Do you know how many features of your product/service your customers actually want and use?
If you want to hide the treasure, put it in plain sight. Then no one will see it… Larry Dossey.
You all know I am “folically” challenged 😊 I don’t have many days where I don’t use my trusty Gillette Fusion razor. About 4 years ago, I treated myself and replaced the standard, no-frills shaving wand in what I thought was a like-for-like swap (see above photo).
About 3 weeks ago, I found that the old trusty razor was in fact NOT the same as my previous version. In fact, I had just stumbled across the fact that it had a button that switches on a vibrating feature. Miraculously the batteries stilled worked, and I used this function to give me one of the closest smooth shaves I have ever had! Remarkable!! Why didn’t I notice this 4 years ago???
My newfound shaving sensation did get me thinking about my clients and their customer offerings...
Knowing how much time, effort, and money you all put into developing market-leading products and services, it raised a few questions I would like you and your team to consider.
How familiar are your customers (and prospects) with the features your product/service has been developed to provide?
How many of these features (that you pump a lot of money into creating), are perceived as true BENEFITS by your customers? Note: Features are nice, but BENEFITS is what people ultimately pay money for!
When was the last time that you validated the effectiveness of your product and service and any recently launched features?
When developing your product/service improvements, to what extent do your customers REALLY value these improvements AND how willing are they to PAY for them?
Once you’ve developed and rolled-out your product/service developments, how aware are your clients of them, and how can they use them to unlock BENEFITS that will help you retain their business and lock them in for extended patronage and/or repeat purchases? Many of you are doing this. A couple of examples include: 1) one of my ed-tech clients that are focused on driving greater usage of the product that traditionally correlates with greater learning outcomes subsequently repeat transactions, AND 2) a software business that has a strategic focus on enabling clients to use more modules of its software package and as they do this earn more from each client…
It would be disappointing for you and your teams to spend so much time, money, and effort on launching a new product or feature, and for it to go sight unseen.
Finally, how are you ensuring that your product/service development efforts are translating into ecstatic customers and raving referral sources?
Please share with your team and discuss.
Grow well.