Is Chameleon a good choice for onboarding automation?

• Chameleon is a good choice for onboarding automation and it comes with features such as user segmentation, onboarding checklist, self service support, and user journey mapping.
• Despite its strong performance when it comes to creating personalized and highly customized user experiences, Chameleon is not the most competitive tool when compared to similar products.
• Here are three reasons why you might need to look elsewhere:
  • You are on a budget: To get access to all the needed tools for proper onboarding and adoption, you need to pay for the higher plans that can get expensive.
  • Requires CSS knowledge: Custom CSS works by targeting specific elements of Chameleon Experiences to change their styling. However not all users have an idea what CSS is all about, so, you need to be technically savvy.
  • Analytics are not advanced: Chameleon doesn’t pose of robust analytics features like Userpilot does. You might want to consider another tool if you need accurate product and user analytics, without paying for additional tools.
• If you’re looking for a better option for onboarding automation, Userpilot exceeds both functionality and value for money compared to Chameleon.
• Ready to see Userpilot in action? Schedule a demo today to explore its powerful onboarding automation capabilities firsthand.

Must have features of onboarding automation tools

There are many onboarding automation tools available, so you may be confused about which one to choose.

Though the right tool will depend on your business goals and needs, here are the must-have features for any onboarding automation tool.

• Make sure the tool you choose isn’t limited to just product tours. Pick a tool that provides various UI patterns (modals, slideouts, banners, checklists, hotspots) to create beautiful welcome screens, and interactive walkthroughs to guide new customers and delight them from the very beginning.
• Look into getting decent segmentation capabilities based on in-app behavior and in-app experience engagement so you can trigger onboarding flows properly.
• An in-app help center is another feature that you should be looking for in an onboarding automation tool. With this, you can collect all your documentation files, tutorials, and videos in one place and offer on-demand support.
• Integration with 3rd party apps and tools so you can gain more insights and collect them in one place.

There you have it. These are the basic features that any solid onboarding automation tool should cover. Do your own research before buying a tool and make sure it’s aligned with your business goals.

Chameleon features for onboarding automation

Users expect to be shown the red carpet with a welcome tour for your product. Chameleon helps you create welcome tours that gets users beyond their first “Aha”.

Here are some features of Chameleon for new user onboarding:

• Segmentation: You can use custom segments to show a sequence of your product tours over time. The hyper-targeted onboarding flows are tailored to your users’ needs. Here’s a short example of what the tour session can look like:

• Clear Analysis: Easily assess and optimize your user onboarding tours with real-time data.
• Launchers: Build onboarding checklists, including items like Loom videos and knowledge base articles to help users unlock more value.
• Customization options: Enjoy fine control over where the onboarding flow appears, choose who sees it, and define how users can interact with it.

Spoiler alert: when you subscribe for the Starter plan, you get access to just one launcher which is very limited for many onboarding use cases. However, you get unlimited access when you pay an extra $971 for the Growth plan.

Chameleon’s user segmentation

“Chameleon has really helped us in combination with Segment to put the right offers in front of the right members at the right time. Before, we didn’t have the capability to build, target, and deliver on-site messaging to complex member audiences quickly and easily.”

Nate Wallingsford, Head of US Marketing Operations & Optimization.

Here’s a brief overview of Chameleon’s functionality in relation to segmentation:

• Target users with precision: Import or create user segments from Heap or Mixpanel.
• Power up user attribute data: Send user properties and attribute data to and from Chameleon.
• Experiment freely with A/B tests: Leverage segmentation to test the effectiveness of experiences.

Chameleon’s onboarding checklist

Wes Bush, Author of Product-Led Growth, when asked why he loves user onboarding checklists, said:

Checklists are one of my little “hacks” to double conversion rates. To put it simply, if you want to increase your activation rate, start using checklists.

Here is what you will get with Chameleon:

• Segmentation: Chameleon offers a robust segmentation and targeting feature that empowers you to categorize users effectively according to their unique characteristics, behaviors, or attributes. This sophisticated functionality enables you to deliver highly personalized onboarding checklists that are specifically tailored to meet the individual needs of each user.
• Onboarding checklist template: Chameleon offers a range of pre-designed checklist templates that can be easily tailored to meet your specific needs. These templates serve as a valuable resource for creating comprehensive onboarding checklists, guaranteeing a standardized and well-organized onboarding experience for every user.
• In-app analytics: You get a comprehensive suite of real-time analytics and user engagement data, empowering you to effortlessly track and analyze user progress as they navigate through the onboarding checklists.

Chameleon’s self service support

The self-service methodology focuses on giving users the tools necessary to solve some problems on their own without having to reach out to support agents. This often includes elements like knowledge bases, chatbots, and interactive walkthroughs.

Here are Chameleon features that will help you provide self-service support for SaaS companies:

• Tooltips: Tooltips help users understand unfamiliar or complex parts of your product when they need it the most. It keeps your UI simple by reducing the noise or the need to explain everything within your interface. Since your users may have different levels of expertise and backgrounds, they may not find everything in your product intuitive, you can use hover tips to explain certain product terminologies and elements in your workspace.
• Help widgets (self-serve widget): The self-serve widget (resource center in Userpilot) clarifies where users can get help and what resources are available. Through launchers on Chameleon, you can deploy a self-serve widget out of the box. By showing customized Launchers based on the feature the user is currently using, you can deploy custom and interactive self-serve support across your whole product without pushing users off track to an external knowledge base.
• Interactive product tours: One of the best ways to offer users self-serve support is by allowing them to take interactive product tours at their own pace. You can educate those ready to learn something new while letting other users take it later when they may have more time or are ready to engage further with your platform.

Chameleon’s user journey mapping

Journey mapping is key to understanding how your users navigate and understand your tool. It’s a brilliant way of visualizing the processes that customers go through to reach their goals.

Unfortunately, Chameleon doesn’t offer journey mapping features such as paths and funnels.

What are the pros and cons of Chameleon?

Chameleon’s pros

From a wide array of features to aesthetic UI patterns that can create any flow no matter how customized they need to be, Chameleon is no doubt a powerful tool for scaling product adoption.

It works in a similar way to Userpilot and offers similar features: styling, analytics, templates, goals, A/B testing, and checklists.

Let’s look at the pros of using Chameleon:

• Intuitive no-code builder: Chameleon comes with an easy-to-use Chrome Extension builder.
• Engaging tour guides: Build interactive tours to onboard users, announce features, and create other customer in-product experiences using simple steps.
• Good range of in-app messaging and UI patterns: Easy to create custom modals, slide-outs, tooltips, hotspots, launchers (checklists or resource hub), and more.
• Full two-way and deep analytics integrations: Chameleon fits into your stack, and easily connects with your favorite tools to send data to, and from Chameleon. It offers the deepest integrations, with analytics tools, CRMs, and more.
• Effective segmentation and targeting system: Leverage user data and experiences to structure effective marketing messages and tour guides for a specific target audience.
• Advanced A/B testing: Drive continuous improvement of in-app messages and define the ideal user experience with precise A/B testing.
• Rate limiting: No user wants to be overwhelmed with multiple product tours, in-app messages, and tasks. With rate limiting, you can reduce the number of user experiences — one step at a time, with clarity over speed.

Chameleon’s cons

While Chameleon is a deep production adoption tool with an array of great features, there are still some downsides. Here are the main cons of the tool:

• Not entirely no-code: Early on, we stated that Chameleon can be used without code. True. But it is not a completely no-code tool. You’ll need the help of a technical-savvy employee in your team to sort out some build-up as the learning curve is steeper.
• Hard-to-use interface: The new UI is a bit harder to use (a lot of clicking), and there can be minor bugs here and there.
• Limited experiences: There are some limitations to the user onboarding flows. For instance, you can’t run multiple in-app experiences at the same time, as you can in Userpilot.
• Pricey: The Startup plan is quite expensive (starts at $349/mo for 2500 MAU and includes just one launcher). This means you need to go for the Growth plan, where you pay more but save more at the same time.

What do users say about Chameleon?

Flexible, purpose-fit, intuitive, code-free (debatable), cool tools — so many great adjectives to describe the quality of Chameleon by its users.

Below are some good reviews by Chameleon users:

Chameleon offers a good variety of experiences that can be customized and the final output blends right into our customer interface. We like that they keep launching innovative features like the help bar and help menu, and we find the Chameleon UI initiative. The customer success managers are very supportive, prompt, and knowledgeable.

While Chameleon has some great reviews, there are still some little downsides and quirks (same as every other SaaS tool). No tool is perfect — you need to realize that the satisfactory intent of every user is on a different level.

The UI Itself is difficult to learn. There are hidden actions or language that is unintuitive on most pages. One example – It took me probably 20 minutes to figure out how to turn rate limiting off – our tour names can be long sometimes, so the trash can icon was out of frame to the right and the left-right scroll bar was out of frame at the bottom of my screen. When the tours are displayed. there doesn’t seem to be a uniform set of rules. They’re alphabetized on the rate limiting page, but organized by priority on the tours page. We also have a ton of old tours that have been unpublished but they still show up in the lists. I wish those were filtered to a second tab. Creating custom audiences could be streamlined as well.

Chameleon’s pricing

Chameleon’s pricing is based on your product’s monthly users. From the Startup plan (for small companies to get started and save) to the Growth and Enterprise plans (for larger organizations with advanced requirements) billed via invoice.

Here’s an overview of the pricing plans, and features of each plan:

• Startup plan: For small companies to get started. Fee: $419/month, billed Monthly, usage-based, Unlimited Tours & Tooltips, 5 microsurveys, 1 Launcher, Custom CSS.
• Growth plan: For growing businesses to drive returns quickly, from $1350/month. Everything in the startup plan, plus: unlimited microsurveys & launchers, A/B testing, and rate limiting is paid annually with bulk pricing.
• Enterprise plan: For larger organizations with advanced requirements. The fee for this plan is not stated on the website rather, you get to talk to the team. You get everything in the growth plan, multi-product account, user permissions, localizations, and SSO/enhanced security.

The Growth plan seems to be the real deal because of the exciting features that can boost your product marketing. For example, you can’t get the rate limiting feature on the Startup plan, including A/B testing. These are relevant and powerful product adoption weapons that should be in your arsenal if you truly want to win more users.

Is the startup plan expensive?

Yes, compared to Userpilot, about a $170 difference. It’s best to opt in for the Growth plan for the juicy benefits, where you pay $1350 annually rather than paying a whopping $5000+ yearly for the startup plan.

3 Reasons why you might need a Chameleon alternative

Despite its strong performance when it comes to creating personalized and highly customized user experiences, Chameleon is not the most competitive tool when compared to similar products.

Here are three reasons why you might need to look elsewhere:

• You are on a budget: To get access to all the needed tools for proper onboarding and adoption, you need to pay for the higher plans that can get expensive.
• Requires CSS knowledge: Custom CSS works by targeting specific elements of Chameleon Experiences to change their styling. However not all users have an idea what CSS is all about, so, you need to be technically savvy.
• Analytics are not advanced: Chameleon doesn’t pose of robust analytics features like Userpilot does. You might want to consider another tool if you need accurate product and user analytics, without paying for additional tools.

Userpilot – A better alternative for onboarding automation

User onboarding is a crucial part of the customer journey as it speeds up the adoption process and increases retention rates. Onboarding is one of Userpilot’s core use cases along with product growth analytics and user feedback, so it has plenty of features that you can utilize.

Here are some Userpilot features you can use when onboarding new users:

• No-code builder: Creating flows with Userpilot is as simple as installing the Chrome extension, selecting the UI patterns you’d like to use, and then editing the content/settings to suit your use case. You can also use templates to create modals, slideouts, tooltips, and driven actions.

• Native tooltips: Userpilot lets you create native tooltips that show up when users hover over an element or click on an information badge. Since these native tooltips attach to the element itself, they aren’t page-dependent and will show up on any screen where that element is visible.

• Funnel analytics: Userpilot’s advanced analytics lets you create funnel reports that track the onboarding journey. You can also add filters (like name, user ID, signup date, operating system, country, etc.) and monitor the total conversion rate from the first step of the funnel to the last.

• User segmentation: Userpilot lets you segment users based on the device they’re using, where they’re located, their engagement data, or which NPS rating they selected on the latest survey. You can then filter your analytics dashboards to see which segments struggle with onboarding.

Userpilot’s user segmentation

User segmentation is essential for creating a personalized and contextual onboarding experience. Userpilot can segment users based on demographics, product usage data, NPS scores, and more. You can then trigger flows or filter analytics based on segments.

Here’s an overview of Userpilot’s customer segmentation capabilities:

• Segment conditions: Userpilot lets you form segments by adding different conditions like user data, company data, features and events, etc. You can then use these segments as analytics filters or flow triggers later on.

• Analytics filters: Userpilot’s product analytics and user insights dashboards can be filtered to only display data from specific segments (or companies). This will help you extract insights from certain cohorts and compare how adoption or activation varies from one segment to the next.
• Flow triggers: Userpilot’s audience settings let you trigger flows for specific segments or target users that meet certain conditions. You can combine this with page-specific or event-occurrence triggers to show relevant flows to the right users at the most contextual moments.

• External data: Userpilot integrates with tools like Amplitude, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Segment using a one-way integration. This means you can use the data inside Userpilot to build advanced segmentation and trigger contextual experiences. For more advanced use cases, the two-way integration with Hubspot lets you send and receive data, unlocking a full set of use cases.

Userpilot’s onboarding checklist

Onboarding checklists help new users learn about a product and reduce their time-to-value (TTV). Userpilot checklists can be created using the no-code builder, used to trigger specific actions, and tracked using the analytics dashboard to gauge overall engagement.

Here’s how you can use Userpilot to create an advanced onboarding checklist:

• No-code builder: Userpilot’s checklist creator lets you edit the content of checklists, add tasks, style icons, and configure the triggers for when your checklist should appear. You’ll also be able to choose from five widget icons (or upload your own) and recolor the widget to match your UI.

• Smart tasks: Checklist tasks can be set to trigger specific actions upon being completed, such as redirecting a user to a different page, launching an in-app flow, or running a custom JavaScript function. You can also set the conditions for when a task and action will be marked as complete.

• Checklist analytics: The Checklists dashboard shows you all relevant metrics. These include the number of live checklists you have, how many views they’ve gotten, and how many have been completed. You can also sort these analytics by segment or time period to identify trends.

Userpilot’s self service support

Self-service support helps users solve problems themselves instead of having to reach out to a representative. Userpilot’s no-code resource center makes onboarding guides and product documentation easily accessible to users from within your product.

Here’s how you can use Userpilot to create a self-service customer experience:

• No-code builder: Userpilot’s no-code resource center lets you add modules without writing a single line of code. Module options include links, videos, flows, custom JavaScript functions, and checklists. You can also group modules into sections to help users navigate the resource center.

• Module segmentation: Userpilot’s segmentation settings let you hide or show specific modules within your resource center based on audience settings. This makes it possible to create modules for different user segments and hide resources that aren’t relevant to other users.

• Analytics dashboard: The dedicated analytics dashboard helps you see how many unique visitors your resource center gets, how many modules have been clicked, and the overall click rate across your user base. This will make it easier to gauge resource center performance.

Userpilot’s user journey mapping

User journey mapping helps you visualize all the interactions between users and your product as they try to achieve a particular goal. Userpilot’s detailed user analytics and funnel/trend reports help you track customers as they progress through different stages of their journey.

Here are the Userpilot features you can use for user journey mapping:

• User analytics: The Users dashboard provides detailed analytics of your entire customer base. You’ll be able to sort by segment, company, or time period and add multiple filters to help you narrow results. You can also perform bulk actions and export user data in a CSV format.

• Funnel reports: These reports help you visualize the user journey map by showing which stage, page, or action most users get stuck on. You’ll also be able to view breakdowns so you can see how the user journey changes depending on which OS, browser, or device type a user is on.

• Trend reports: Userpilot’s trend reports offer behavioral insights such as how often users perform a specific action, the number of unique users who take that action, and where in the user journey these actions occur. You can also create custom metrics and build your own charts.

What are the pros and cons of Userpilot?

Userpilot’s pros

As a full-suite digital adoption platform, Userpilot has all the features you need to onboard users, track analytics, and gather feedback from customers without writing a single line of code. Here are a few pros of using Userpilot as your product growth solution:

• No-code builder: Userpilot’s Chrome extension lets you build flows, add UI elements, and tag features without writing a single line of code.
• UI patterns: There are plenty of UI patterns to choose from when using Userpilot such as hotspots, tooltips, banners, slideouts, modals, and more!
• Startup-friendly: Userpilot’s entry-level plan gives you access to all available UI patterns so you can hit the ground running.
• Walkthroughs and flows: Build engaging interactive walkthroughs and personalized onboarding flows that target specific segments of your user base.
• Self-service support: Build an in-app resource center to help users solve problems, customize its appearance to align it with your brand, and insert various types of content (videos, flows, or chatbots) to keep your customers satisfied.
• A/B testing: Userpilot’s built-in A/B testing capabilities will help you split-test flows, iterate on the best-performing variants, and continually optimize based on user behavior.
• Feedback collection: Userpilot has built-in NPS surveys with its own unified analytics dashboard and response tagging to help you retarget users. There are other survey types to choose from and you can even create your own custom survey.
• Survey templates: There are 14 survey templates to choose from so you can gather feedback on specific features or run customer satisfaction benchmarking surveys like CSAT and CES.
• Advanced analytics: Userpilot lets you analyze product usage data, monitor engagement on all in-app flows, and use the data to create user segments that are based on behaviors instead of demographics.
• Event tracking: Userpilot’s no-code event tracking lets you tag UI interactions (hovers, clicks, or form fills) and group them into a custom event that reflects feature usage.
• Third-party integrations: Userpilot has built-in integrations with tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Segment, Heap, HubSpot, Intercom, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager so you can share data between all the solutions in your tech stack.

Userpilot’s cons

Of course, no tool is perfect and there are a few cons to consider before choosing Userpilot as your user onboarding or product growth solution:

• Employee onboarding: Currently, Userpilot only supports in-app customer onboarding.
• Mobile apps: Userpilot doesn’t have any mobile compatibility which could make it difficult for developers with cross-platform applications to create a consistent user experience for both versions of their product.
• Freemium plan: There’s no freemium Userpilot plan so those bootstrapping their startup and need sub-$100 solutions should consider more affordable onboarding platforms like UserGuiding or Product Fruits.

What do users say about Userpilot?

Most users laud Userpilot for its versatile feature set, ease of use, and responsive support team:

I recently had the pleasure of using Userpilot, and I must say it exceeded all my expectations. As a product manager, I’m always on the lookout for tools that can enhance user onboarding and improve overall user experience. Userpilot not only delivered on these fronts but also went above and beyond with its impressive new features, unparalleled ease of use, and truly exceptional customer support.

What truly sets Userpilot apart is its outstanding customer support. Throughout my journey with Userpilot, the support team has been responsive, knowledgeable, and genuinely dedicated to helping me succeed. Whenever I had a question or encountered an issue, their support team was always there to assist promptly, going above and beyond to ensure my concerns were addressed effectively.

Source: G2.

Of course, other users are also kind enough to share constructive criticism regarding specific features like event tracking filters:

“The filtration while analyzing specific events is a little confusing. Understanding of custom properties and data management configuration could have been more organised.”

Source: G2.

Userpilot’s pricing

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).

Conclusion

There you have it.

It should be easier now to make an informed decision whether Chameleon is your go-to option for onboarding automation. Ultimately, the best choice will depend on your product and current needs.

If you’re looking for a better alternative to Chameleon for onboarding automation, book a Userpilot demo today to experience firsthand how it can enhance your user experience and drive product growth!

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