DAPs: Sector By Sector — Part 2

MarTech ✺ Construction ✺ Education ✺ Government

Welcome to Part 2 of our grand tour of DAP sector specific applications. In this post we’re going to look at DAP use in Marketing Tech, Construction, Education and Government and learn a little more about how DAP vendors and clients are creating innovative and imaginative solutions to improve client and employee satisfaction.

MarTech: Next Level Marketing Tech

DAPs are becoming an important tool in the MarTech sector. DAPs help you understand who exactly your customers are and, more importantly, what they need, so that you can rapidly improve both products and feature adoption. They also smooth the onboarding process for new hires and new marketing tools with interactive walkthroughs and contextual guidance.

Real World:

TUNE, a marketing technology company, uses a DAP to gain insights into product usage and customer data. They use DAP analytics, in-app messaging, NPS surveys, and feedback tools to understand their growing customer base, onboard new users, and help create their product roadmap. TUNE also uses the DAP to personalize messaging for different customer segments, announce feature releases, and monitor account health.

Results:

• 20% increase in revenue over 18 months
• 27-point increase in NPS score
• Improved customer perception with real-time NPS updates

DAPs are also incredibly useful to improve feature adoption rates and customer upselling..

Real World:

Choozle, a digital advertising platform, used a DAP for in-app messaging and guidance to boost awareness and adoption of its various advertising features. The company put a monthly campaign strategy in place, promoting a single feature through a series of DAP guides delivered at key points within the platform. One particularly successful campaign for cross-device targeting resulted in a 1,339% increase in quarterly revenue for that feature. This approach led to significant improvements.

Results:

• 154% increase in usage of promoted features
• 35% increase in associated revenue over a year.
• 205% increase in active customers
• 40% year-over-year revenue growth

Construction Industry: The New Generation

With in-app guidance, interactive walkthroughs, and contextual support, DAPs help construction firms to quickly onboard new employees, adapt to new software systems, and maintain consistent practices across multiple job sites and geographical locations. This significantly improves performance and ROI in construction-related software implementation, greatly improving onboarding, compliance, and user experience.

Real World:

Raildiary, a platform for managing rail construction projects, successfully used a DAP to onboard hundreds of field workers and improve product adoption. Using DAP guides, Raildiary efficiently walked workers through app installation and usage, while analytics helped identify user pain points. This data-driven approach allowed the company to automate processes, reduce friction, and solve problems quickly. In one instance, Raildiary salvaged a major project by fixing adoption barriers identified through DAP data, resulting in 120 active users and over a million pounds in annual value. The company also doubled product stickiness from 22% to 44% by using the DAP to send targeted reminders to users.

Results:

• Improved onboarding efficiency and success rates
• Increased product adoption and regular use rates
• Provided analytics to make further product and process improvements

DAPS are also valuable for large, multinational construction firms dealing with complex ERP systems, offering solutions that can be quickly deployed, easily scaled, and adapted to multiple languages and regional requirements.

Real World:

Currie & Brown, a global construction consultancy with over 2000 employees needed to maintain up-to-date training materials for their Unit4 ERP system. To do this, they implemented Inline Manual’s DAP, initially just for timesheets and expenses modules in India and Asia-Pacific. Following success there, they expanded the implementation across all key modules, reaching over 2000 users in English and Simplified Chinese. The solution provided walkthroughs, tooltips, and learning guides within the ERP system, eliminating the need for separate ‘quick cards’ and reducing training requirements. Benefits included simplified training across time zones and languages, anticipated cost savings in support and training material development, and improved employee satisfaction with the ERP system.

Results:

• Effective training across multiple languages

• Cost savings in support and training material development

• Improved employee satisfaction with the ERP system

• Easy to maintain, up-to-date training materials

Education: Making Digital Learning Work

Digital Learning Platforms Adoption

The education sector has seen a rapid shift towards digital learning platforms, but quite a lot of educators and students are still lagging behind. DAPs make this transition easier using in-app guidance and resources to help inexperienced users learn how to navigate these new tools.

Real World:

IU University of Applied Sciences, offering over 250 degree programs to 130,000 students globally, improved its remote student onboarding by implementing an automated, interactive process via its “MyCampus” DAP platform. This process includes a Welcome Tour, Onboarding Checklist, Feature Tours, and in-app surveys, which have significantly reduced repeat questions, increased student feedback response rates by 50%, and improved overall student satisfaction.

• 50% improvement in feedback response rates
• Feedback-based product improvements
• Increased student engagement with online materials and information
• Reduced technical support tickets

Virtual Classroom Management

DAPs provide real-time support for managing virtual classrooms, addressing unique challenges faced by educators.

Real World:

At The University of Phoenix, DAP guides were used to assist students in selecting degree programs, enrolling in courses, and reminding them of upcoming classes, which reduced the workload on academic advisors. The platform also supported the university’s transition to a new learning platform and informed R&D efforts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the DAP proved invaluable for rapid communication, promoting webinars and resources like the Virtual Teaching Academy. The university used DAP training to adapt quickly to the changing educational landscape, supporting both their students and K-12 teachers nationwide in the shift to online learning.

Results:

• Enabled self-service options to reduce pressure on human advisors
• Boosted learning platform adoption
• Key support for students and teachers transition to online learning

Government: Improving Public Services and Compliance

Digital portals for public services are becoming increasingly common and DAPs can significantly improve government employee app adoption rates to improve digital services.

Real World:

Cartegraph, a US-based company, developed web and mobile apps to help local governments efficiently manage city infrastructure. By using the DAP’s analytics and in-app guides, Cartegraph improved its mobile app adoption by 62% in six months. The product team was able to track feature usage, deliver targeted in-app messages, and integrate a knowledge base into a Resource Center. This approach allowed Cartegraph to handle increased customer engagement without additional support resources. By implementing NPS surveys and matching feedback with usage data, Cartegraph identified areas for improvement and upgrade opportunities. These benefits not only helped government operational efficiency but also contributed to improving the quality of life for residents by facilitating better maintenance of parks, streets, and public spaces.

• 55% increase in online service utilization
• 40% improvement in citizen satisfaction scores
• 30% average decrease in time required to complete common tasks

The Future

A partial list of some possible future developments in DAP tech:

More integration of artificial intelligence for personalized user experiences: Artificial intelligence will continue to enable DAPs to provide tailored guidance and support based on individual user behavior and preferences—only more so.

Natural language processing: More sophisticated NLP could enable users to interact with DAPs using voice commands or conversational interfaces, making them even easier to use.

Augmented reality features for enhanced guidance: Augmented reality (AR) will offer immersive, real-time visual instructions and overlays, making complex tasks easier to understand and execute. Microsoft HoloLens is already making strides in this area.

Predictive analytics to proactively address user needs: Predictive analytics will allow DAPs to anticipate user challenges and provide proactive solutions, reducing downtime and improving efficiency.

Expanded integration capabilities with emerging technologies: DAPs will increasingly integrate with new and evolving technologies such as IoT and blockchain, making it easy to guarantee digital adoption across diverse platforms and systems.

Convinced?

If you’ve managed to make it through these two long blog posts and all of the very cool case studies highlighted in them—well then I don’t need to say much more in this summary. But in case you cheated and skimmed quickly, let me give it to you in a nutshell—Digital Adoption Platforms are awesome. After spending hours doing the research for the multiple posts I’ve done on the industry, I’m honestly a fan. The creative problem solving, the ability to customize and gamify training so that new employee’s brains are actually engaged rather than automatically shutting down during that first week of onboarding. Not to mention the sheer amount of data gathering and internal and external customer messaging that can be used in all sorts of different, useful and productive ways. Taken all together it really is pretty mind-blowing.

As I’ve mentioned before, the ability to quickly adapt to new technologies is and will continue to be a key differentiator for organizations, and if you’re as enthusiastic as I am about the possibilities and potential of a DAP implementation, you should check out our own Inline Manual. It’s a great solution and offers a wide range of features designed to improve user onboarding, training, and support. With its intuitive in-app guidance, interactive tutorials, and real-time user assistance, Inline Manual helps make sure that your teams and and your customers can effectively use their software and tools from day one.