting the information, making that buying decision logical, easy and, and, and seamless. So that, yeah, upgrade flow. We consider it, you know, from onboarding as well. It's that journey to understanding what you're buying and making it easy to buy.

[00:45:11] Omer: Yeah. I, I think people are getting used to it now in terms of the, the monthly versus annual pricing, but initially it felt a bit deceptive where.

[00:45:21] You know, yeah. You'd see the pricing page and it would say $200 a month, monthly, and only $97 annual a month. Right. And it's like, yeah, okay. It's, it's kind of amortized over like, you know, monthly. But then you get to the next stage and it's like, you know, give us like, you know, $10,000. Right. You're like, you know what happened?

[00:45:43] Peter: Yeah. And you're like thinking, oh wait, I thought it was 97. Yeah, that's it. 'cause it's just like giving you that, that annual cost, but what they were showing you was the equivalent monthly rate. So yeah, there's, there's clever things to do. And so like how to present it to make it look like a good investment.

[00:45:59] You know, when I know that I need a product, I always buy the annual plan because you, you, the saving is, is is pretty good. But when you are trying something and you're in a free trial and you, you validated that the product's for you, but you still don't know if you're gonna really commit to that being the software that you're gonna use.

[00:46:19] That's when you buy. I, I think that's when most users will go for the monthly and they'll say, okay, I'm gonna give this a month or two and just try it out. And then later on they'll get a sense of, okay, this has become a, a regular part of my workflow. Now it makes sense to, to go onto an annual plan. So you do wanna account for that and, and, and yeah, be aware of things like that when you are, when you're designing, upgrade flows for users.

[00:46:43] And the other, the other example I sometimes give is Canva, where they can pay for. Premium assets. You know, in Canva you might be on freemium, but you're gonna pay for one thing and it might be a, a premium template of a video or, or, or some, something like that. So there's little buying things, but once a customer's bought once, the likelihood of them buying again is, is multiplied considerably.

[00:47:08] So, you know, then that you, that you kind of ha you can build that loyalty and, and, and perhaps present plans a little more to them. So those are the kind of considerations we think in about, in upgrade flows.

[00:47:20] Omer: The, the next couple of flows, I want to get through them as quickly as possible. 'cause I wanna make sure we have time for the seventh flow, which is cancellation.

[00:47:29] Right? That's, I think it's gonna be a lot, super important for people. So why don't we just quickly, like, number five is really like what you described as the core product workflow, and then six is the integration flow. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about, about those and, and any, any things that you think are important for our listeners.

[00:47:47] Peter: Yeah, I'll jump into that. The core product workflow is, is easy for me to give a general overview of this because the way I think about that is. If you think about your SaaS, where do users spend most of their time and what's the most valuable feature? Like if you had to pick, pick one out? So we often think about that as the core product workflow once they've signed up and, and they're activated and everything else.

[00:48:12] So to go back to active campaign as the example, for us, it's sending out that weekly email or sending out a marketing email to your audience. So. That it, you wanna make that workflow intuitive. Have a great ux, easy to do, quick to get through. If I compare this one thing, I often say that I used to find MailChimp has a very difficult UX for new users.

[00:48:38] And I know MailChimp is one of the big, you know, you know, the main players in, in that sector. 'cause they've been around a long time. But when you look at the UX for new use, and I still think the UX is, is bad. People learn it and get familiar with it and they can use MailChimp and it's very powerful and it's a great product.

[00:48:54] But when you use some of the modern tools that came into the market a lot later and they just seemed like a lot more seamless, a lot more, a lot quicker and easier to flow through, like having your list and sending your email out to your audience. That's the difference. And it's it's that it's just delivering a great UX on your core functionality in your product.

[00:49:15] Omer: I'm surprised you say that about it, that about MailChimp and we keep talking about Active campaign and those guys will love us because this isn't sponsored by Active Campaign. Right. But, but and then now we're complaining about MailChimp. But I, I do remember, like I, I, I think there's some things about the branding with MailChimp and everything.

[00:49:31] It's, it's like a non-car, non-technical kind of experience. But whenever I've used it, I'm always not a hundred percent clear what I'm doing, what's going to happen. And I've always felt like it's easier to make a mistake when you are. Doing something in MailChimp, whereas the other ones that kind of like feel more, more cleaner and and easier to understand.

[00:49:54] Peter: Yeah, I'm glad it's not just me. So I've heard a few other people say and that, that, that you relate to that comment as well. The touching back on the branding. I think MailChimp just has really great branding. So good software has personality. That's one thing that, that I say a lot and it's actually,

[00:50:11] Omer: they do a great job with that.

[00:50:12] Peter: They do a great job and, and you know, to, to get somebody to feel comfortable about a tech tool that might be complex, making it friendly, giving it personality is a great way to do it. So it's, it's a really, a really nice thing to think about with, with design and, and, and, you know, giving users a good product experience.

[00:50:32] It's always nice when you see that happy chimp after you've sent a campaign, you know? Yeah.

[00:50:37] Omer: Great. Let's talk about integration flow and then we'll talk about, I. The cancellation piece.

[00:50:42] Peter: Cool. Okay. So integrations are really important in, in, in software. Some products require an integration even to be used and that affiliate management software, again, is a good example of this, or often CRMs can be a good example, especially if the CRM is attached to customer activity or to a payment or billing solution.

[00:51:07] Accounting and bookkeeping is another sector where you always need to do an integration with your eith, either your banking or something like Stripe to, to get your accounting information into your product. So, although this is user flow number six, it can happen in onboarding. For, for software like that, it's one of the first steps.

[00:51:26] So you have high level of friction, right during the onboarding process and the job to be done there. It's to make that integration as easy as possible. And that can be difficult when you've got a technical in integration. Some of them we've worked with software companies who, who have integrations that are complex, that require developers to come in and actually help.

[00:51:47] So we're designing an integration flow to facilitate that, to make it easy, easy to invite your developer, easy to give them instructions, and then, and then, but, you know, hand it back off once they're done. So that's really important for some and for other SaaS it's just important for them to connect up to other tools in their ecosystem, in their tech stack.

[00:52:08] So you wanna make integrations be very prominent section in your software. You wanna list them out really clearly. A lot of tools will rely on Zapier to give, to help you integrate, but if you can build custom integrations where you, you know, you've connected with APIs on the tools, and you've done, you've made it, you know, one click or a nice easy flow to do it.

[00:52:31] Then that, then that's better. It's just that nowadays integrations are, are pretty much a, a requirement for, for most software tools, you know, to, to be effective for their users. Yeah.

[00:52:42] Omer: Yeah. I, I think that's spot on and we don't have to spend too much time on this. The, I would just say love Zapier, but I often feel like I've got these, all these Zaps set up and I forget about them, and then something stops working and I'm not sure where to look because I even forgot that I set this thing up in the first place and I, I feel like a lot of times I see this in SaaS products where they defer to, to Zapier to do everything.

[00:53:12] And you're, you're putting extra work on your end users. Yeah. I mean, you don't have to build native integrations and, and all of that stuff, but. It makes it harder for users, especially if they're not technical people, versus be just being able to go into your app and, and, you know, click and, and have the integration there.

[00:53:31] I know there are a bunch of teams that are working on products that make that, that easier for, for native integrations, but yeah, I think, I think the takeaway here is know your users, know what they're capable of, and make sure you're, you're providing an integration experience that is. Appropriate for them.

[00:53:49] Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Making it, making it easy for them to connect up their tech stack as well.

[00:53:55] Omer: Great. Okay, so number seven, flow cancellation, right? This is the one that we really can, can keep founders awake at night, right? Losing churn, people canceling. I don't know why people canceled. I often say, you know, if I hear a founder say that, I'm like, okay, well, you know, put in a, some kind of just quick one question survey, right?

[00:54:17] Or one, you know, one click kind of thing. No one ever fills though it out. It's just, and there's this, it's just, so I think this is, I think there'll be a lot of founders listening saying, Peter, please give me something here. Right? Like, how can, how can, how can I, how can I reduce my churn? Like today, what can I do?

[00:54:35] Peter: Cancellation is a tricky one because by the time they get to cancellation. They probably made up their mind. So you, you, that that's the thing. You're almost at the point of if you can retain them, that's a great result in this. But we look at it as the best thing that you can get from the cancellation flow is the learning experience.

[00:54:57] Have you ever seen a SaaS where they hide the cancellation or make it like impossible for you to cancel? Yes. Yeah. So I, I've had that experience before and you, you actually have to contact them and say, I can't cancel this and I really need to, and, and, you know, you are kind of wondering if anyone's gonna get back to you.

[00:55:15] We really don't recommend that. That's a really bad experience. Once you leave, you are never coming back if you've made it difficult. So what we like to recommend is make it in, you know, intuitive. Make it, you know, you don't wanna put it as a call to action to cancel, but you do wanna make it, put it somewhere in there.

[00:55:32] Subscription or account or profile settings. The option to downgrade or cancel. Now when they, when the user goes to click on that, that's our opportunity to get the learning outcomes that we really need. So we design a flow for that. And sometimes there's a few options in there. The first one is, oh, hey, you've got a problem you'd like to cancel.

[00:55:55] We've done this before where we've offered three options. We're like, okay, would you like to have half price for the next month or three months? It depends on what the offer could be. And there, there might be a, an opportunity during that period to also figure out, okay, you know, how do we retain this customer?

[00:56:14] The other one, the other option might be speak to customer support who can help you with this problem right now? Live chat. And the third one will be, do you wanna put your account on hold? Like, just pause. Then depending on what they click on you, we take them on that journey. So at the end, if they just really, really want to cancel, we let them cancel.

[00:56:34] But before they, before they do that, you can provide 'em with some required fields. You can say Hey, what's the reason you're canceling? Sometimes we like to leave an open text field so they can really write that down. Then we can say, can you evaluate any parts of the product that you're not happy with?

[00:56:52] And maybe give them like a bunch of selections so that they can check, check through. Because they might not write it down, but when they see it in a list, they can click on the thing or what it was. And for, from a design, you know, imagine your product team, the product team's perspective, that's valuable insights.

[00:57:08] That's what we're gonna take some of that information. We're gonna try and validate that information and then go back and build those improvements into the product. So even though you might lose this user or this customer, anyone else with that same kind of scenario, we could re retrieve them and, and really you know, fix that solution for them.

[00:57:29] So that, that, that you prevent cancellations in the future. I. And there can be so many reasons. It can be even, you know, the, the UX can play a, a larger part than people often expect. Just the perceived quality of the product. Or trying out a lot, a lot of cases it's, you know, trying out a different product.

[00:57:50] We also wanna know, okay, you know, if they're going to leave another product, we're gonna ask them, oh, what, what product are you gonna try out? So we kind, we kind of, you kind of want to know who you're losing your customers to as well, and that makes it easy to realize what you, what you're not doing right.

[00:58:04] So we see this as a learning opportunity with the possibility of retrieving a, a, a potentially lost customer.

[00:58:11] Omer: Got it. Okay. Yeah. I, I, I, you know, I think the, the, you, you and I talked briefly about this before we start recording, and really, you might be able to win back. Some customers will prevent them from canceling at this point.

[00:58:26] But as you pointed out, really at, at this stage, you, you kind of have left it too late if this is a surprise that somebody is now canceling because there are a bunch of early signals that could have given you some clues that this was a possibility.

[00:58:42] Peter: Yeah. It's like trying to retrieve them, which can be difficult if you do great, but trying to retrieve them.

[00:58:48] There is like this chicken and egg thing actually, if you learn from that one and then imple actually implement that into the product, you're going to retain the future customer. So rather than looking at as the end of, of a customer, you're kind of looking at it as improving the beginning for, for, for other customers and, and how you can increase LTV and, and retention.

[00:59:14] Omer: Yeah. Yeah. You know, because I, I, I, I think the kinds of things that I, I've, I've. Suggested to founders who who've struggled with this is like, look at other signals earlier, like what's happening with product usage? Are they using the product less and less? Was there, are you asking for feedback when they interact with your support?

[00:59:38] Or if you have a support team, was there a negative experience or, or something that was unresolved there? Is there some kind of billing issue going on or whatev there, there, you know, there there's a bunch of things that you could have a checklist to go through and, and just say, these are the things we need to keep an eye on and if we're seeing some of these things light up, that's a potential signal or set of signals that this customer.

[01:00:02] Could cancel. Right? And so that's the time to, to save that customer or keep them around than, than waiting until when they're on the cancellation page, right?

[01:00:12] Peter: I mean, all of that work comes before that customer actually comes to the product. So you have to do the product work to make sure that when they come, they have a great experience and it's good.

[01:00:21] We, I've got one example of this just in improving the product experience and how that had a bigger impact on say, conversions and retention. Is that w we, we worked with one co company Prospect, CRM, who has a wholesale and distribution CRM and the founder had a, a, a a suspicion that the dashboard when users first log in is not very compelling.

[01:00:47] What they did was they just put a few stats on there, which they thought, okay, these will be useful for users. So he, he. He had that feeling. And I think founders, a lot of them do have this kind of gut feeling of the area that, or, or different areas that need to be improved. So we, we said, okay, let's redesign this dashboard.

[01:01:05] When we got started, we realized, oh, there are three different user profiles who need to do different things. So then we were like, okay, we're gonna design three different dashboards and whichever user profile is, we'll land them in the dashboard for them. And we massively improved the data visualization, the UX and the UI for these.

[01:01:23] And it actually had a really big impact on the conversion rate from free trial to paid. And it, it ended up adding like a significant amount of ARR to their, to their, you know, business. It was like 300 K in, in of ARR because their conversion rate went from, it was around like 18 to 26% of free trial to paid conversions and they were getting quite a lot of signups.

[01:01:48] So just goes to show like the, the impact product experience can make. And what I know what what we want do is help founders who are listening, but sometimes it can make it even more difficult. 'cause one of the things I was gonna say is that users can't always articulate exactly what it was, you know, missing when they cancel.

[01:02:07] So we are wanting to understand on as much as we can and learn, but also what you said was really Im important, it's observing and you kind of want to infer from their activity and their behavior things that the, that you can do to improve the product as well. So yeah, but all of those things are important.

[01:02:27] Omer: Like I would give, I would give a simple one where if you are getting. Requests from customers asking for a particular feature that your competitor has, and your support team is saying, sorry, we don't have that. And a few weeks later, a customer is canceling. There might be a correlation there that you want to, you know, at least look into.

[01:02:47] Yeah. Yeah. That's it. But I love, I love your the idea of like, just give them like the options in terms of, you know, can we, is there would a discount for short term for the next month, three months help? Can you, you know, do you wanna pause your subscription?

[01:03:00] Peter: Yeah, like pause. We sometimes, we've done this in the past, and if you haven't used Audible from Amazon, you'll see they do, they do this really well.

[01:03:08] If you try and cancel on Audible, they'll give you an offer. They'll be like, okay, we'll give you three months, half price. And you're like, well, that's a good offer. And I'll say, or we'll give you like. Three credits or something like that. So they really make, you know, it's, it's a, a lot the, the cost of acquiring a customer is, is much higher than maintaining a good customer.

[01:03:27] Right. So they're, they're working on that principle. It's like they will go to quite a, a bigger length to retain a customer. So yeah, it's a, a special offer. Talk to customer support or pause the account. Those are three of the common ones that we've, we've, we've worked on or designed.

[01:03:44] Omer: And it works. I, I've been an audible subscriber for over 10 years and even the times where I've thought about canceling, they've managed to make me reconsider.

[01:03:57] Peter: Yeah, they pull you back in. Yeah. And if the amount of books that I've got in there that I haven't listened to is like insane. So, so they do a really good job on retention. Yeah. Cool.

[01:04:07] Omer: Okay, great. Look, we should wrap up. I think this was very helpful. So thank you for walking us through that and just sharing some of your experiences on, on, you know, the mistakes that, that, that you see and, and what founders and, and, and, and teams working on these types of flows can do to try and, and turn things around.

[01:04:25] If people wanna learn about more what you do at UserActive, I guess they can go to UserActive.io. And if folks wanna get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

[01:04:35] Peter: Yeah, UserActive.io. It's great. You can put a book, a call there. We, I've gotta book a call link. If you book a call there, you'll speak to me directly.

[01:04:43] We, I, I put aside 15 minutes for those calls, so if you need help or you've got a product issue you can, you can have a chat with me there. No obligation on, on sales. I, I'm talking to founders every day. Other than that, I'm active, pretty active on LinkedIn, so those are probably the, the two best places.

[01:05:00] Great.

[01:05:01] Omer: Awesome. Thank you, Peter. It's been a pleasure and you know, I wish you and the team the best of success and thanks for sharing, allowing us to pick your brain. And hopefully there's, there's some nugget in there for everybody listening that they can go and apply to their SaaS business.

[01:05:15] Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Really hope this is valuable for your audience. Yeah, I've loved being on it. Thanks so much for the chat. Really appreciate the opportunity to to guest and share some of the stuff that we work on and the kind of user flows that we think are really valuable for SaaS companies to consider.

[01:05:29] Omer: It's my pleasure. Alright mate. All the best. Take care. Cheers.