Best Tools For Customer Engagement

Looking for the best customer engagement tool for your SaaS company?

There are plenty of solutions for customer engagement on review sites, but they don’t make the choice any easier. The crux of the issue is – to make the right choice, you need to account for your priorities: your different jobs to be done, your budget, and the size of the company.

But don’t worry – we’re coming to help! In this post, we’ll discuss exactly that – which customer engagement tool is best depending on the different criteria that companies are looking for customer engagement software typically have. Let’s dive in!

What is customer engagement?

Customer engagement is an interaction between a customer and a company through various offline or online channels. The goal is to delight them with a unique and personalized experience at each point of the user journey and foster long-lasting relationships.

Anything from signing up, completing an onboarding checklist, upgrading the account, completing a microsurvey, and canceling an account can be considered an engagement.

Why is customer engagement important?

Signing up for your SaaS software is the first step you expect your customers to take. To maintain a high LTV, you want your subscribers to keep renewing their subscriptions. Engaging your audience with your products and brands is the best way to ensure that.

Here are a few reasons why you should care about customer engagement:

• A successful customer engagement strategy will keep your brand at the forefront of your customers’ minds during the decision-making process. In addition, you’ll be able to make them more responsive to your marketing efforts.
• Positive exchanges improve the overall customer experience and contribute to building emotional bonds between you and your customers.
• As a result, you’ll retain more users and increase your company profits as loyal customers spend more money with you.

Why do you need customer engagement tools?

Wondering why you even need a customer experience management tool?

To provide a stellar customer experience, you need to have a customer experience management tool in your stack.

Now let’s see what customer experience management tool can offer to you:

• It helps you to manage all your company’s interactions across different touchpoints in one place
• Build various types of microsurveys to collect feedback and close the loop
• Segment customers and create personalized experiences based on customer data and interactions
• Implement the Voice of the Customer (VoC) program and make customers feel that their voice matters

In short, if you want to optimize your customers’ experiences along their journey, then a customer experience management tool is all you need.

Must have features of good customer engagement tools

Consider the following minimum set of features before selecting a customer engagement tool:

• Advanced segmentation capabilities: Look into getting decent segmentation capabilities based on in-app behavior and in-app experience engagement so you can properly personalize your messaging for each segment.
• Customer support options: The engagement platform has to balance self-serve and human customer support. For self-service, the option to create in-app Resource Centers for your new clients with multimedia content hubs, knowledge base articles, video tutorials, and case studies would be great.
• Product analytics: This is another “must have” that a decent customer engagement tool should provide. Gain insights into product usage data to understand your customers better. Look for a tool that allows you to track how users progress through the journey, and how they engage with the product’s features and give you at least basic functionality to collect and analyze feedback
• Integrations with other tools: If the tools don’t provide product analytics options, they should at least have integrations with other tools so you can get better insights on your data in one place.

Best customer engagement tools

Are you having trouble choosing the right tool for boosting your customer engagement? We have compiled a list of the best tools on the market you should try.

The best customer engagement tools for SaaS include the following:

• Userpilot: best customer engagement tool for automated onboarding and personalized in-app guidance
• Userguiding: best customer engagement tool for user onboarding on a budget
• Appcues: customer engagement tool for product adoption
• Whatfix: customer engagement tool for product adoption
• Chameleon: customer engagement tool for user feedback

Let’s dive deeper into how each stacks up for different company sizes, budgets, and jobs to be done!

Userpilot- Best customer engagement platform for user onboarding

Userpilot is a powerful product adoption platform that enables you to quickly build personalized, flexible, contextually relevant in-app experiences targeted to different user segments – all without writing a line of code.

Userpilot was built specifically for SaaS product teams that want to improve their user onboarding experience and boost user activation.

You can build a huge variety of user onboarding experiences and in-app guidance flows without needing to code.

Here’s what you’ll get when you start using Userpilot:

• Forget about coding in-app experiences: Userpilot is a no-code solution and only requires your dev to install a line of javascript inside your app and for you to download a chrome extension that opens up the visual builder.
• Build in-app flows using the largest range of UI patterns (modals, slideouts, tooltips, hotspots, banners) and in-app onboarding experiences (checklists, microsurveys, NPS surveys, in-app resource center)
• Get access to a built-in NPS tool for collecting and analyzing user sentiment so you can improve your onboarding process based on real data.
• Create and track combinations of in-app events like clicks, hovers and form fills, and then analyze all these interactions under your own custom events, which can be built without code or API calls.
• Use advanced product analytics and in-app flows analytics to identify where users need help and create granular user segments to trigger in-app experiences contextually (segment based on user identification data, in-app engagement, custom events, clicks, hovers, form fills, user feedback responses, NPS scores and more)
• Enhance the onboarding experience with in-app help by launching a Resource Center directly inside your app. Add in-app guides, and video tutorials, and give users access to search the knowledge base or reach out to support. Self-service has never been easier.

The best user onboarding is contextual and it happens right where the users need it, inside your app. There isn’t a better user onboarding tool out there that offers more value for the money than Userpilot.

Schedule a demo with our team and get ready to build the best onboarding experiences your users have seen.

PROs of Userpilot

Userpilot has a number of advantages, especially for mid-market SaaS companies looking for a robust but at the same time very easy-to-use, a no-code tool for user onboarding, product adoption, and simplified product analytics. Let’s have a look at the pros of using Userpilot:

• No-code builder – Userpilot comes with an easy-to-use Chrome Extension builder.
• Multiple UI patterns – choose from a range of options to build customized flows: modals,
• slideouts, banners, tooltips, hotspots, and checklists are all at your disposal.
• UI patterns are not limited by plan – you get access to all of them on every single plan, meaning you get value even with the Traction plan (this is the entry-level one).
• Engaging walkthroughs and onboarding flows- build interactive walkthroughs targeted to distinct user segments.
• In-app help – build a resource center offering self-service support to your users, customize it with your branding, and select from a range of help options to boost user satisfaction (i.e. videos, in-app flows, chat, and more).
• Experimentation – built-in A/B testing for flows lets you explore and quickly iterate based on direct user behavior.
• Powerful feedback options- integrated NPS surveys with analytics and response tagging unlock insight into how your users feel.
• Advanced analytics and segmentation- analyze product usage and in-app flow engagement and build user segments using the data.
• Event tracking and feature tags- tag UI engagement (clicks, form fills, hovers) and group them into one custom event to track what really matters.
• More value with integrations- unlock value faster with built-in integrations with popular tools like Segment, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Intercom, Heap, and more.

Cons of Userpilot

There are, however, some downsides to Userpilot as well:

• Browser/web app only – Userpilot won’t run on mobile devices/applications.
• Doesn’t support employee onboarding- The tool is better suited for customer onboarding than for employee onboarding as you can’t build in-app guides on third-party tools.
• Missing integrations – doesn’t have built-in integrations with some tools, but it has webhooks, and Hubspot and Zapier are coming soon.
• Not appropriate for small startups on a shoestring budget (<$100)- Userpilot is a powerful, mid-market to the enterprise-level tool. So $249 a month might be too expensive for really small startups.

What users say about Userpilot

Userpilot is clearly not for everyone, but let’s check what users like about the tool:

Userpilot is an incredible, user-friendly software that allows us to create unforgettable experiences for our clients! From basic to complex experiences, we have been able to do them all with ease! I would highly recommend this software to anyone who wants to provide their clients or users with the best product tour experience. The possibilities of what you can create are endless! – Tayla G.

Userpilot is simple to set up, use, and does not require any dev – which means instant publishing. This is critical for us as a SaaS company that releases new features frequently; we need the ability to inform our customers of changes quickly, and doing this in our platform through Userpilot allows us to reach the right audience, at the right time, in the right place. There have been many awesome extra features we’ve discovered since coming on board, and it’s been great to see new features released frequently. The tool itself is intuitive and reliable. Having used similar products previously that were clunky and buggy this has really made us happy with our decision to move to Userpilot. – Melina K.

The price-to-feature ratio is the best for Userpilot. Other cheaper tools in the market would definitely not fulfill your needs, and others like Pendo would be out of budget. Userpilot sits in that sweet spot. – Saurav S.

Obviously, no tool can make everyone 100% happy all of the time – but if you check most reviews on G2 or Capterra, Userpilot users don’t seem to complain about it a lot.
Here are some of Userpilot’s negative reviews in their own words.

A few features are missing, but there are workarounds for most of the problems that might occur. They have great customer service that will assist you if there is anything you cannot figure out. The app can be quite technical at times and there are bugs now and then, but that is often sorted really quickly. Carl

Userpilot pricing

Userpilot’s transparent pricing ranges from $249/month on the entry-level end to an Enterprise tier for larger companies.

Furthermore, Userpilot’s entry-level plan includes access to all UI patterns and should include everything that most mid-market SaaS businesses need to get started.

Userpilot has three paid plans to choose from:

• Starter: The entry-level Starter plan starts at $249/month and includes features like segmentation, product analytics, reporting, user engagement, NPS feedback, and customization.
• Growth: The Growth plan starts at $749/month and includes features like resource centers, advanced event-based triggers, unlimited feature tagging, AI-powered content localization, EU hosting options, and a dedicated customer success manager.
• Enterprise: The Enterprise plan uses custom pricing and includes all the features from Starter + Growth plus custom roles/permissions, access to premium integrations, priority support, custom contract, SLA, SAML SSO, activity logs, security audit, and compliance (SOC 2/GDPR).

Userguiding- Best customer engagement platform for user onboarding

UserGuiding is a lower-cost, entry-level product adoption tool offering a range of features to help companies onboard new customers and boost product adoption.

UserGuiding excels at building simple onboarding experiences for users. It includes a no-code builder, segmentation options, and easily added UI patterns like hotspots, tooltips, and modals.

Although it also has some other goodies like a resource center and analytics, the meat of this product is its onboarding flow builder. If all you’re looking for is a relatively easy way to build simple onboarding flows, this could be a great choice for you. However, people looking for more analytics, customization, or complex integrations should probably look elsewhere.

As a no-code onboarding tool, UserGuiding has numerous features that will help you create onboarding flows for your new customers and guide them throughout their journey.

Here’s what you’ll get when you start using UserGuiding:

• Create interactive product walkthroughs without disturbing your developers as it’s completely code-free.
• Build onboarding checklists and drive customers to the activation point by eliminating the guesswork on what the next step should be.
• Use a variety of UI patterns, like checklists tooltips, modals, and slideouts to prompt the right in-app experience, to the right persona, at the right time in their user journey.
• Add emojis, gifs, images, or videos to customize your onboarding flows and have them match your brand.

Though UserGuiding is a great tool for startups that don’t have much money to invest in an onboarding tool, it has very strict limitations for the Basic plan.

You can only create a maximum of 20 guides, 2 onboarding checklists, and 1 resource center. If you want to create unlimited guides with unlimited UI patterns, you should go for the Professional plan that costs $299.

PROs of Userguiding

There are some advantages when it comes to choosing UserGuiding. Here are its pros:

• For small startups or independent businesses, the price is an attractive element to consider.
• A good variety of UI patterns to choose from when building flows and guides
• Unlike some of the more expensive options, you can choose to add a Resource Center (a bonus for self-service support).
• For a budget tool, UserGuiding still offers integrations with other applications, such as Mixpanel, Hubspot, Woopra, Slack, Webhook, etc.

Cons of Userguiding

Though UserGuiding is a solid product many improvements are still needed. The cons of using UserGuiding include:

• There are many bugs and performance issues when using the tool. The UI is also fairly tricky to navigate.
• It has limited functionality, particularly on the basic plan. There you only have a small range of features available – all with the UserGuiding watermark/branding.
• Technical knowledge is required to get the maximum out of this product.
• Customization and design options for UI patterns aren’t the greatest.

What users say about Userguiding

If you check the product review sites, most people like using UserGuiding.

Here are some reviews from real users:

Creating guides/checklists are easy to implement. It does not take a lot of time to make adjustments when you need to make changes.
You can go live with a simple guide or checklist within minutes. I was able to go live within a few days of getting started. – Administrator in Computer Software

However, some people think there’s too much friction due to bugs. Let’s have a look at some negative reviews to see why users complain about:

It is a bit buggy, sometimes it lags or freezes.

And, some people think that there is still room for improvement:

The analytics felt a little elementary. Other than the Mixpanel integration, it wasn’t possible to analyze user data directly on the UserGuiding dashboard. There was an API we could use that required some set up, but this was something I expected to be baked into the product for sure.- Administrator in Computer Software

Userguiding pricing

UserGuiding’s pricing model is far simpler than others on our list. There are three tiers, each one charging a set amount for access to certain tools.

Here are its packages:

• Basic will give you access to only the most essential onboarding tools: Starting at $99/mo or $69/mo (if you buy the yearly contract), this budget option has a few limitations to consider (i.e. just 1 Team Member, a limit of 20 guides, and 2 checklists, UserGuiding branding on all UI patterns).
• Professional adds unlimited guides, hotspots, and checklists. Starting at $399/mo or $299 /mo if billed yearly.
• Corporate gives you access to everything plus personalized coaching. Starting at $699/mo or $499.mo for a yearly plan.

Appcues- Best customer engagement platform for user onboarding

Appcues is another no-code user onboarding platform that helps non-technical teams track and analyze product usage.You can publish in-app onboarding tours, announcements, and launch surveys.

 

Unlike Userpilot, the functionality is limited if you are using the basic plans.

Appcues used to provide onboarding templates, which made it easy to use the tool. However, it provided a predefined way of thinking about onboarding all while having a higher price tag than other onboarding software. As of the time of writing (end of 2022), Appcues has removed its onboarding templates – without really replacing them with another solution.

Appcues allows you to design flows that make onboarding processes a breeze. These flows are what you use to create product tours and other in-app communication with users.

Here’s what you’ll get when you start using Appcues:

• Access to an easy-to-use UI that anyone on the team can handle for building in-app flows without coding.
• Building a product tour in Appcues is relatively easy. You just need to open their chrome extension on top of your application and start building your in-app experiences with a WYSIWYG editor. You simply select a UI pattern and customize it ‘live’, or point to the elements you want to e.g. append your tooltips to.
• Previously it was even easier – you chose one of its templates, they would basically create the product tour for you, and you just needed to customize each step. This limited the options for customizing but it was useful for beginners. We don’t know if Appcues plans to bring their templates back.
• You can also create checklists with Appcues (NOT available on the Essentials plan) and prompt users to take action. These are ok but have limited functionality (can’t trigger JS functions, or add gamification elements) compared to alternatives, such as Userpilot.
• Track UI engagement with Events explorer which allows you to tag elements without coding.
• Build custom user segments (up to 5 on the Essentials plan) based on user properties, flows, interactions, or events you set up in the events explorer.

PROs of Appcues

Let’s look at some key advantages of Appcues:

• It makes it easy to build product tours with a user-friendly UI and predefined templates that can save you time.
• Can be used on web apps and mobile apps too.
• It integrates with most user analytics tools: Heap, Segment, Amplitude, and Mixpanel. This compensates a bit for the lack of in-depth analytics but means you need multiple subscriptions.
• You can use predefined flows or build your own using a good range of UI patterns.
• Allows basic segmentation and event-based flow triggering.
• It’s easy to build in-app surveys using modals or the integrated NPS tool.

Cons of Appcues

But as any tool, Appcues is not without its flows – and at this price point, we think you may really want to consider some options that offer the same or more advanced functionality, but at a lower price tag:

• Appcues lacks certain transition actions like driven actions, scroll position, or page change, which would make product tours more interactive.
• It heavily limits the functionality available in the lowest (Essentials) plan. If you need checklists, more than 10 events, or more than 5 user segments, you’ll need to upgrade to the Growth plan (starting at $879/mo payable annually, which means you need to fork out more than $10,500 to start using Appcues for more use cases.
• Appcues doesn’t have a resource center feature, meaning you can’t use it to offer self-service support to your users.

What users say about Appcues

What do Appcues users share about their experience? Overall users feel positive about Appcues.

Here’s an example summarizing some key points about its features and the value it offers. You can find more reviews on G2 or Capterra.

The best part of Appcues is the guided tour features which they call flaws. Especially on a team with limited resources, it allows you to improve your activation and engagement overnight by using this feature to guide your users around your product. What I love even more is the design and UX features are modern unlike other tour tools we’ve researched, and the software is easy-to-use with the need for a developer after the initial installation. – Raeann F.

However, there are some points that could be improved:

As with all software, you will run into irritating limitations. Appcues does collect a lot of data that could automatically be turned into user attributes (like the first log-in or visits per month) but they don’t do that. Jumping between the build mode and the studio can also become very confusing at times. – Ville T.

Appcues pricing

All things considered, Appcues does not offer the best value for money compared to some Appcues alternatives – at $249 per month. If your product has 2,500 active users, the costs for different plans are:

• Essentials: $249/month (Up to 3 user licenses)
• Growth: $879/month (Up to 10 user licenses)
• Enterprise: Custom (Unlimited user licenses)

Chameleon- Best customer engagement platform for user onboarding

Chameleon is a digital adoption platform with a difference: while the other tools discussed are mostly no-code, Chameleon will require some developer involvement.

Nevertheless, it’s a powerful and effective tool that works in a similar way to Userpilot and offers similar features: styling, analytics, templates, goals, A/B testing, and checklists.
However, it doesn’t offer a resource center, or dedicated NPS, and it’s a lot worse value for money with limited features in the basic plan, which is over $150 more expensive for the same number of MAUs.

You can build widgets (launchers) and classic guides and tours with Chameleon as the main drivers of user onboarding.

Here’s how Chameleon’s main functionality helps with user onboarding:

• Chameleon’s product tours help you build flows for guidance. You can use several UI patterns for this: modals, banners, tooltips, and hotspots.
• You can customize the styling (font, color, opacity, etc) of your product tours and even add in some CSS styling if you want advanced branding.
• Launchers are where Chameleon is different compared to its competitors. These are in-app widgets that can open checklists, small help widgets, or notification centers. The downside is that you can’t have one launcher with multiple types of content.
• You can target content to different user segments based on multiple data sources including event triggering.
• Ability to use micro surveys with great customization and question-and-answer types.
• On Growth Plan and higher, you also get access to more functionality like A/B testing, multiple environments, localization (Enterprise plan only), and advanced integrations like Hubspot

All in all, Chameleon has good functionality for user onboarding but will be very limited on the Startup plan as you only get one Launcher and five micro surveys.

To build contextual and efficient user onboarding you will need more than that. Considering what you get for the money, Userpilot offers much better value.

PROs of Chameleon

Chameleon is a robust tool for your onboarding and adoption needs. Here are the main pros to consider if you’re still deciding:

• Offers a good range of in-app messaging and UI patterns. You can create custom modals, slideouts, tooltips, hotspots, launchers (checklists or resource hubs), and more.
• Good segmentation options, you can either build different user segments inside the product, or you can integrate your Chameleon account with other tools and import your data.
• Can be used on 3rd party tools, meaning you can use it for employee onboarding too.
• Offers a good range of two-way integrations: Mixpanel, Segment, Intercom, Customer.io, Segment, Hubspot, etc.

Cons of Chameleon

While Chameleon is a great tool, the main downside is the cost and restrictions you get with it. Here are the main cons of the tool:

• There are some limitations to user onboarding flows. You can’t run multiple in-app experiences at the same time, as you can in Userpilot. Instead, Chameleon enables you to create user onboarding campaigns (different sequences of product tours shown over time).
• It’s built for single-page apps: Chameleon can’t build flows that run over multiple URLs.
• Doesn’t offer a self-service resource center where users can access multiple guides and tutorials or contact support. It does provide launchers that are similar but more restricted. A launcher can be a checklist or a list of resources, but can’t be both.
• It has a steeper learning curve and it’s not a completely no-code tool.
• The Startup (starter) plan is quite restrictive and expensive (starts at $349/mo for 2500 MAU and includes 1 Launcher only and 5 micro surveys). You will need to go for Growth ($999/mo) if you want to drive product adoption.

What users say about Chameleon

Users appreciate Chameleon’s versatile functionalities. Let’s see what they have to say about it.

I love the variety of formats we can build in Chameleon, from interactive tooltips to progressive tours and launchers! It’s also really easy to track performance of each of these and adjust accordingly. The interface still feels quite clunky whenever I’m in build mode. For instance, I don’t like that I have to use markdown and CSS when formatting text instead of having an inline styling menu to select from. Then there’s also the issue of surveys or tour steps appearing where they’re not supposed to, apparently mistaking an element in another page for the anchor. -Nikki D

Chameleon is a good tool overall and it’s loved by its users. Most complaints are about the price and some limitations such as customization of tours and reporting and analytics.

I wish there was an easier way to schedule content for release and more button options on the Tours. However, I think the scheduling feature is coming soon! I also wish it was easier to customize how launchers look without needing to know how to code UI changes in. – Lubana L.

There is limited reporting and dashboarding functionality within Chameleon currently. – Administrator in Financial Services

I think the software is a bit on the pricey side, but since it lets us do things that we would normally need our developers to do, we are truly saving in the grand scheme of things. It means we can focus on features and bug fixes, instead of building a new communication method that would only be used internally!-Nathalie L.

Chameleon pricing

Chameleon split their pricing options primarily by the number of monthly active users, but you should keep in mind that the Startup plan also has limited features and might not be enough for interactive user onboarding and adoption for SaaS products:

• 0 – 2500 MAUs: Startup plan from $349/mo, Growth plan from $899/mo
• 2000 – 3000MAUs: Startup plan from $419/mo, Growth from $899/mo.
• 3000 – 5000 MAUs: Startup plan from $489/mo, Growth from $899/mo.
• 5000 – 10,000 MAUs: Startup plan from $517/mo, Growth from $999/mo

Disclaimer: with the Startup plan you only get 5 microsurveys and 1 launcher, no A/B testing, no Goals, and no localization.

Whatfix- Best customer engagement platform for user onboarding

Whatfix is one of the top digital adoption platforms around and a driver of innovation in this space.

Whatfix offers a well-made product that allows you to create user flows, knowledge bases, and task lists to get new users engaged and learning. On top of this, their analytics platform is easy to understand and helps you keep track of behavior analytics, guidance analytics, and user feedback all in one place.

Whatfix’s digital adoption platform makes your user onboarding easier. The tool helps you create personalized walkthroughs by adopting the learning-by-doing technique.

Here are the benefits you can gain if you choose Whatfix:

• Create interactive product walkthroughs and flows code-free with native integration options
• Incorporate different onboarding elements into your flows, including modals, checklists, tooltips, beacons
• With its user-level segmentation, you can set up basic contextual onboarding to differentiate user experience.

However, Whatfix targets mostly large enterprise companies and might not be the right choice for SMBs or startups. If this is the case, you should be looking for alternative tools to power up your user onboarding.

PROs of Whatfix

There are many advantages when it comes to choosing Whatfix. Here are its pros.

• Easy to create flows, even for non-technical team members.
• Allows you to develop knowledge bases for self-help solutions.
• Ideal for both customer and employee onboarding.

Cons of Whatfix

But at the same time, Whatfix has some cons so it’s better to get an overview if you’re thinking of buying it:

• User experience issues, including bugs and sometimes spotty customer service.
• Fewer analytical features and views than you might like.
• Lacks in-depth style customizations.
• It’s difficult to integrate some of the scripted code in the admin integration sections without the help of a Whatfix support team member.
• No free trial option despite it being stated on the homepage.
• It’s targeted at enterprise accounts so small companies might get ignored.

What users say about Whatfix

Overall, Whatfix is a good tool and customers are happy with the product. Here is what their customers say about the product.

Our Whatfix Customer Success Manager Kritika has been amazingly responsive to our questions and creative in finding solutions.

Their team really helped us during a project we were doing, and I think they would be great for any company looking for help. This is a must to onboard customers and drive retention.

Though Whatfix is considered a solid tool in the market some people have complaints. Mostly they are related to complications for non-technical people and instability.

Here is what they say:

We were promised a lot of features that weren’t as easy to use as they made it seem when we signed up.

The tool itself is challenging for the less technical people to use the tool, as you need to know the css classes to show flows and steps.

unexpected issues and roadblocks in implementation that can cause delay or a need for an alternate approach

Whatfix pricing

Whatfix doesn’t have any pricing plans on its website. Instead, you’ll need to speak with one of their team members to get a custom quote tailored to your needs and organization.

Otherwise, you can request a free trial to see if Whatfix works for you.

Conclusion

As we’ve seen from the post above, there are several reasons why you should be using a customer engagement tool.

To provide stellar customer engagement, you need to have the right tool in your stack.

Hopefully, you’ve found this post helpful in choosing the right customer engagement tool for your SaaS!