A poor product experience can kill a product or company very quickly; that is why you need to manage this aspect of customer-company relationships from the very beginning. Managing the product experience gives you the means for directing and overseeing how the client or customer perceives your product.
It may seem obvious that you should care how your product is perceived; but some large corporations may feel like they can spare a few unhappy customers here and there. Not all companies can follow this train of thought because they can’t afford to lose any customers. Regardless of this, customer-centric businesses are often more successful.
What is Product Experience?
When you first hear of product experience, you may think it only comes into play for product-focused businesses. However, product experience is all about the customer. It tells how users interact with your product from start to finish. Think of it as their journey with your product. This is different from customer experience, which refers to how customers interact with your entire brand and its connection to your organization.
Product experience is typically measured through product usage analytics or customer feedback and surveys. Key metrics of the product experience include but are not limited to:
- Satisfaction
- Adoption
- Renewals
- Expansion
- Abandonment
- Session Duration
- Clicks
- Feature Uses
Product Experience Management
Whether your products are creative, workspace technology, cloud software, or other digital technology, it is important to realize that the customer is a human being. They have emotions, beliefs, and expectations that affect their experience with your products. When it comes to software, you want your users to understand it and fully buy into it, so they become loyal customers. These examples indicate why you should manage their product experience and try to make it as pleasant as possible.
The most effective way of overseeing the product experience is with the use of product experience software. Such tools aid in not only managing users but also in tracking their product usage. Using PX software, you can find data on each metric listed above and have it displayed in easy-to-understand charts.
The platforms include tools for:
- Understanding the behavior of users
- Collecting user feedback
- Driving product adoption
- Product analytics
- Onboarding users
How Product Experience Can Impact Your Company
Product experiences can make or break user-product adoption. Positive experiences can bring customers coming back for more while negative interactions can stop a user dead in their tracks. This is only one of many reasons user product experience should matter to a company.
A positive product experience can open many doors for both you and your users. For them, they get a helpful tool that they can trust, and a relationship with a brand they know has their back. For you, you get loyal users who will refer friends, leave positive reviews, and knowledge on what’s working with your product.
Just understanding how your users interact with your product can positively impact your business as well. When you look at how a customer uses your product, you see which features are:
- rarely used,
- often deserted because users are confused,
- need simplifying, and more.
With this data, there are unlimited areas of opportunity and improvements.
Some PX software programs offer customer survey features. These questionnaires can help you understand users’ thoughts, wishes, and feelings. Emotion plays a role in the selling of any product, including software and digital products. If you build an empathic product experience, specifically within the onboarding phase, that draws users in on an ethical, emotional string, you’ll have the potential user hooked.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, a negative product experience can lead to a loss of users, which can result in loss of revenue. Since you want to avoid this, it’s a good idea to invest in the tools that can help you create the best product experience possible.
A Final Thought
It’s no longer enough to only offer a good quality product—people want to connect with brands they trust. Consumers are buying experiences, which is why product experiences can determine your company’s success.
With the right tools, you can create and manage an exciting product experience that your users actually want to partake in. Being able to measure, track, and evaluate the experience of your product leads to more satisfied customers.
