Digital Adoption Strategies: How to Reduce Churn and Drive Growth

You can invest in the best technology and still end up with it sitting unused. How many digital tools have you tried, only to abandon after the initial excitement faded?

The true value isn’t in your technology. It’s in whether or not people use it. That’s the heart of digital adoption strategy.

Global IT spend is expected to hit $6.08 trillion in 2026, according to Gartner. For SaaS companies, that puts even more pressure on making new technologies easy for customers to adopt.

Main Takeaways:

• Digital adoption is when customers confidently use new technology in their daily workflows.
• True digital adoption drives real value and reduces churn. This turns users into advocates.
• Encourage tech adoption with role-based training, outcome-oriented communication, and in-app guidance.
• Use adoption metrics like time-to-value to spot gaps and continuously improve.
• Refine your strategy with user feedback loops and cross-team collaboration.

What Is Digital Adoption?

True digital adoption is when customers confidently use your software to its fullest potential. They see its direct value, so they use it in their daily routines.

It’s what turns every software purchase into real business results, and includes:

• Mastering both basic and advanced features
• Consistently using the tool in daily work
• Achieving desired outcomes
• Innovating new applications for the solution

Digital Adoption vs. Digital Transformation

Digital transformation refers to a business-wide functional shift toward digital processes. For example, shifting from a brick-and-mortar store to selling online.

Digital adoption is the behavior change that makes the transformation successful. For instance, leveraging an ecommerce platform and inventory management software to make sales.

You can’t achieve digital transformation without focusing on users’ digital adoption.

Why Digital Adoption Matters

Good digital adoption plans:

• Reduce churn: Users who fully adopt technology are less likely to abandon it.
• Maximize ROI: Full adoption of your tech drives customer loyalty and lead generation.
• Improve productivity: Integrated tools streamline workflows, save time, and reduce manual effort.
• Create a positive feedback loop: Users who feel confident and satisfied are more likely to adopt future tech.

By contrast, poor tech adoption leads to:

• Wasted spend
• Workflow inefficiencies
• Higher support costs
• Increased churn risk

The Ivanti 2025 Digital Employee Experience Report shows 27% of office workers regularly use unauthorized apps out of frustration with employer-provided tools.

Foundational Pillars of Digital Adoption

Successful tech adoption rests on a few key pillars. These work together to drive long-term results.

• Culture: Encouraging continuous learning and digital fluency helps users embrace new tools.
• Skills and training: Effective learning and support build user confidence.
• Processes and workflows: Tech that enhances existing workflows is immediately useful.
• Technology and support: In-app guidance, analytics, and just-in-time help make learning easier.
• Governance and ownership: Clearly defined responsibilities align business units with goals and standards.

Signs Your Adoption Strategy Needs Work

You might need to improve your digital adoption strategies if you notice:

• Low feature utilization: Users ignore the advanced features that deliver the most value.
• Inconsistent usage: Some teams embrace the tool. Others use manual processes or workarounds.
• High support volume: Frequent and basic questions indicate user discomfort with the technology.
• Slow time-to-value: Significant delays in getting meaningful outcomes with your tech suggest issues.

These symptoms often lead to serious consequences, like:

• Wasted technology investment: You pay to develop features no one uses.
• Operational inefficiency: Customers rely on manual workarounds. This decreases your tool’s perceived value.
• Customer dissatisfaction: Friction and frustration harm your reputation and can decrease revenue.
• Higher support costs: Redundant questions flood your help desk, adding to employee churn.

9 Proven Digital Adoption Strategies

Studies show that users adopt technology when it looks useful and easy to use. But encouraging users to adopt new technology is more than just listing what it can do.

Here are nine ways to move users from tool awareness to consistent adoption:

1. Build Prowess Through Role-Based Training

Effective adoption starts with training tailored to specific user roles. Generic approaches typically fail because they can’t highlight direct value. Users need to see how your platform solves their specific problems.

Create learning paths that match real workflows for each user type. Start with the basic functionality, and then gradually build confidence with:

• Microlearning modules
• Video tutorials
• Hands-on practice

Successful training focuses on outcomes. Don’t just list capabilities. Show users how the tool helps them achieve specific goals.

2. Embed Tools Into Daily Workflows

Technology adoption increases when your tool is the easiest way to do everyday tasks. Make sure your software features fit into the tasks teams do every day.

Remove unnecessary steps and streamline workflows to eliminate friction. When your tools create a path of least resistance, users naturally gravitate to them.

Consider integration points with other systems. Disconnected tools create adoption barriers.

3. Use Change Management Principles

Successful digital adoption requires thoughtful change management. Reduce potential disruption and pushback by:

• Communicating regularly and with empathy
• Addressing concerns with patience and respect
• Rewarding early adopters and supporters
• Expressing genuine excitement about the benefits of adopting new technology

People are quicker to adopt what they help create. Involve key stakeholders in the process. And encourage your clients to boost product adoption with:

• Executive sponsorship: Visible leadership support signals importance.
• Change champions: Peer advocates help drive adoption from within.
• Early wins: Celebrate initial successes to build positive momentum.
• Clear communication: Regular updates maintain progress and build trust.

4. Measure User Adoption

Track metrics that reveal adoption, not just basic usage. These include:

• Feature adoption rate: The percentage of users who engage with core features
• Breadth of adoption: The number of features utilized per user or team
• Workflow completion: The number of users who complete key processes
• Time-to-first-value: How quickly users get the outcome they expect

Also track feature retention to prove full digital tech adoption.

5. Continuously Improve Based on Feedback

Gather user input through surveys, interviews, and in-product feedback. Then, use it to refine training, adjust workflows, and prioritize feature enhancements.

The most successful plans evolve based on real user experiences. Feedback helps you quickly spot and fix pain points. Addressing issues encourages frustrated users to give your software another try.

6. Encourage Digital Fluency Through Community

Employ communities where users can share tips, ask questions, and solve problems together. This helps people get interested in learning digital skills. It also increases excitement and curiosity about your features.

Peer-to-peer learning drives adoption more effectively than formal training alone. Recognize and reward power users who help others adopt new tools.

7. Prioritize Functionality Over Features

Focus communications on the features that solve clients’ most pressing problems.

Organize messaging, training, and user guides thoughtfully:

• Begin with must-have functionality and essential features.
• Then slowly expand to advanced features.
• Show features only as users need them.
• Emphasize results, especially when features and elements work together.

This approach keeps users from being overwhelmed.

8. Deploy In-App Guidance and Support

In-app support assists users when and where they need it. Tooltips, walkthroughs, and embedded tutorials reduce friction and strengthen user skills. This directly improves adoption.

Users get to learn the tool while using it for their daily tasks. This puts it in a personal context, which both builds confidence and encourages regular use.

Personalizing guidance based on user role, experience level, and actions encourages users to adopt the software faster.

9. Support Cross-Team Collaboration

Break silos between IT, business, and support teams for a unified adoption strategy.

Each department brings a valuable perspective to the adoption process:

• IT: Technical expertise and integration knowledge
• Business units: Workflow insights and outcome requirements
• Support: Common pain points and user challenges
• Training: Learning design and enablement best practices

When these teams align, adoption initiatives are more likely to succeed.

Digital Adoption Use Cases

Real-world examples show how digital adoption strategies can transform product engagement and customer outcomes:

• Harri: By connecting product usage directly to CS metrics, Harri was able to clearly demonstrate ROI and time-to-value for customers. This visibility led to higher user engagement and more consistent, effective use of key features.
• Front: After introducing peer-to-peer learning, Front saw a 20% increase in product adoption. Community-driven knowledge sharing boosted self-service, reduced friction, and freed the internal team to focus on innovation instead of repetitive support.
• Sendcloud: With a centralized system to track customer interactions, Sendcloud gained clearer visibility into user behavior. Connecting these insights to business outcomes helped the team build a stronger, data-driven adoption strategy.

Turn Adoption Into Growth With Gainsight

Effective digital adoption bridges software purchase and realized value. The right approach reduces churn, accelerates time-to-value, and drives durable growth.

Gainsight helps companies deliver exceptional digital experiences that drive user adoption.

Our customer operating system creates one place to see all the user data you need to ensure success. Because what you can’t see is killing your bottom line. Get insights into:

• Health
• Engagement
• Adoption
• Sentiment

Ready to transform your approach to digital adoption? Schedule a demo to see how Gainsight can help you turn customer success into sustained value.