How Jamf uses Pendo to increase the implementation success rate of a core feature

Jamf’s purpose is to simplify work by helping organizations manage and secure an Apple experience that end users love and organizations trust. Jamf is the only MDM (mobile device management) company in the world that provides a complete management and security solution for an Apple-first environment that is enterprise secure, consumer simple, and protects personal privacy. Their customers include IBM, SAP, and many other leading global organizations. 

When it comes to a MDM solution like Jamf, correct implementation is vital to long-term success. And in particular, enabling push certificates is an early step that can’t be skipped. 

Brandon Noskoviak (Senior In-App Content Engagement Manager at Jamf) explained, “If there’s one feature at Jamf that is a hundred percent critical, it’s that one . . . If new customers don’t [enable their push certificate], they can’t use the rest of our product.” With Pendo, Noskoviak and his team can strive for a 100% implementation success rate by delivering the contextual onboarding and guidance users need at this pivotal stage. “As more SaaS offerings are [becoming] product-led, it’s important that we meet [our customers] in the product and not be so email driven,” he said.

Using product data to continuously iterate on customer engagement

Over the past few years, Noskoviak has taken an iterative approach to improving the hundreds of in-app guides he manages (including those related to push certificates). And he’s done it by collaborating with a lot of other teams across the business, including UX and UI designers, developers, and more.

Throughout this iterative process, Noskoviak has leveraged Pendo Analytics to fine-tune the activation, segmentation, location, and timing of the guides he owns across 13+ Jamf applications. The granular feature and product usage data Pendo Analytics provides is critical for his team—and is what allows them to track adoption of key features. “It’s an easy way to [get] a 10,000-foot overview comparing our segments of individuals, verticals, and the geos they’re in,” said Noskoviak.

Noskoviak also explained that the ability to measure guide performance in Pendo has been important for his team, as they continue to refine and optimize their enablement programs. “We’re having conversations with our customers and looking at the guide metrics. [Knowing] how often people are seeing [the guides], how quickly they dismiss them—[all of that data] is super valuable,” he said. “We’re always fine-tuning to try and increase the visibility of [our guides] at an appropriate time in each person’s journey.”

“We’ve learned from our product data that even though our product may have hundreds—and sometimes thousands—of features, it’s really about 10 to 15 of those that really keeps a customer engaged and successful.”

Brandon Noskoviak | Sr. In-App Content Engagement Manager, Jamf

Keeping customers informed, on time and at scale

Delivering in-app enablement using Pendo In-app Guides isn’t just a nice-to-have for Noskoviak and his team. This contextual guidance is critical for ensuring compliance and allowing the team to operate efficiently, at scale. “Pendo is critical [because] it offers no-code to low-code solutions that allow us to quickly implement customer-facing engagement,” said Noskoviak. “That’s really tricky for a dev team to do iteratively and continuously, unless you have a dedicated team for in-app engagement.” 

Thanks to Pendo, Noskoviak is able to manage Jamf’s in-app engagement programs himself, across over a dozen applications. Particularly because Jamf needs to stay in lockstep with software updates from Apple, the ability to build and launch just-in-time notifications easily is critical. With Pendo, Jamf’s engineers can stay focused on readying the product for Apple’s continuous updates and optimizations, while Noskoviak takes on the work of keeping customers informed about those changes. “Our dev teams need to focus on same-day fixes, product issues, new features, etc.,” Noskoviak explained. “They shouldn’t have to worry about the little things in the app [like] pop-ups or ‘guardian angel’ moments. [With Pendo], I can do that for them.”

“I like making people happy. I like making people leave and go, ‘that was a great interaction.’ [With Pendo] I can do that so quickly, and for so many people.”

Brandon Noskoviak | Sr. In-App Content Engagement Manager, Jamf

Noskoviak is also using the Resource Center in Pendo to help Jamf’s users stay current on updates from Apple or changes to the Jamf platform. He also uses the Resource Center to link users out to the Jamf learning hub, documentation portal, and community portal; and leverages pop-up guides and tooltips to inform users about new or deprecated features. “[The goal is] to catch them in the moment when they’re completing the actions required to be successful,” he said.

Noskoviak shared that the flexibility and ease of use of Pendo is a major win. “I can build something far in advance and schedule it. Or I can build something the day-of in an emergency situation.” He also noted that coming from a customer-facing background, the massive scale that Pendo allows him to achieve in his customer outreach has been a game-changer. “I remember sending [tons of] one-off emails to customers. Now, I can do that en masse,” he said. “I can reach hundreds of thousands of people very quickly and reduce our technical support cases—and increase [our customers’] likelihood of success with the product.”

Tips for better in-app guides

As a Pendo power user, Noskoviak noted that the best advice he could give new Pendo users is to make their guides simple, concise, and actionable. He encourages teams to aim for “minimal steps, maximum information, in the most concise format you can possibly make.” He also suggests always double checking your guides’ location, segmentation, and activation before launch—as this is often an area where things break.

Noskoviak also cautioned against including too many steps in each guide you build. “We’re in the TikTok era now. You have about two to five seconds to capture [your users’ attention] and give them what they need,” he explained. Because you only have that short window of time to engage your users, he advises only surfacing content that’s important—and presenting it in a way that’s impactful and easily understandable.

And finally, Noskoviak shared that it’s very important to try not to interrupt your customers’ workflows with your in-app guides. “It’s a fun project trying to find the right time to display Pendo content,” he said. “We’ve all had that experience where we’re leveraging a new application online, and then the popup happens and it just infuriates you. Don’t be that person.”

Jamf recently procured Pendo through the Google Cloud Marketplace, giving them advantages such as:

• Faster procurement and fulfillment with governance and controls
• Consolidated vendor relationships and billings, plus improved onboarding time
• Financial incentives and possible draw down commitments

To learn more about procuring Pendo through Google Cloud Marketplace, click here or contact your Google or Pendo sales representative.

And if you want to learn how you can use Pendo to improve how you engage with customers in-app, request a custom demo with a Pendo expert today.