How to Improve User Adoption for Fintech SaaS Products

August 5, 2024

Fintech blends finance and technology to change how businesses and individuals manage their money. The booming Fintech market is set to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030. From mobile banking and peer-to-peer lending to blockchain and cryptocurrency, Fintech innovations and software-as-a-service (SaaS) products and solutions are transforming financial services globally. SaaS products for Fintech businesses offer scalable, cloud-based solutions that drive efficiency, enhance the user experience, and ensure regulatory compliance.

But are users up for this? A Gartner report suggests that 34% of businesses that purchase Fintech software consider staff acceptance and training to be one of the key challenges for SaaS adoption. The same report also suggests that 28% of businesses realize that they lack the in-house skills to manage the software.

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Let’s look at the median SaaS churn rates across industries, which is 19% for financial services, as shown in Figure 1. There is still a potential gap to fill in the adoption of SaaS products by Fintech companies.

Figure 1—Median SaaS churn rates by industry

Image source: Customer Gauge

Product-Adoption Bottlenecks

Let’s consider some product-adoption bottlenecks and how to address them. Businesses want their users to adopt Fintech products, use them to enhance their business functions, and be a source of word-of-mouth marketing. Achieving these goals requires creating a user-centric design for software that is easy for Fintech users to adopt.

Users’ failing to adopt this software can result in low returns on investment (ROIs), wasted resources, and missed opportunities for innovation. Let’s look at why the adoption of Fintech SaaS products fails by examining some key challenges of adopting a Fintech SaaS product.

Complex Onboarding Processes

Onboarding is crucial because 74% of users might abandon software that is too complicated. Avoid overwhelming users. Streamline your software for specific business functions while keeping it user friendly.

A Lack of User Education and Training

Managing the nitty-gritty of financial matters is itself complex. No one would want Fintech SaaS products that are too hard to learn. So users who just don’t get your products and fail to understand their benefits for their business may see no value in them. Therefore, consider offering tutorials, training resources, or in-tool guidance to motivate users who want to explore the software further.

User Resistance to Change

KPMG research reveals that 57% of technology leaders cite employee resistance as a key influence in their companies’ investment decisions in new technologies. Users are comfortable with certain tools and processes because they are already familiar with them. Therefore, if a Fintech product fails to provide a compelling reason for users to switch or a business doesn’t manage the change process smoothly, users may prefer sticking to their old ways.

Integration Challenges

No SaaS product functions within a silo. Ultimately, a Fintech tool must integrate well with other tools that users rely on within their organization. For example, accounting software, payment gateways, and customer-relationship management (CRM) systems all work in tandem to ensure the successful functioning of business processes. So, if a SaaS product for Fintech is too hard to integrate seamlessly with these existing systems, the result is extra work for users, data silos, errors, and frustration.

Insufficient Customer Support

No matter how good your onboarding, education, and software integration, users might still have questions or inevitably run into issues. Slow customer support, unresponsive support, a lack of adequate Help, and difficulty reaching Support teams can frustrate users. This leads to negative word-of-mouth, churn, and massive damage to your brand reputation.

How to Enhance User Adoption of Fintech SaaS Products

Now that we know some key challenges that users face when adopting a SaaS product within a Fintech ecosystem, let’s explore some ways of overcoming these challenges. Better user adoption ensures higher ROIs, better resource utilization, and overall success in the long run.

Building Trust and Addressing Security Concerns

Fintech businesses yearn for a trusted, secure product. Because users handle people’s hard-earned money, security is nonnegotiable. Security means users can trust and feel confident that their financial data is safe and sound. To elicit their trust, provide the following:

transparency—Communicate the security measures that you’ll take when you’re designing a SaaS product. Use your blog, Webinars, social-media channels, and other marketing communications to explain how you protect people’s data.
communications—Inform users of all security updates. Communicate information about any security changes through various marketing channels, in addition to sending direct email messages. Also, prioritize security concerns in Customer Support communications to forestall the need to address users’ queries.
a track record—Demonstrate the history of your SaaS company’s security and good practices for protecting customer data. To increase trust, display relevant security certifications on your platform such as the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 27001 and the Security Operations Center’s SOC 2, as well as compliance standards such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS).

Ensuring Smooth Onboarding

Successful user onboarding can be an issue, so streamline the onboarding process for users. This sets the tone for a positive user experience while reducing the initial friction that new users often face. A successful onboarding process would first show users how to integrate the new tool with their existing financial tools during setup so they can start using the tool quickly and confidently. Consider the following approaches to offering smooth onboarding for new Fintech customers:

Offer simple steps. Break down the onboarding process into simple, manageable steps. Provide clear instructions and visual cues that guide users through each phase of the process.
Provide interactive tutorials. Use in-app guides, videos, and interactive tutorials to help users navigate the initial setup. These tools provide hands-on experience and immediate feedback, making the learning process more engaging and effective.
Personalize the experience. Use data-driven insights to customize the onboarding experience through role-based paths, preferences, and prior knowledge. No wonder 90% of customers are ready to pay a premium price for personalized experiences!

Ensuring Enhanced Integration

Fintech users require seamless integration with users’ existing systems. Ensuring that your SaaS product supports smooth integration with other tools drives adoption and user satisfaction. You need to consider the following:

compatibility and flexibility—Provide compatibility with Fintech applications and systems in common use. Flexibility in integration allows users to connect your SaaS product with a wide range of tools, enhancing its utility and value.
partnerships—Partner with other Fintech companies to create prebuilt integrations. For example, Fintech companies find value in seamlessly integrating their CRM with QuickBooks or Salesforce, making SaaS products more attractive to users relying on these tools for their daily operations.
an API-first approach—SaaS product design should center around application-program interfaces (APIs), making integrating the tool with other platforms easier. A comprehensive, well-documented API enables developers to integrate SaaS products into their workflows.

Providing a Community and Support Network

Drive user adoption and retention by building a strong community and support network. This creates a sense of belonging and shared purpose for everyone using your tool. It also helps transform users from being workers in silos into the formation of a collective community of engaged advocates. For example, Salesforce has a thriving community of users sharing experiences and exchanging advice. To get this right, create the following:

forums and discussion boards—Create online forums and discussion boards where users can ask questions, share tips, and discuss best practices. These platforms often provide peer-to-peer support that fosters a sense of belonging among users.
social-media groups—Leverage social-media platforms by creating and maintaining active groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Such social communities serve as spaces for users to connect, share updates, and engage with your brand in real time.
regular Webinars and meetups—Host regular Webinars, virtual meetups, and live Q&A sessions to bring users together and provide them with valuable insights and updates. Such events offer opportunities for users to network and learn from industry experts.

The Need for Continuous Feedback and Improvement

The Fintech industry is constantly evolving, with new technologies, changing regulations, and regulatory-compliance updates. To stay ahead of competitors, look out for moments that are negatively impacting your customers. Design a continuous feedback loop with users and solicit their opinions, suggestions, and information about their painpoints. Then use the valuable information that you’ve collected to iteratively enhance your product. To gather this information, do the following:

user interviews—Conduct in-depth interviews with various users to gain deeper insights into their experiences, painpoints, and needs.
in-app surveys and feedback widgets—Simplify ways in which users can share their thoughts directly within your product. Embed short surveys or feedback widgets within a SaaS tool for Fintech users, displaying pop-ups at relevant points such as when users are completing a task or reaching a milestone.
Customer-Support interactions—Ensure the Customer Support team documents and shares user feedback with the product team. Such collaborative team efforts lead to interactions that reveal valuable insights and help address users’ painpoints and desired features.

To improve a Fintech service, consider doing the following:

Use the feedback you’ve collected to identify and prioritize areas for improvement.
Adopt an iterative design and development approach to ensure that you continuously release product updates and implement enhancements that are based on user feedback.
Inform users about how you’re using their feedback through release notes, newsletters, and community announcements.

Wrapping Up

Ultimately, increasing user adoption for Fintech SaaS products requires understanding and addressing users’ needs and challenges. By overcoming their adoption challenges as I’ve outlined in this article, you can streamline your onboarding process. Get started by implementing a few of the tips I’ve provided and gauge the results, then take corrective actions, as necessary.

You have an opportunity to make a positive impression through every user interaction. Investing in user adoption can help your business acquire customers, retain them, and form a loyal community of advocates who champion your brand.

In Enterprise Experiences