920% Increase in SaaS University Engagement Rate

Where we started: 80k users and only .03% engaged with the University 

Mode (acquired by ThoughtSpot in 2023) is a SaaS-based collaborative data platform that combines SQL, R, Python, and visual analytics in one place. It functions as the BI layer in the modern data stack allowing for both ad-hoc data analysis, no-code reporting and interactive dashboards.

When I started working with Mode (Nov 2021), the platform had ~80k users varying from highly technical data analysts and engineers to non-technical business users who just wanted to view completed dashboards. The customer base was largely digital native startups (aka Silicon Valley SaaS companies). 

Mode charged the same seat fee for users whether they acted as a dashboard creator or simply a viewer. The justification behind this was that Mode’s no-code workflows served to evolve business users' activity in the product overtime, allowing them to become dashboard creators themselves. 

However, customer POCs were leaders on data teams, and the only contacts that were reached by the Marketing or Customer Success teams. Meanwhile, the customer user base was typically composed of analysts and business users spanning the organization. 

Mode had launched Mode University, an online, digital academy early in 2021, but had limited content and no cross-functional support promoting it to customers following the initial launch. When I joined, the weekly engagement rate of Mode University hovered right around .03% of the entire user base. 

The problem: High churn due to low adoption

The primary issue Mode faced was churn due to lack of adoption. Most commonly, customers churned as their companies grew. It’s typical for SaaS startups to start off with pretty technical folks in all departments, making it easy for them to adopt Mode as an ad-hoc analysis and reporting tool.

But as the companies grew, the talent typically diversified and Mode was perceived to be  too technical and daunting. Many customers churned in favor of more familiar competitor tools such as Looker or Tableau. Our customer POCs struggled to justify the cost of Mode when many alternative tools offered lower licensing costs for “view only” seats. 

There were no existing resources that were tailored to, or delivered to, the customer’s business users. All of the existing education and enablement content was designed for analysts or data teams. 

If customers weren’t able to onboard their users successfully, they typically never adopted Mode. And when data teams built out all of their reporting in Mode only to encounter backlash from their stakeholders, it was hard to change the narrative. 

Along with coordinated Customer Success initiatives, Mode sought to address these problems through a Customer Education and Enablement function. That’s when I stepped in. 

Specific challenges and objectives

I sought to address the following challenges and objectives through our Customer Education & Enablement program. 

Challenges: 

• Customer Education and Enablement team was a brand new team of 1 (just me!), with minimal existing cross-functional buy-in or support

• Customer Success team had very little reference for the organizational dynamics customers were facing, they spoke only with the POC, who tended to focus on the technical capabilities of Mode rather than facilitating a successful organizational roll-out

• Mode had an expensive and overworked Support team because all questions routed through them, we had no searchable or well-indexed help site or forum and the university was nascent 

• Customer stakeholders didn’t like Mode or think it was “for them” because it seemed too technical, Mode had no strategy or tactics in place to communicate with these users

• The post-pandemic recession took root not long into my tenure at Mode. The economic climate affected a large portion of our customer base leading to mass layoffs, higher churn and changing business priorities. 

• Mode was acquired in June 2023, which led to an extended period of confusion, delay and shifting priorities. 

Objectives:

• Initial increase Mode University’s weekly engagement rate from 0.03% to 0.1% in first 6 months

• Reduce Support tickets generated by both internal and external users

• Increase product adoption by business/end users 

How we got to 920% increase in university engagement rate over 2 years of continuous improvement

To tackle the need for a scaled, digital education and enablement motion, Mode hired me. I got to work on the following steps, of which I iterated and improved upon over a 24-month period to achieve a 920% increase in weekly engaged users in Mode University. 

• Step 1: Discovery and Research (internal and external)

• Step 2: Content gap analysis 

• Step 3: Content development roadmap

• Step 4: University site redesign

• Step 5: Awareness campaign

• Step 6: Internal enablement and distribution channels 

• Step 7: Integration with enterprise onboarding 

These strategic actions were planned and executed to directly address the problem of low adoption by ensuring the content developed would suit the needs of our target users. I also ensured the content was designed in a highly distributable manner so that leveraging content didn’t depend on people first logging into the University, but rather they could find it through a number of entry points. 

Results

As a result of these strategic interventions, Mode saw remarkable improvements to the number of users who engaged with Mode’s education and enablement offerings. 

• Over 24 months, the weekly engagement rate of users leveraging Mode University rose by 920%, meaning over 3% of Mode’s active user base was accessing content in Mode University on a weekly basis, and a total of 61% of users have enrolled in at least one course.
  

• Customers who participated in our onboarding programs saw much higher product adoption rates and successful product utilization, such as creating 80% discoverable Datasets compared to the average of 41% across the customer base. 

• Mode’s support tickets reduced significantly, and our bite-sized videos became assets that were available to serve via both agent-saved responses and AI bot chat answers.

• Our course completion rate was 71% (11% higher than the industry average of 60%). 

• 86% of users who completed Mode University course surveys rated them as “Very Useful” or “Useful”.
  

• We developed cross-functional partnerships and processes that allowed for scaled, digital enablement to become key in our GTM motion, ensuring educational resources were available at time of feature release, and distributed in thoughtful ways in-app. 

• We integrated education into the product development cycle via beta tester enablement. In one tier 1 launch for AI assisted query generation, we required beta testers to watch the enablement content before activating. We have seen a long-tail impact with 150% more usage from our enabled beta testers compared to the next highest volume user. 
   

• We identified onboarding enablement opportunities including an offering for prospects in trial that accounted for 11% of our university course enrollments.

These results exceeded Mode’s expectations and set a new standard for our digital Customer Success motion.

Want to see results like this?

Are you looking for a scalable, digital strategy to educate and enable your customers? Do you want to operationalize how content is created and dispersed for the greatest impact? 

I offer a free consultation to help you gain clarity around your main challenges and how to solve them. 

We can help turn your biggest challenges into results that have long-term business impact. 

Let’s connect! Schedule your free consultation here.