SaaS Walkthrough: Create Yours With 3 Examples

Most SaaS teams explain the same product workflows again and again: on sales calls, during onboarding, in feature announcements and in support replies. A SaaS walkthrough turns one of those workflows into a step-by-step guide that someone can explore on their own.

What a walkthrough needs to do depends on who's using it. A prospect may want to understand one feature before booking a call, while a new customer needs help getting set up. Existing customers might return later to learn a feature or solve a problem.

We'll look at where SaaS walkthroughs help and how to build one with HowdyGo, then examine examples from some of our customers: Flagsmith, Ansarada and ADInstruments.

The benefits of SaaS walkthroughs

Guided walkthrough software enables you to create SaaS walkthroughs that showcase the value of your product through an engaging, self-serve medium. They have a huge range of applications from before the first sales call to long after onboarding:

1. Let prospects learn about the the features relevant to them

TrueTalk is Telenor's (A large Danish telecom) business call-routing and switchboard system. It manages how incoming calls move through a company, using different interfaces for administrators, reception and service teams, and employees.

The TrueTalk demo center is Telenor's public learning page for those interfaces. It shows a HowdyGo collection containing 18 walkthroughs, with three general introductions and separate sections for colleagues, agents, and administrators. Visitors start with their role and open the capability they want to learn about instead of sitting through one giant walkthrough of the whole system.

Each card represents a walkthrough covering a specific task, allowing prospects to inspect the TrueTalk workflows that matter specifically to them before a sales call. Colleagues can see how to change their outgoing caller ID or manage queues and contacts. Agents can learn to transfer a queued call or trigger a CRM lookup, while administrators can go straight to IVR setup, holiday messages, statistics or wallboards.

2. Help new customers complete their first tasks

New customers don't need every feature explained on day one. Start with the task that gets them using the product, then make separate walkthroughs for the work that comes later.

Business Warrior builds lending software. Its PayPlan product lets stores run customer financing themselves rather than referring each deal to an outside lender.

Business Warrior onboards about 25 stores a month, and every new customer gets a self-serve training hub with separate PayPlan walkthroughs. Store staff use it to learn how to start lending. For the account management team, it means less time configuring and testing a separate training environment before calls.

The hub stays available after scheduled onboarding. Store staff can return to the relevant task as needed instead of relying on notes or asking the team to run through it again.

3. Provide a reusable answer for recurring support questions

Put a walkthrough beside the help-center article that answers a recurring question. Let the article hold the explanation and troubleshooting notes. Use the walkthrough for the clicks customers would otherwise ask a support rep to demonstrate; problems tied to their account, data, or configuration still need the team.

Zendesk's research into self-service found that 91% of customers said they would use a company's knowledge base if it met their needs. "If it met their needs" is the important part. A library only helps when its answer matches the task someone is trying to complete.

Product tour software gives support teams a fast, reusable way to show those repeated steps.

4. Introduce a feature with a clear call to action

BOGIO used the walkthrough below to introduce its Klaviyo integration. A release note about Klaviyo support is easy to skim past because it doesn't show what changes in the customer's workflow. The walkthrough shows the integration in the context of a familiar job: a marketer sending an SMS campaign to an audience they already have.

Like BOGIO, you should consider interactive walkthroughs for release posts and landing pages where a feature is complex enough that it needs to be seen in action to be understood. Then, with the right placement & call to action, you can really drive adoption, upsells, signups or even demo calls.

For example, Flagsmith placed demos on its website, on feature pages where prospects were already weighing up whether to start a trial or speak to sales. They found demo viewers were 1.7x more likely to sign up for a free trial, and recorded 580+ additional click-throughs to their book-a-demo page.

Komo went in-product instead. Its walkthroughs sat behind locked features, giving customers a chance to see the paid functionality before requesting access; upsell requests increased 30x over two months.

How to create a SaaS product walkthrough

A SaaS walkthrough starts with picking the moment in the customer lifecycle to target. You need to choose who needs help and what you want them to do next. Our guide to creating a great interactive product demo covers the recording and editing process in depth.

1. One job and one outcome

Choose the outcome you want viewers to achieve before you record.

You might want a prospect to start a trial or book a demo. For a new customer alternatively you might need them to finish setup; and for an existing customer you might want them to simply learn about a feature.

If the next action isn't clear, narrow down the scope of the walkthrough.

2. Record the shortest route

Install the HowdyGo Chrome Extension and press "Start Recording." Click through the task once; each click becomes a step. Press "Stop Recording" to open the capture in the editor. You don't need to code. HowdyGo saves each product state as you clicked through it as editable HTML.

Start recording where the relevant task begins and stop once the result is visible. Don't bother recording unnecessary steps such as logins that don't actually add to the story.

3. Edit for the viewer

You should now think about your capture as a starting point. Cut extra clicks and detours that don't add to the story, reorder any screens as needed, and insert anything you missed.

Next, because the capture is HTML, you can also rewrite text, swap images, or remove sensitive data from the captured screens without recording again. So you effectively get an extra layer of control where you can effectively ensure that the contents/data in each screen in the demo tell the best possible story for your product.

Then, with the flow cleaned up, add the context the interface cannot provide on its own. You can add text tooltips and voiceovers to explain the parts of the screen that are important and how they are relevant to the viewer. Try not to focus too much on stating the obvious, like "click here to do x". Focus on telling the viewer about the value of the product. Use chapters if the task has distinct stages, and animated playback where movement helps explain the result.

Finally, preview the walkthrough as if you were completing the task for the first time. If a step doesn't help you reach the result, cut it. The final screen should set up the CTA you chose at the start.

The walkthrough below shows the full process.

4. Place the walkthrough where it belongs

Embed or share the walkthrough so the viewer sees them at the right point in time.

Evaluation walkthroughs belong on feature pages or in demo centers. Onboarding should sit beside the setup task, feature education near the feature itself, and support in the help article or reply.

Then, make sure the call to action in the demo fits the job: start a trial, continue setup, request access, return to the product, or book a demo.

5. Measure and iterate

Return to the outcome you chose at the start. On HowdyGo, demo analytics show viewer progress and drop-off. If people reach the page but don't open the walkthrough, test a clearer heading or move it higher. A sharp drop on one step gives you something specific to cut or rewrite.

Integrations can also send leads and viewing data to HubSpot and Salesforce, or pass analytics events to Google Analytics and Segment. That can help you connect walkthrough engagement to lead scoring and campaign reporting.

Top 3 SaaS walkthrough examples to inspire you

Flagsmith, Ansarada, and ADInstruments are HowdyGo customers that use SaaS walkthroughs for different parts of the customer journey.

Flagsmith

Flagsmith is an all-in-one feature flag tool for developers. Its walkthrough gives prospects a practical look at the product before they set anything up.

The demo sits on the Flagsmith website, where visitors can see the product in action. The team wanted prospects to understand how the platform worked without having to configure an environment first.

The demo focuses on three main features:

1. Feature flags
2. Schedule deployments
3. Audit logs

The walkthrough is easy to follow because:

• It covers the three features in just five clicks.
• It uses annotations to guide prospects and explain important parts of the interface.
• It uses chapters to split the walkthrough into sections, so viewers can move from one part to the next.

Flagsmith also reported:

• Organic mentions of the product.
• Contact form submissions that mentioned the demo.
• Support from executive team members.

Demo viewers were also 1.7x more likely to sign up for a free trial, according to Flagsmith.

Ansarada

Ansarada offers an information governance platform for enterprises. It uses HowdyGo walkthroughs to explain specific product workflows. Visitors can access them on the corresponding product pages, so the example they see matches the feature they are researching.

One resource-center walkthrough follows collaborative work in Office 365. Across 12 steps, it shows prospects how to open, edit, collaborate on, save, and view the history of Microsoft Office files inside a virtual data room.

The walkthrough is built around one document task:

• Ansarada explains a complex workflow one action at a time.
• The demo keeps all 12 steps in one flow rather than dividing them into chapters.
• The story follows people collaborating on documents with their team members.

ADInstruments

ADInstruments offers an online learning platform for science, chemistry, medicine and nursing. Schools can use it to engage students outside the classroom, while students can continue learning on their own.

ADInstruments placed the demo on the product page for Lt, its online learning platform. It appears after a breakdown of the available lessons.

The walkthrough starts on the Lt homepage, then moves through the content library, a lesson, and the lesson editor.

The demo combines chapters, annotations and a final CTA:

• Viewers can jump between three chapters. Welcome to Lt has four steps, Inside a Lesson has eight, and Editing Your Lessons has four.
• Annotations draw attention to specific features and provide more context.
• The final CTA invites prospects to start a free trial or view the next demo.

The product tour examples gallery has a larger collection across more SaaS use cases.

Conclusion

A useful SaaS walkthrough focuses on a specific viewer and product task, with a clear next action. That focus can improve the buying experience, support conversion and reduce the repetitive explanations handled by sales and support teams.

With HowdyGo, you can record a product flow and use the built-in editor to add steps, edit the captured UI and organize the walkthrough into chapters.

HowdyGo plans include unlimited HTML demos and users, so teammates across the company can contribute to recording and editing walkthroughs.

Get started for free!

FAQs

What is the difference between a product tour and a walkthrough?

A product tour provides an overview of a product and its main features. It usually showcases the key aspects of that product without providing too many details. A walkthrough tends to go more into depth, serving as an interactive step by step guide for users. You can use either of them to target prospects or streamline your onboarding process for different users.

Which is the best product walkthrough software?

The best product walkthrough software fits your business needs. Many tools are available on the market, catering to different use cases and requirements. Some are targeted at user onboarding, while others are built for educating prospects. If you’re looking to create pixel-perfect interactive demos to embed in your marketing materials, choose HowdyGo.

How to give a SaaS walkthrough?

You can give a SaaS walkthrough using a digital adoption platform or demo recording software like HowdyGo. It offers a browser extension that captures every step you make within your product. After that, you can edit the interactive walkthrough to add annotations, delete steps or include chapters for easier navigation.