How to mitigate product risks with CX thinking
Companies that neglect customer experience are doomed to failure. They build products that no one uses, invest in the wrong technology, and simply encourage clients to seek positive engagement elsewhere. On the contrary, businesses that orchestrate interactions with customers and fine-tune processes to create unified experiences see people flocking in. That’s because they make their customers part of the product — they understand the customer’s need, reasons behind it, and respond appropriately. CX mindset helps them get rid of common product development risks. And I can prove it. No market need — 35% failure rate Root cause: poor customer research The latest CB Insights study suggests that 35% of companies fail because their products are of no use in the market. You are never going to survive if you offer people something they simply don’t want. It feels so obvious, but again and again, businesses fall into this demand trap. Why? Because in most cases, they are driven by their gut feeling, and not facts. It is never a good idea to start a venture unless you proved its viability. You can avoid this product risk by referring to your knowledge of the customer. Make sure to perform comprehensive customer and market research, surveys, one-to-one interviews, and focus group testing. If you skip this stage, there’s a high probability that you will fail. Got outcompeted — 20% failure rate Root cause: unsatisfactory customer experience Unless you’ve come up with something outstanding, a dozen other entrepreneurs in your target market have already built a product with similar functionality. Interestingly though, only some of them enjoy the growing demand for their products. How so? After all, they are the same at the core. The cold hard truth is that those in-demand products offer more than just functionality. They offer improved customer experience. And people are willing to pay for this. Flawed business model — 19% failure rate Root cause: lack of agile culture I’ve touched upon it already. Customer behavior changes, market changes, pushing you to also change fast. The customer may love your products or services today, but then, opt for your competitor tomorrow. In fact, the research says that modern customers are less brand-loyal. They tend to consistently switch between brands in a bid to find one that is more convenient for them. In order to appeal to this new generation of customers, you need to adopt the mentality of continuous innovation. If you know your customers well and analyze their behavior regularly, you understand their buying drivers. That’s how agile companies work. They make the ability to respond fast their first priority. Not the right team — 14% failure rate Root cause: lack of cross-functional practices Often, business leaders confuse CX (customer experience) with UX (user experience) and delegate the responsibility for enhancing the customer experience to the UI/UX design team. That’s a mistake. Although both concepts are based on experience design, there’s a clear difference between CX and UX. UX is about how easy-to-use and helpful your digital product is; CX stands for how the customer feels about both the product and the entire brand throughout the customer journey. UX is just a part of CX. That said, customer experience is everyone’s responsibility within your company. When designing it, bring a diverse team to the room — a CX strategist, UI/UX designer, product architect, marketing specialist, market researcher, sales manager, customer support rep, etc. As a result, you’ll be able to break down silos and design a truly unified positive experience across all points of contact with your customer. submitted by /u/joe_dojo [link] [comments]