Improving Ownership Experience
News
Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with your product. Sometimes there’s everything wrong with your customer’s experience with your product. It’s baffling when a customer is ecstatic at the time of purchase, only to rush back days later demanding a refund. You could quickly assume there’s something wrong with your product (which might be true). But chances are, if you’re as good as I think you are, there’s nothing wrong with the product. They’ve just had a bad experience with it.
How do you improve ownership experience?
If you type in “ownership experience,” you’ll get pages of results for car or plane manufacturers showing off the great experiences of their product’s owners like the Tesla Model S or TBM by Daher. If you type in “user experience” into your search engine of choice, you’ll get a bunch of articles and websites in the app development world. It’s as if these phrases are trademarked to these industries by default. But what if you’re not in the business of making cars or apps? How do you engineer the perfect ownership experience for your product? And, frankly, why should you care? You’ve already made the sale, and most of your customers aren’t returning their products. So, why try to figure out what your customers feel about and do with your product once it’s sold?
Here’s why: If the product owner is delighted with the ongoing experience of your product, they’ll buy more from you, and they’ll talk about you to their friends.
More sales. More word-of-mouth marketing. Definitely worth learning how to engineer your customer’s experience with the product. Of course, this is easier said than done. It’s hard enough to spark a positive reaction from a customer the first time they use your product. But you’ll have to work even harder to “wow” them every time they interact with it. It’s comparatively easy to provide a positive experience for your customer at the time of purchase. But once the novelty of your product wears off and the product is in the field, your customer’s expectations for the product will begin to change.
But once the novelty of your product wears off and the product is in the field, your customer’s expectations for the product will begin to change.
In the field is where they’ll really know if the product is going to solve their problem.
It’s when they begin using the product that they’ll discover things about your product like:
- How easy it is to use,
- How much setup is required,
- How quickly they can see results,
- How smoothly the product functions,
- How durable the product is, or
- How much prestige they gain with their friends.
This stage of your product’s lifecycle is critical, because here’s when buyer’s remorse can replace the product owner’s initially great experience. And this is also where traditional product development breaks down. But for apps and web technologies, product development continues even after the sale through the use of anonymous data collection. Most software and web applications today collect anonymous user data and send it to the developer. With insights gained through the anonymous data, the product can be continually improved. The constant iterations of the product keep up with the user’s changing expectations, maintaining a positive user experience with the product and the brand.
Data collection technology in physical products would reveal key insights into how the product is being used, design flaws that show up in the field, and customer expectations. Being able to “listen” (with real-time data, not surveys) to the needs and expectations of your customers as they use your product empowers innovation. With this information, you can find new ways for your product to solve customer pain points. Or, you can create brand new solutions for your customers.
Think it’s impossible to merge technology with your physical product?
Think again.As we move on from the Internet of computers to the “Internet of Things,” we’re seeing the line between traditional hardware and networked devices blur. Thermostats are now connected to the web. Cars can be locked with a mobile device. With the line between these technologies getting thinner every day, consumers expect closer integrations between their devices and the other products they own.
That’s what VEZI is all about.
Improving ownership experience by integrating technology with the products you make, giving you insights into user behavior, and empowering you to innovate faster and smarter. Parari is building VEZI technology to help companies improve the product-ownership experience, as well as gain valuable (and usable) data they can use to improve designs, respond to customer needs and get more control over how their products are experienced after the sale.
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