In a major achievement for WalkMe, this year’s Everest Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) Products PEAK Matrix® Assessment named us as the leading Digital Adoption Platform vendor for the third year in a row! The Everest PEAK Matrix® Assessment is one of the leading global publications for analyzing global service providers, giving business leaders the insights they need to make critical decisions about vendors, products, and solutions. 

Everest Group’s research team consists of more than 100 people and their coverage comprises over 20 technology sectors, including: cloud computing, digital transformation, data analytics, collaboration and communications, security, digital marketing, and procurement. They are widely recognized as experts in providing actionable, independent research, and advice to help their clients capture more value from IT services. The organization specializes in coverage of new and emerging technology markets.

With the DAP industry now at a tipping point, publications like the Everest PEAK Matrix® Assessment have become critical in helping enterprises determine how to maximize digital adoption to achieve improved business outcomes and accelerate transformation efforts.    

What is the Everest PEAK Matrix® Assessment?

As enterprises continue to expand their digital presence and capabilities, they must evaluate where to best position their resources and what capabilities they need to be successful. The PEAK Matrix® assessment provides the analysis and insights enterprises need to make critical selection decisions about global top services providers, as well as best-in-class products and solutions. 

Leading enterprises around the globe trust these comparative assessments because of their unbiased evaluation of factors such as vision, capabilities, talent availability, market impact, and cost.  Furthermore, providers of these services, products, and solutions, look to the PEAK Matrix® to gauge and calibrate their offerings against their peers.

The Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) Products PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2022 analyzes the competitive DAP landscape, looking at 20 DAP vendors in terms of their products, vision and capability, and market impact to place them as Leaders, Major Contenders, and Aspirants.    

WalkMe is a Leader in Everest Group’s Digital Adoption Platforms (DAP) Products PEAK Matrix® Assessment  

In this year’s report, Everest analysts concluded that among DAP vendors, WalkMe has the highest market impact, the clearest vision, and the most robust suite of capabilities.

More importantly, the report gives WalkMe a nod for more than just product capabilities. Special mention was made of our role in spreading awareness about the DAP market through our extensive partner ecosystem, community, training, and certifications, as well as how we help clients establish DAP Centers of Excellence (CoE).

Everest Group Research’s recognition of WalkMe reinforces our position as the only scalable enterprise-ready DAP solution. Using a data-first approach, we provide for effective software ROI measurement, ensuring you get the most out of your digital investment. Additionally, WalkMe is able to identify underlying software changes and offer a bulk replacement mechanism for existing solutions to address any issues. This is critical for addressing frequent updates to software interfaces. Finally, our pre-built solutions allow you to quickly get started on your DAP journey. 

To learn more about the power of DAP and how WalkMe can help you meet your digital KPIs, tune in on November 16th to our webinar, “Digital adoption: The new imperative for software ROI”.

Not all data is equal. Do you know how to measure the true business impact your digital transformation efforts and investments?

Meet Billy Smith. Billy’s 6 month ERP implementation just went live this month and a deep sigh of relief was in the air. 7,159 people just attended a training session in the past week and the project even came in on budget. Even the initial in-app CSAT survey scores are coming back positive. Billy reaches out for a celebratory glass of Moët when a catastrophic realization bubbles up amidst the celebration. Billy has no idea whether the project actually worked. It turns out, Billy is the latest victim of vanity metrics.

What are vanity metrics?

Vanity metrics exist in plain sight – buried in reports, dashboards and even OKRs. Look closely, and you’ll be able to identify the tell-tale signs, the gorgeous looking metric highlighted in bold, may not be that good looking after all.

Vanity metrics aren’t actionable 

The heart of data-driven teams is the understanding that if something can’t be measured, it can’t be affected. The days of running blind off of gut feelings should be as far behind us as faxing sales contracts and cashing checks. 

Whether you’re building WalkMe solutions, or sending an action-oriented email, we can all take a page of marketing optimization wisdom by thinking about a call to action (or CTA.) v   Pop quiz – what metric would you use to optimize and report on? Well, it’s surely not the click – it’s the action. Measure that. If you’re measuring something else. It’s probably a vanity metric.

Vanity metrics look impressive, but might not be repeatable.

Is that dashboard that came pre-loaded in your ERP providing data around how many people logged into your system every month? Good – that information is super critical for understanding whether or not it’s being found and accessed, but it may not tell you whether or not you’ve had any impact on fulfillment times. Perhaps it’s a number that looks great, but if it’s not tied to the work your team is doing and iterating, it might not be the best metric to look at.

If you’re leading a Digital Adoption effort, you’ll want to dig into more than just the reporting you’re getting out of the box with your software, or that stale BI dashboard your team might still be using from 2020, and instead think about what you need to know about your in-platform user behavior to measure success.

The problem with how we measure digital transformation projects.

So what does this have to do with your digital transformation project? Well, if you’re working on one, go take a look at your latest status update. I’ll wait. It’s just us friends here… go ahead and give this article 5 stars if you’re tracking go-live date, SDLC milestones, or maybe training and enablement dates. 

Bravo! Well, here’s the thing, all of those data points are absolutely critical in measuring the project, but ask yourself if they’re providing any visibility into your actual transformation. If you’re scratching your head, let’s talk about how value was determined back when your mammoth project was a wee slide in your executive team’s planning off-site.

What organizations really want to do

This one is easy… drive growth and maximize revenue. That’s clear, but how it’s done usually falls into a few common categories.

• Reduce operating costs (improve margins)
• Improve employee satisfaction and engagement (increase productivity)
• Accelerate rate of distribution  (maximize earnings)
• Accelerate deal cycles (boost revenue)

That’s why projects that get funded at organizations large and small are often tied to the types of efficiencies that impact the company’s bottom line. The ability to move faster, more efficiently, and with greater satisfaction is the cornerstone of every digital transformation effort. So why do so many transformation projects end up measuring go-live dates and delivery costs?

It’s how we forecast risk and costs

The realization of intended benefits can’t be had if there’s no platform to dole out said benefits. As a result, it’s all hands on deck to get new software in place. This pushes a ton of focus on the service delivery teams and project management teams to ensure new software tools and platforms are ready on time. Attention shifts from benefits to risk, and teams concentrate on what they know best.

• Expected return versus project costs
• Platform and integration costs
• Training costs
• CSAT

What should we measure instead?

If we think about our friend Billy Smith, part of the reason they’re up at night is because they’re caught up in a risk mindset instead of a transformation mindset. So let’s help Billy sleep better on their next project so they can focus on real impact metrics instead of vanity metrics.

Go Live Date → Value Realization Period

System go-live is easy to measure. Did we push to production? Congrats! But that doesn’t inform whether the investments paid off. Identify the motivations behind the system in the first place. 

Is your goal to expedite contract signing in order to accelerate deal cycles? Measure that, and start to calculate how long it takes to see the value of the system you mapped out when you first purchased it. Measuring Value Realization Period, or time-to-value, will help ensure the Moët is twice as nice once you open it.

CSAT → Process Abandonment Rate

CSAT is an incredible metric used by almost every organization to measure whether the people that use your system are happy. The funny thing about CSAT is that while it looks like a quantitative measurement because it’s a number, CSAT is actually entirely subjective and therefore easy to measure, but difficult to replicate. More so, it’s less correlated to positive outcomes than ever before.

So instead, measure what your users are actually doing. Are they starting a fulfillment order and stopping midway? Are your sales people generating a proposal but getting confused along the way? This metric gives you a near real-time insight into how successful that shiny new platform is when it comes to driving outcomes so that you can provide help along the way when you need it – not when support tickets start piling up. 

Training Participation Rate → Process Initiation Rate

Oftentimes, companies may rely on time-consuming training, webinars, or the more advanced, in-app guidance. Teams will often measure how many people joined, engaged or RSVPd. This is a great way to measure the reach of your training, but it misses the mark when it comes to measuring whether people know what they need to do.

Instead, measure how your employees or customers are actually starting the process they’ve been trained on. Perhaps it’s step one of benefits enrollment, or using a macro in the contact center. Being able to quantify and measure process initiation rate is your signal into what’s working and what’s not.

Are you ready to look past that shiny vanity metric?

As you look ahead to your next transformation project, make sure to examine the data you’re using to validate your investments. Are you measuring outcomes that you have an effect on? Are you connecting those to repeatable and measurable business impact? If you are, you might just have what it takes to harvest the real promise of digital transformation in your organization. Good luck!

What should you know when onboarding employees to a new software? The idea is that you want this user to adopt the new software and continue to engage with it – that last part is often the hardest to tackle. However, there are some things you can do to increase both user satisfaction and long-term use or retention. In this article, you will learn the importance of onboarding, the benefits of good onboarding, user onboarding best practices to follow, some mistakes to avoid, and more. 

Definitions: onboarding vs. adoption

Before we go any further, let’s clarify what we mean by onboarding and how it’s different from adoption.

Here are some quick definitions to get started:

• Onboarding

A process by which a new person, product, or tool is introduced and integrated.

• Software Onboarding

Integrating software into the daily workflows of new employees or users.

• Employee Onboarding

The introduction and integration of employees into the workplace.

• Software Adoption

Implementation and integration of new software, including onboarding.

• The Digital Workplace

The digital components in a work environment, including the tools, workflows, and so on.

• Digital Transformation

Digitally driven organizational changes that leverage new technology to transform a company’s operations and customer service.

• Digital Adoption

Employs software to streamline the digital workplace and maximize software ROI, utilization, efficiency, and productivity.

First impressions last

Onboarding’s importance lies in that it is often the beginning of a relationship between a user and a particular technology. And, as we know from the physical world, first impressions matter. If an employee detests a new system (whether they are required to use it or not) or is onboarded incorrectly from the start, their engagement levels with that software system will likely be minimal at best – and it’ll end up costing you.

Take these statistics for example:

• A lack of technology is blamed by 36% of HR professionals for their inability to automate and organize onboarding programs (Businesswire, 2018).   
• The likelihood of an employee staying for three years increases by 69% when they participate in a structured onboarding program (ClickBoarding, 2020).
• Businesses that offer formal onboarding training are estimated to retain 50% of their employees (Harvard Business Review, 2018).
• Employees who have a poor onboarding experience resign from their companies approximately 10% of the time (Business News Daily, 2020).

Benefits of good onboarding

Good onboarding can not only gain you significantly more employees, it can gain you loyal employees. That means promoters – people who will essentially advertise for you. That’s because people love to talk about their good experiences. But, be warned, the same goes for bad experiences. 

If someone has a terrible time doing anything, they will tell someone about it, whether it’s a colleague, friend, family member, or even their dog. So, if your goal is to retain loyal employees that love your company and will even act as advocates for you, onboarding is not a step to take lightly. 

Common onboarding mistakes

While the range of mistakes you can make in planning an onboarding process is almost endless, these are some of the most common (and, perhaps, most detrimental) to be mindful of:

Not understanding that onboarding is ongoing

Onboarding is not just a sign-up page, a welcome email, a virtual company tour, and “good luck!”. It’s an ongoing process that requires nurturing, education, and guidance, not to mention support. There aren’t many things more frustrating than finishing an introductory training video and finding that you have no further instruction beyond an external help center or an unapproachable colleague. 

Failing to set expectations

What often disappoints people in new jobs (and life in general) is a gap between expectation and reality. To avoid this, be upfront with your new hires. Let them know what they can expect from their role, what is required from them, where they can find support, and so on. In the absence of this, they will make assumptions based on who-knows-what. 

Having hard-to-use or missing support options

Have you ever started a new job, needed help, and couldn’t find it? If so, then you know it can be disappointing at best and disheartening at worst. It’s crucial to make support options visible, accessible, and user-friendly to ensure a smooth hiring experience. 

Not measuring or monitoring

It’s quite common that users will get stuck on one or multiple stages of an onboarding journey. However, if you don’t know where, you have no chance of fixing it. Monitoring and measuring the user journey can make a huge difference to your success rate, since it gives you the flexibility to make changes where needed. Tweak by tweak, the employee experience can be truly optimized for success.

Software onboarding best practices

Design a user journey

The first step to mapping out your desired user journey is knowing thy employee. This should include personas, needs, ambitions, and anything else that will help you resonate with them. Once that’s clear, design the user journey in a way that is clear, helpful, and delivers value.

Welcome & set expectations

Beginning the employee journey with a warm welcome and setting expectations is a great way to ensure a smooth experience. Negative surprises will only steal from a great first impression. 

Provide a product tour + more

Concise but detailed walkthroughs can be the perfect way to acquaint new hires with new software. Like this, you can take them step by step, hand-in-hand through the user journey to remove any confusion or frustration. This is your opportunity to explain all the important details, including where to go for support and how to use critical software functions. 

Offer clear value 

By the time the user has finished the initial set-up process, they should have no further questions as to what they need to do and where they need to do it. Naturally, they may still have questions about how they should be doing certain processes, but that’s expected. If you find there is still room for improvement after doing a test walkthrough yourself, take the time to smooth out the edges before rolling it out.

Be a guide

Beyond the help resources and tour, what other guidance do you offer your new employees? A great way to add an extra layer of support is to include pop-ups and clickable bubbles that provide users with on-the-go guidance. Having these as options can make an incredibly seamless user experience, since they won’t have to exit software or open a new window to find the help they need. 

Monitor struggle-points and adjust

Having visibility over your user journey is the best way to optimize your employee experience. If you can see where users are getting stuck, you can make the necessary changes to avoid it. Let’s say you notice a drop off on a particular form handler or process often, you investigate it, and find that there is a bug that is rejecting all email addresses, whether typed correctly or not. You have immediate insight into what’s impeding user signup and you can deploy your team to fix it in minutes, not hours or days. Employee productivity monitoring capabilities such as the UI intelligence offered by Walkme is truly game changing.

Optimize for mobile

Mobile phones now account for almost 55 percent of all our online time, according to GWI’s latest research (We Are Social, 2022). However, you didn’t need to know that statistic to know how prevalent mobile use is now, did you? What this means is that mobile optimization is no longer a nice addition to your offering – it’s a requirement. In absence of this, you are bound to lose users quickly and forever.

Gather employee feedback

In any business, feedback is an incredibly important and valuable resource, and it’s not to be taken lightly. In order to make it truly frictionless, you can build it into existing processes and simply make it part of the journey. Still, for it to be effective, you need to turn that feedback into action. 

Guiding questions to fall back on

So far, we have provided a decent amount of information to get you started on your journey of onboarding new employees to your team. However, if you are in doubt of your progress at any point, here are some important, guiding questions to keep in mind:

Have you kept the interface and employee journey simple?

Is your interface and user journey simple and logical or does any part of it cause hesitation or confusion? If any of the latter is remotely true, make the necessary changes.

Has your onboarding process remained relevant to user goals?

Have you kept the range of predetermined user goals in mind during the creation of your user journey? Or have these goals gotten lost in the process? 

Have you provided sufficient support options?

At each and every stage of your user journey, is it clear where users can turn to for support? Do they need to go digging for a help button? Does clicking on said help button make it easy or difficult to return to what they were doing? 

Is your value proposition crystal clear?

Is it 100% clear from the get-go what the exact type of value your software offers your user? Is your copy clear? Your story straight? 

Is your user journey optimized?

If your user needs to access your software from mobile, how will it look? If there is an option to export documents, are there a range of formats to choose from? Are your images so large that they take more than an instant to load? 

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has provided you with the confidence to go forth and create an incredible employee experience using these onboarding best practices. We have covered the beneficial impact of good onboarding, common mistakes to avoid, best practices, and beyond. Whether you are planning to set up your onboarding manually or with WalkMe’s digital adoption platform, these tips will help you on your way. 

We surveyed 1,475 senior business leaders from global enterprises in 11 different industries on their digital adoption progress to understand their plans, strategies, and goals. 

What is The State of Digital Adoption 2022-2023 Report?

The second annual report of its kind, The State of Digital Adoption 2022-2023, gives us a peek into how enterprises are managing digital transformation initiatives, including where challenges and concerns are most prevalent. 

Check out the infographic for the statistics that reveal the digital adoption resources and processes enterprises currently have in place. Plus, explore their future digital adoption strategy and investment plans.

Why does digital adoption matter?

Digital adoption is the key to successful digital transformation, and digital transformation is vital to ensuring productive and effective organizations. In the aggregate, companies spend billions on digital assets to improve business outcomes. 

Global IT budgets now measure in the trillions of dollars aimed at driving businesses forward. Enterprises can’t afford to passively adopt new technologies, especially if hundreds or thousands of employees need to adopt the same system.

The cost of failure

Failed digital adoption can be incredibly costly to enterprises. In fact, we found that enterprises are wasting between 32-26% of their digital investments due to unmet KPIs and are losing up to $97M in failed digital adoption costs.

What do the findings mean for digital transformation efforts?

Our findings show that the core element preventing successful digital transformation is the human factor. Employees are overwhelmed with expanding and siloed tech stacks and enterprises are paying for it with broken and inefficient processes.  

The next step

Taking a user-centric approach to digital transformation helps ensure employee digital dexterity, allowing you to maximize ROI on your tech stack. Explore how your digital transformation efforts compare to those of leading global enterprises and how digital adoption can help you meet your organizational KPIs. 

Learn more. Download the full The State of Digital Adoption 2022-2023 report.