This continues the series, 9 characteristics of great customer experiences and the post series, The Customer Feels Secure and Confident During the Journey - Part 1 and Part 2, which covered the pre-purchase step. Part 3 addresses the Purchase Decision.
This piece covers aspects of the customer's experience with the product.
Owning the product and the Product Experience: Customer uses the product / Company ensures a great experience
Once the customer buys and gets his product, what does he expect?
- Doesn’t want to read the directions
- Familiar and logical transition to setup and use the product within minutes
- Experience immediate results. Able to track and experience long-term results - even better
The customer expects this part of the process to be simple and straightforward. He doesn’t expect any difficulties or surprises - except what you outlined for him in the previous step. He wants to start using the product and see results.
If the product doesn’t meet those expectations, then relationship challenges with the customer may occur.
What are companies doing at this phase?
The goal of this step of the process:
- You have already created a great product that a customer would like to use
- You have provided training and support content for the customer to use the product (The irony: customers don’t want it. We create support content to make up for the product challenges. Time would be better spend creating a better, more familiar product.)
The activities:
- Create a product that people want and like to use
- Develop documentation, FAQs, getting started content, training in case people need it
How do you help your customers feel comfortable here?
A comfortable customer uses your product regularly and doesn’t give up trying to get it to do what he wants it to do. He doesn’t just include it in his life - he integrates it in his life, like a new habit. He doesn’t return it. He doesn’t demand his money back. He uses it.
Yes, it really is that simple.
If a product doesn’t work for a customer for any reason, he will stop using it. This includes usability problems, general confusion about installation and getting started, breakage, difficult assembly, and the list continues. This is where users exit the product cycle. And once they exit, they rarely, if ever, come back.
Keep in mind that usability is really about familiarity - not intuitiveness. Users more easily accept familiar metaphors and concepts. We live in a social construct and our thoughts are defined by culture. For example, learning how to use a light switch is something we learn at birth by watching our parents turn a light on and off. Same with a steering wheel - we watch people use it throughout our life and figure out how it works.
It’s not intuitive - it is familiar. Lesson here: make familiar products.
However, a great innovation won’t be familiar. It may be usable. It may define a new way to do something. But people won’t always understand or “get it” right away. The iPad was a great innovation that wasn’t familiar. Frankly, it wasn’t overly usable either. We had to learn how to use them. Is that optimal? Not really. Sometimes that is the only way to leap frog innovation and breakthrough to new ideas.
(I think usability testing could have helped but that’s just me.)
What we often forget is that usability should be considered in product setup and maintenance as well as product usage. Usability should be considered throughout the lifecycle - and beyond.
Life changes and habits
Using a product is a life change, which implies that it requires a habit change. Habits take minimally 21 days to adopt according to legend and lore. It actually takes about 66 days or something like that.
For someone to make a product a habit:
- The product needs to be useful
- The user needs to understand the benefit of using it - to the point that he will find a way to use it at any cost to get that benefit
- It needs to be available and easy to use
Add making the product addictive and you have a life change.
On a separate note, I don’t understand how there are non-usable products today. There are so many methodologies to understand how users use products. Between metric products that track user behavior, site analytics, usability testing (online and offline methods), design research, and more - to create something that IS NOT usable takes work and an ego that is strong enough not to value customer feedback.
And customers are so key because they are the people who pay you. They are the originators of the profits.
How to create familiar products that users like?
Here’s a quick list of activities to consider including in your process:
- Have a clear roadmap and share it. In software, we are trained to not share the roadmap with customers in case we can’t deliver it as scheduled. However, customers sometimes need to understand what’s happening with a product. If you can let them in on what's happening directly, share some approximate knowledge if you can. Or even share when you think bugs will be fixed or Beta versions released (even a general timeframe that changes).
- Create a usable product using:
- Usability testing. I don’t understand how companies don’t test. It’s so easy to do these days. When companies want to create products that meet more of the business's criteria than their customers, I have to wonder if they like to be paid. Customers are really the boss - without customers, who will pay you? The venture capitalist? Customers hold the key to success. And usability testing allows a company to achieve that.
- Leverage metrics and data in a nonjudgmental way. If you don’t want to test, you can get insights about your customers based on how they interact with your app and Web site. Metrics tell you what customers do, where they send their time, how they interact with the site. The insights are there; the learnings are there. The challenge is that you need to view the metrics and analytics through an unbiased eye. You are looking at metrics to learn about your users and what they want; you aren’t looking at them to prove your point.
- Do users like to use your product? Or do they exit quickly? Again, look at these metrics without bias. This will tell you everything you need to know. Where do they exit? What's on that page? Why would that page cause people to leave? Consider this looking at your product through their eyes. That may help you imagine what may be causing the problem.
- Encourage customers to create their own experience in your product: allow them to recommend features and functionality. Who gives the best product recommendations? Users. They know what they want to be able to do with your product. Give them a voice. Let them vote on the suggestion from others. In a way, this makes them part of the product development team. And it gets them further bought into the product. (This may sound contrary to some of my posts about customers not being familiar with defining requirements because they don't do this for a living. However, customers can tell you what they would like to see and use for an existing product, to enhance it further. That's the gold!)
- Forget documentation. It doesn't work because people don't like to read it. We often like to "fix" or repair an unusable product by offering training, instructions, and directions. That isn’t a solution - that is a band aid. Maybe that’s too generous - spit and paper tape. Consider your own experience: do you read instructions? I don’t think anyone does. Same with watching instructional videos. I think those are last resorts for features and functions that don’t make sense. Spend your time fixing usability problems. It will save money later for support calls and documentation.
What do people expect and demand today:
- People today want and expect immediate product use with minimal setup. They don’t want to spend time setting things up. Setup should happen while using a product. People don't read. They don’t want to troubleshoot. We can thank Google, Amazon and Facebook for this.
- When you get furniture from Ikea, do you pull out all the pieces and start putting it together, glancing at the directions as needed? Or do you read all the directions before you get started? I bet you do option 1.
- Provide a feedback area for customers to recommend new features or indicate problems with the app/site. Keep in mind many users use these tools when they are frustrated. Prepare yourself for many criticisms. But give customers a way to easily communicate about their experience. Often, that alone will save a customer relationship because the customer feels heard. They feel that you care because you are providing an easy way to listen to their problems.
- When support is needed, allow a customer multiple ways to contact you for support. Phone, email, chat. It has to be easy. Let them reach you as they like. And don’t force them to use FAQs. If a customer is frustrated and can't find the right FAQ or support item to solve their problem, let them call you. In fact, encourage it!
- Encourage self-service, but don't make it the only option. Again, customers like to solve their own problems, but at times, they need a little more than that. They need someone who knows something in the support or service team. Make sure that it is easy to reach a human in your company.
- Use support calls to provide insight into what’s broken and how to fix it. Support calls tell you everything you need to know about what's wrong with your product. If a user doesn't understand how to get a feature to work - even after reading online support materials - that means the item is broken. Very broken. And you need to fix it. This will save you money in your support budget and improve performance - and usage - of your product.
- When a customer is a proud owner of a product - be proactive, reach out, and see how you can help them. Find a way to contact your customer to see how he likes your product. Or doesn't like it. Or has a usability question. Or can't get started. Often, if a customer doesn't readily understand how to use something or it doesn't work easily for him, he'll leave it alone and stop using the product. Yes - they drop being a customer without a word. Give them a chance to ask their question by reaching out to them.
- Get your customers involved in your development process. Create an advisory board. Sure, you can encourage customers to submit feedback on your site or app. Or you can include them in the process by listing features they would like to see. Or you can invite them to be a member of a panel that provides product advice and feedback. Include power customers on your board. Or include new customers who have had the product for less than a year. Whatever your criteria, include these customers in usability testing and focus groups and get their one-on-one feedback on product ideas or other product issues. Include them in the process and you have sealed a strong relationship with these customers. You demonstrate that you care and listen about what they need. You are investing in their life being better. That goes far!
Part 5 will address Post-Purchase - support, payments, and other logistical goodies!
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