Why building a winning product experience matter?
Why building a winning product experience matter?
What your customer will remember is how they felt while using the product than how unique/different it was.
Hey everyoneđ, welcome to the 41th newsletter post.
âIf you really want to stand apart, give your customers the greatest experience and satisfaction.â
I usually do shopping from an app where Iâm a premium member and I get benefits like free delivery on all the orders, the first one to get access to hot sales, throughout-the-year discounts, best customer service, birthday month special offers & much more. Each time I buy anything from there feels like Iâm âwinning in lifeâ.
That experience left such a long-lasting positive impression on me just by getting things faster and cheaper, even for a brief moment.
âAs a brand and a product, making your customers feel like theyâre winning in life does a few things. When people feel that way, they want to brag about it.â
Thatâs what I did. I told everyone how amazing it was and they should join it too.
Isnât it the best feeling when all you do is provide the world-class best experience for your users and they do marketing for you - organic, enthusiastic endorsements?
But most of the founders I worked with consider it not as important. In fact, going back to the time I was building the first prototype of WorkMap, I only cared about sharing it with everyone as soon as possible.
Though, my main intention was to get the idea of whether I was building it right & if it was something my audience needed because when I did the customer interview things were different and adding my assumptions lead to a completely different product. So the only way to try it out was building a prototype and testing the water.
The outcome was lower than expected because some customers didnât even reach the end step, they donât want to spend a lot of time setting up, and they wanted quick access. For me, I wanted to get as many insights by asking them questions about the problem and the product.
But they didnât even want to go through the âget accessâ step and fill out the form, they didnât want to wait in line to get approval. And thatâs legit accepted. All these things limit my growth and reach at the initial stage.
So, quickly discussing it with some initial users, I focused on two things:
Not adding any more features, just polishing the core one.
Reduce the time it takes them to set up or get to know the product, but also mapping the user journey. I want them to at least try before leaving.
Every product, for survival, depends on delivering personalised in-product experiences. So, here are some things you can try.
Learn what frustrates the users most
For us our product means everything but that's little to zero what it means to our customers. Thatâs why itâs said, âKeep the customers firstâ. And building a great product experience means you need to be customer-centric. Itâs like knowing what goes inside their life and designing the product that fits their lifestyle. Because they probably wonât have time for you.
So, know what could frustrate a user, it can be emailing the team to cancel the subscription or delete the account, having to wait for a customer service response, not being able to see the exact price, etc.
You can know more by collecting soliciting customer feedback by engaging with them or interviewing them. Instead of looking just at the transaction part of the user journey try to go beyond and document the complete journey till satisfaction.
While working with a startup, which I only joined because I was personally looking for that kind of product & I would love to build it in great form, we spend around 40% of the budget on improving the product through customer experience. Because when I was asked to try out the product it took me 15 mins to set up. I felt frustrated. It made me think how many people might have drop out even before they try the product.
So, if youâre building something try to keep product experience as the best customer acquisition and retention strategy, this will increase their satisfaction and grow your business fast + it enables competitive advantage.
Turn your GTM from product to customers
The subscription industry has changed the customer acquisition model which allows the buyer to experience the product and provide us with relevant data which further helps personalize that experience.
With this approach you need to design the free trial process, freemium offer, onboarding, convert them to customers and ultimately decide whether a freemium or free trial is the best option for your company or not.
Offer them freemium products or free trials to understand how they use the product, explore and navigate so that you can deliver a personalised in-product customer experience.
Now, building engagement with the content & repeatable process in the right way is the key. In fact, each and every department has to align with the customer-led go-to-market strategy. Create content, and design the product, all in a way to fulfil customer requirements and give them ultimate satisfaction.
Itâs all about what happens in the product
Itâs good to always think about how to get more users but what about the existing ones?
Most of the time why I enjoy working as a product advisor is to work with teams with the primary focus on customer lifecycle framework rather than product lifecycle or any marketing funnel. We use in-product behaviour to deliver the relevant experience to each customer which helps us build a customer base, acquire, retain and grow over time. That being said companies should carefully design the journey towards satisfaction that too within the shortest time.
Lastly, donât let your customers figure out how to use the product efficiently, show them upfront how the product can save time, money and get the results they want.
Amplify the sense of winning across your user experience. With a busy mind, itâs hard for users to themselves feel or understand the emotions or it may take some time for them to be deliberately aware of it. This time you can send them a timely notification with something like a winning streak, congratulating them or a fist bump emoji đ.
Also readđ:
How founders take leverage of cold emails to get early customers, investors and press?
Why the Next Wave of Startups Will Be Community-Led?
How you can fight against the algorithm to win online content?
Rather than building your startup on trends, build it with a system that never dies.
đ PS: Iâm Ritika founder, product marketer and advisor for early-stage startups, find more here or connect with her here. If youâre a first-time founder looking for curated resources, download here. If you enjoyed this post, read the past issues here. You can also promote your product in this newsletter.
Thank you for being a consistent reader of this newsletter, it wouldnât have reached here without your support. đ¤