Richard Walker is the CEO of Quik!, a provider of forms automation and management solutions for companies looking to maximize efficiency and productivity. He started Quik! in 2002 to help people spend less time on paperwork and more time on what they do best. Before Quik!, Rich was a business consultant with Arthur Andersen. He is a published author of two books and a father of three boys.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [01:51] Richard Walker talks about software adoption
- [04:00] The steps for converting software adopters to super users
- [07:01] How creating a good customer experience boosts the adoption rate and use of your software
- [10:54] Rich shares other tips for acquiring super users
In this episode…
Building a SaaS-based company is a challenging but rewarding journey. As an entrepreneur, you have a unique opportunity to create software that solves real problems and delivers value to your customers. But to succeed in such a competitive market, one must go beyond simply building a great product.
To stand out and attract loyal customers, business consultant and entrepreneur Richard Walker says your software must be easy to use and intuitive. You don’t want your users to struggle with complex features or spend hours figuring out how to use your product. Instead, you want to create a seamless and delightful experience that makes your customers feel empowered and productive. He also recommends creating a better customer experience. This way, you boost the adoption of your software and create a community of super users and raving fans who will not only use your software but also recommend it to others.
In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Richard Walker, CEO of Quik!, to discuss how SaaS-based companies can create super users of their products. Rich talks about software adoption, the steps for converting software adopters to super users, and how creating a good customer experience boosts the adoption rate and use of your software.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Quotable Moments:
- “The mindset of having an excellent customer experience is what leads to software adoption.”
Sponsor for this episode
At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.
We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.
What do you need to start a podcast? When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.
The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.
We make distribution easy. We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.
Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.
Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?
Contact us now at [email protected] or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.
Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Insider Stories from Top Leaders & Entrepreneurs…
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:01
You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.
Jeremy Weisz 0:22
Dr. Jeremy Weisz here I am the founder and host of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships. How do we do that? We help you run your podcasts, we are an easy button for an organization or business to launch and run your podcast I’ve been podcasting for over a decade now. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way to do that than to profile the people in the companies I most admire, feature them on my podcast and shout from the rooftops so they’re working on what they’re doing. So if you’ve thought about starting a podcast, you should, if you have questions, you can go to rise25.com or email [email protected] to learn more. Now check out today’s episode. I love learning from the best people in the industry. And rich Walker is one of the best people in the industry, in customer service and SaaS. And so we asked his help and support and give feedback from our dashboard. But he’s spitting some gems of wisdom. So Rich, I’m gonna let you take it away on some of the things that you think about when it comes to adoption, and just the list in your mind, like what do you think about?
Richard Walker 1:51
Yeah, so I like one of my favorite things to do is steal concepts from other industries and other product types and business types. And I’m in SaaS, Software as a Service. So when we think about how do you get somebody to adopt your product, we’re thinking in software terms, right? But you have to think about it in more concrete terms, or maybe how a person walks into your store. So what we do in our software is we think about what are the milestones somebody has to accomplish to become an adopted functional user, meaning they got enough value in those steps that they say to themselves, I want to keep using this product. And then what are the additional steps they have to take to become a super user or raving fan, where they’ve gotten so much value, because they did all of the configurations, or they did all the extra steps that they’re now so adopted, they’ll never leave your product, and they’ll start telling other people about its value. So part of that problem is, you’ve got to get a user to go from point A to B to C to D, so that they become that user and what are those steps in your business? And then how do you incentivize them or inspire them to take those steps. So I love like what you guys do with Rise25 to help me become a podcaster, you helped me think about who would be on my show. And that’s a very, very important first step. You know what really made me a podcaster actually doing it? Right? And so there’s another step, you have to actually go out and do the podcast. But how do I become a better user as I do it over and over. And again, I overcome my fears, and I overcome the challenges and you guys support that. And you provide help, and you’ve resources for that. So I think in any business, you’ve got to think through what are those milestones and steps?
Jeremy Weisz 3:32
I want to go further into this. And if someone’s watching this on video or listening to it, Rich’s site here quikforms.com adoption and super user. Can you break down that? You mentioned, there’s things that people need to do that you know they need to do for adoption, and then what they need to do for super user, let’s just use Quik Forms as an example. What are some of those things?
Richard Walker 3:59
So what will happen is somebody will sign up for a free trial of our product. Signing up for a free trial does not make them a user. All that means is they’ve signed up. And we have to look, did they actually log in the first time? That’s the first step did they log in? The second step we want to know is did they generate a form. And there are other steps in between there to get to that point. But if they never generate a form, they never got the value out of the product. And so it happens, people will sign up. And they’ll log in the first time and in the next two weeks during the trial never login again. We have to ask ourselves, how do we inspire them to log in a second, third, fourth, fifth time? And why are they not logging in? Let’s say they do log in, but they never go to the step of connecting to their database, their source of data CRM. If you don’t have data to put on a form generating forms not as valuable as when it’s blank. There’s still value, but the real value is putting data on the document. We have to measure did they actually set up a CRM and our using it. So we want to see they set up the connection and then generate a form. A third step that we think leads to creating a lot of value. And therefore creating a real user is setting up what we call form bundles. Typically, if you’re doing a transaction, it’s not just one form, it’s three or four or five together, that you have to do a new account form an account transfer form an order ticket, what have you. We found and we’ve had this form bundling or form grouping feature for 20 years at this point, we have found that as one of the most valuable tool sets or features of our product, and when a customer does put that in place, they see a lot more value, therefore, they’re more likely to stay as an adopted user. And we can keep going. I mean, there’s other things that will happen. But what we also look for is, I would say in a more highly adopted or super user, did they add other users to their account? Did they see other people get involved? And are they training them? Did they set up a signature? Because they’re going to another level? Did they set up favorites and favorite company is that they’re using more and more frequently? Are they saving forms in our system and getting that value out of it? So we’re looking for those levels of adoption and making sure it’s working. And look, I’m not promising, we’re great at it. We’re always trying to make it better, because getting that kind of reporting is hard. But those are the things we think about.
Jeremy Weisz 6:21
Yeah, I mean, first of all, thinking about it, at least I’ll speak for myself, I’m always thinking about these things. So the fact that you are, you’re a step ahead of me, and most people I would say but what are some of the things? How do you get people through those steps? Like to get them like you said, from free user to a, you know, adoption, a super user? How do you get them through some of those adoption steps so they don’t get stuck out? Well, okay, you didn’t log in, right, and you get into the next adoption step and the next, what are some of the things you have in place to get them through those steps.
Richard Walker 7:02
Jeremy, this is really the core, I think of our business and our company culture as well. And it’s to create an excellent customer experience. Nobody likes bad software, one of our cultural tenants, that says the software has to be so easy to use, it doesn’t require a user guide. That means it has to be simple, has to be intuitive, has to be obvious. So when you think about how do you build an excellent customer experience, it doesn’t have to be software, by the way, it could be how did somebody get greeted when they walked into your place of business? How did they experience your customer service phone call? Think about all the different sites you go to where you fill out some form to get contacted, and they never contact you. Or it goes to spam? Well, what if you said, hey, I just received a lead, I’m going to call them and now you treat them really well with a phone call immediately. Another example, my wife just started a business called Dr. Weigh Less, and it’s a weight loss clinic. And so when somebody goes through the AI-driven chatbot to qualify them, she watches it if somebody’s falling out halfway through, she picks up the phone and calls them and says, hey, I want to help you get the answers you need. And so when you think about experience, how do you build a better experience, you are automatically leading yourself to solve these problems? Because you started to ask yourself, how do I feel as a customer or a user of that system? There’s lots of techniques to solve those types of problems. But you first have to identify what is the problem? Where do people fall out of this? Was our login process too hard? Maybe? Did they feel it wasn’t secure enough? Maybe we have to show them other security methods, because we have multi-factor authentication. Those are the types of things you think about. But I believe the mindset of having an excellent customer experience is what leads it.
Jeremy Weisz 8:41
Yeah, I love that question of where are people falling out? Because once you solve that, then there’s another place where they’re gonna fall out, and then another place, they’re gonna fall out. And you have to keep chipping away at that. Right.
Richard Walker 8:57
Right, right. I don’t think it’s a never-ending thing. Sales companies, people in the sales organization, do this through the funnel, right? But in marketing, too, we bring people in and then they fall out, why are they falling out? Why are they not converting? It’s the same thing in your customer experience, and how your product is usable or not usable. And I will argue that any product can be applied to this idea of a better customer experience. In fact, I hope a lot of people do it. I’d like to see better customer experiences out there.
Jeremy Weisz 9:24
The last question I have, which first of all, thank you is about super user some tips to move client or customer to a super user. And I want to encourage anyone like we were just having conversation actually Rich’s being really generous and giving feedback on our only client dashboard that we have. And I just encourage anyone if you’re having an impromptu conversation with an amazing person, he was just started talking about his breadth of experience with adoption and you certainly we should be recording this. So, Rich, if you’re on the phone with someone or anyone listening, or someone and there’s just sounds amazing just be like, hey, we should capture this so other people can learn from it. So super user and then I want people to check out quikforms.com you can see we’re looking at it here. What’s your wife’s website that we should give a shout-out to?
Richard Walker 10:24
It’s based in Texas, but it’s drweighless.com?
Jeremy Weisz 10:29
Dr. Weigh Less. So only if you’re in Texas. If not, you can still check it out and probably learn something maybe know someone there. Or maybe she’s gonna have some kind, of course that I can buy some point. Even if I’m not there, but check that out, too. So some tips and some thoughts on super users.
Richard Walker 10:53
Yeah, so I go back to somebody’s book, and I can’t remember which one it was, but which was how do you create raving fans, because you want people out there spilling the gospel about your product and your services. So when we think about super user, I think of somebody who has gained so much value, that they’re just overwhelmed with joy, excitement and want to share it with others. How do you get to that point? Number one, you have to understand what is value to them? That is what value to you? What is value to them? What problem are you solving for them? And how big of a problem is it that you’re delivering on? And there’s a lot of people that forums problems, a lot of people don’t like filling out forms, I’ll pretty much everybody hates filling out forms. And we get users who get in here and they just do their job. And that’s good enough for them. But then we get these other users who I’ve been at conferences, and they come up to me and I feel like an author signing a book, and they’re like, oh my gosh, you’ve changed my life. How did I change your life? Well, I went from 40 hours to four hours a week, filling out forms because your software made it that much easier. And now I get to do more things with my life. So here’s something to think about Jeremy, my software saved them time and made it easier to do their process. But the benefit was they got to do what’s more important to them in their life. So the raving fan for me, is somebody who gets more value than just what my product did. It enabled them to do more. And really the core of our business is to empower others to do their best work, which is not paperwork. So how do you do that for your customer? And honestly what you guys have helped me to do with my podcast is amazing. And I’ll share a story with you. I have used this podcast to network and meet people and connect with people like customers and partners. And it’s been awesome to build this kind of rapport. But to go further. I met somebody at a conference, I thought he’d be a great guest. I invited him. We talked over email a few times lost touch because of email. He followed up say, hey, I really do want to schedule this. I said, Great. Either way, I have a new product coming out, would you like to see it? Boom, he booked he booked a meeting with me. I had no other opportunity to book him into a meeting to see this product other than the fact that we were dialoguing on the podcast. So I’m therefore a raving fan of doing podcasts, because it has helped me connect with an audience and build potential growth into my business. So that’s what I think about for you guys. How do you build a raving fan, you help somebody see the actual value and potential of a podcast by getting them in the routine and the structure and building the platform to do it so efficiently and effectively that it becomes easier and easier and therefore they keep doing it. Maybe I just love it. But I mean I’m reaping the rewards.
Jeremy Weisz 13:38
Love it. Everyone check out quikforms.com. Also go to their podcast page. As Rich preaches he lives it. The Customer Wins podcast right here you can see it retrieves a good guest for you who should reach out to you if they’re interested in being guest.
Richard Walker 13:55
I love to talk to people who are passionate about building the best customer experience and really serving their clients. So yeah, there’s all sorts of companies and I love talking to owners and founders, but I will talk to Director of Training. It doesn’t matter to me if they’re truly passionate about how to build the best experience for their customers. And here’s something else that’s interesting. My audience is typically financial services. That’s where my product lives. And that’s where my customer base is. But I love bringing in people outside the industry to give totally different perspective. Like here’s Shelley. She is the CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, what does that have to do with financial services? Everything, everything they have the best experience of going to movie theaters, and so you can learn from that.
Jeremy Weisz 14:42
I love it. Rich, I want to be the first one to thank you. Thanks for the impromptu interview and playing along. Everyone check out quickforms.com.
Richard Walker 14:50
My pleasure, Jeremy. Thank you.
