New Feature Release: Userlane Announcements

by Team Userlane

4 years ago ・ 7 min.

In the world of business, talking about COVID-19 is almost always tied to the topic of remote work. The pandemic has driven companies across the world to become innovative and inventive quickly, particularly in terms of adopting new cloud-based technologies and other digital tools to enable remote work. 

At Userlane, we’ve been working hard on a new feature that we’ve just released, and it definitely has some practical uses for the current COVID-19 situation. But the ultimate goal of our new feature? To bring even more value to our customers and their end-users. 

Curious to find out more? Then let’s get to it!

Introducing (or Announcing!) Userlane Announcements 

Digital transformation demands that companies become digital-first. This means that they constantly have to find new ways to optimize processes and derive benefit from the technologies they’re using. 

Let’s take the email as an example. It’s been around for decades, and although it largely remains a solid form of business communication, companies do need to explore other (more advanced and user-friendly) ways of communicating important news to either their employees or customers. 

Emails have their limits, especially in terms of not providing a centralized hub of information relating to either company news or product information. Being bombarded with emails also means that information is lost, with important information often being sent to the spam folder or being accidentally deleted. 

When it comes to businesses communicating with either their customers or employees, having a centralized hub of easily accessible information goes a long way in boosting customer engagement as well as enabling employees to keep up to date with the latest and most important company-related information. 

And this is where the Userlane Announcements feature comes in. Product managers, customer success managers, and HR managers, for example, need to regularly communicate general information (either relating to company news or product information) to customers or employees. Below, we’ll explore how businesses can leverage Userlane Announcements to increase in-app engagement and create an even better user experience!

Userlane Announcements for Customer-Facing Software Applications

For companies offering a SaaS application, it’s important for product owners and/or customer success managers to provide users with up-to-date information regarding the application. Software companies that have already implemented Userlane in their application can now use our latest feature to announce the following to their users:

• feature releases, 
• downtimes,
• legal information, 
• new (Userlane) interactive tours, 
• extra help documents,
• a new point of contact, and much more (the sky’s the limit!).

Apart from announcing general product information, Userlane Announcements can also be used to communicate any other relevant or helpful information to users. For example, companies can promote upcoming webinars, push new content, or provide information connected to COVID-19, such as tips and tricks on how to get the most out of the product while working remotely. 

Another practical use of Announcements is that customer success managers can use them to ask users for feedback relating to the product (such as NPS surveys) or discover what in-app processes users are struggling with. CSMs can then gain valuable insight into users’ needs, which will ultimately allow them to optimize the product further as well as create new interactive guides to provide even more contextual support to users.

Userlane Announcements can also be linked to an interactive tour (either a new or existing one). If a product manager wants to release a new feature, for example, they will need to explain how this feature works and guide users through new processes. The product owner can then use Announcements to briefly state why there is a new feature (what benefit the user will derive from it) and add a link to the interactive guide explaining how the new feature works. This gives users direct access to the new feature as well as a step-by-step interactive guide explaining how it works.

By continuously involving their users in application development and processes, SaaS companies can significantly boost user engagement, actively involve users in the creation of new features, and further enhance the overall user experience. 

Userlane Announcements for Employee Engagement 

When it comes to enterprises using their intranet or HR platforms, for example, Userlane Announcements can be used to share company news with employees. To take the COVID-19 pandemic as a relevant use case, companies can use Announcements to communicate COVID-related information, such as announcing when employees can return to the office or giving employees tips on how to work successfully from home (one of our customers has created a Coronavirus Global Hub and uses Announcements to inform employees of important information related to COVID-19).

HR managers can also use Announcements to inform employees about new regulations, upcoming company events, training sessions, meetings, policy changes, new protocols, and any information relating to the company in general.

Additionally, enterprise companies typically use complex software platforms, such as ERPs and CRMs. Announcements can be used to increase software support in the more complex areas of these platforms by linking an interactive guide to the Announcement. Whether this is for first time or existing users, Announcements will guarantee that the user is aware of an interactive guide or external help document with more information to explain a more complex process. This eliminates the need for extra IT support and boosts user confidence.

And last (but definitely not least!), Announcements can inform users about any changed processes within an existing application. For example, if an existing workflow has changed and users need to be able to navigate this new process, management can create an Announcement explaining the changes and, once again, create an interactive tour to guide them through the new process. 

How Userlane Announcements Work

Announcements come in the form of a pop-up once a user logs into the application in which Userlane has been implemented. The Announcements can also be segmented, meaning that only targeted users will see the Announcements in specific contexts. This ensures that the Announcements are tailored to specific user needs, giving them contextual information at all times. 

Announcements are very easy to create and can be done in three simple steps: 

1. Create a title and give a description of the Announcement (links/ images/ GIFs can also be added to the Announcement).
2. Choose your audience (using Userlane’s Advanced Segmentation feature).
3. Select the relevant language and click publish (you can also schedule Announcements to be published at a later stage and automatically deactivate them after a certain date).

It’s as simple as that! And extra value-add: When creating an Announcement, you can also use our illustration library to help you choose a relevant image for the Announcement!

Bringing More Value to Our Customers

We continuously strive to empower, empathize with, and bring more value to our customers (so that they, in turn, can give more value to their end-users), and we know how incredibly important it is to include customer feedback into all stages of our product development process. Based on specific input from our customers, we created Userlane Announcements, and we are excited to see how each of our customers (creatively) utilizes this feature going forward!

If you’d like to see Userlane Announcements in action, schedule a demo call with one of our experts and start your 14-day free trial!