Customer Experience will get back customer centricity in 2022. A good way to start the year is with a fnord.
Of course one needs to ask to learn how customers feel or use a product to improve. Sometimes these needs and goals are conflicting and easy to mess up the experience.
Twitter user @pikelet found this on a Canon printer.
According to Forbes’ Bernard Marr, here are 8 Trends that will dominate 2022.
Consumer expectations are shifting all the time, and with the ever-faster digitization of our world, customers want and expect better and different things from companies. Here we look at the top 8 consumer trends for 2022.
Bernard Marr in Forbes
Customer Experience and digital marketing are still highly dynamic spaces. Keeping up to date is paramount to keep up the pace. Engati collected the most influential people on LinkedIn and Twitter you should follow to shape your filterbubble for 2021.
Top 200 Influencers from customer experience, digital transformation, marketing automation, and technology domain to follow and learn from, in the year 2021.
Gerade Technikfans kennen das Gefühl, auf die nächste Keynote eines Unternehmens zu warten, um zu erfahren, welche Neuerungen das Portfolio ergänzen werden. Autofreunde kennen seit jeher den Produktzyklus Ihres Lieblingsherstellers. Wir alle schauen bewundernd auf neue Produkte, erwarten regelmäßige Verbesserungen.
Innovation nennt sich die ständige Verbesserung, die iterative Aufwertung des Portfolios.
In einem Gespräch mit einem Kunden ist das Thema im Zusammenhang mit Kundenbeziehungsmanagement (Customer Relationship Management, CRM) in den Fokus gerückt. Neben traditionellen CRM Themen wie Sales Management, Service Management und (e-)Commerce spielt auch der Produktzyklus für eine Kundenzufriedenheit eine zunehmend wichtige Rolle.
Gerade weil die Produktzyklen immer schneller werden, die Aufmerksamkeit der Kunden aber nicht höher, wird aus zukünftiger Innovation schnell eine verpasste Gelegenheit anstelle einer Upsell-Opportunity.
Eine neuere Version, ein neu eingeführtes Feature, ein überarbeitetes Design sind Signale für den Zeitgeist, mit dem das Produkt geht. Neue Produkte üben für bereits bestehende Besitzer einen latenten Druck aus, sie vermitteln das Gefühl, nicht mehr vorne dabei zu sein.
Für die Kundenbeziehung ist es daher wichtig, dem Kunden einen richtigen Mix aus Informationen und Hinweisen zu geben darüber, was es neues gibt. Apple ist ein gutes Beispiel dafür, wie Digitalisierung in der Kundenbindung funktionieren kann. Die Hauseigene Apple Store App, zum Einkauf von Apple-Produkten, verknüpft automatisch alle Produkte mit der Apple-ID des Eigentümers.
Das versetzt die Firma in die Lage, passende Vorschläge für erwerbbares Zubehör zu geben. Oder die Möglichkeit einen Apple-Care Service Vertrag für ein bereits gekauftes Gerät abzuschließen. Inklusive des Hinweises auf neu erschiene neue Versionen.
Und schließlich zwingen fest eingehaltene Update-Intervalle nicht nur Kunden dazu, immer auf einem aktuellen Stand sein zu wollen. Auch Mitbewerber im gleichen Markt werden notwendig neue Produkte präsentieren müssen um nicht alt auszusehen. Das ist Innovationsdruck.
Building a product is always for a customer. Developing with this fact in mind helps developers turn their love for technology into more relevant results. Jake Levirne explains the approach for very technical products at Digital Ocean in a small series of videos.
Everybody in software development knows the feeling. In every position involved, right? Source:
‘We’ve created a privacy industry’ was a statement you could often hear when Europe introduced General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the German implementation DatenSchutz GrundVerOrdnung (DSGVO). Already back in 2016 first predictions arrived, that GDPR will boost European software industry and give them a unique selling point. After the regulation became effective in Europe May 25th 2018(!), after a 2 years transition period, perceived only complaints happened. Affected data controllers and processors cited the difficulties implementing these regulations. A BitKom funded survey even indicates the regulation is hurting the European market.
Now, around 1.5years later, the industry seems to have settled on the regulation and business continues as usual. Subjectively perceived, privacy is indeed still an obstacle to decision makers in the market. Even politicians keep on imploring data to be the new oil, demanding a data driven economy and to weakend the underlying ideas of european data protection acts. Meanwhile, the opportunity has moved along. Californian Start-Ups discovered this niche and turn privacy it into value:
Privacy-focused technology companies are offering a variety of services, from personal data scrubbing to business-focused software meant to help companies comply with the law.
Source: ‘We’ve created a privacy industry’: California law fuels wave of startups
Product First Step Feedback: Having worked in customer facing roles most of my career, I have experienced first hand how important it is for clients to get quick impressions of a product. Opportunities to leave that impression are often limited.
The other night, a colleague argued most products don’t even need a UI. And a UI won’t even be necessary for products that aim at developers as their audience. It may be unnecessary for specific, complex products. And in general, I won’t disagree. Such products exist and still require a good first impression. Browsing open source directories at Github, popular projects come with good documentation. A readme.md that comes with building and running instruction.
In the IaaS/PaaS/SaaS world, popular tools come with first step tutorials. Quick tours to get potential users started in minutes. Google apparently made this a release requirement, since virtually all products ship with a “Get Started in 5 Minutes” section to start with.
When I came into the product management role, I was a strong proponent of UI driven products. In hindsight, this believe was driven by the pure marketing thought of it. A UI shows better at trade fair booths than a terminal.
With more technical products, the readme is the last resort. And with that, an opportunity to gather feedback is gone. The UI can implement tracking and analysis to build a feedback channel for Product Managers to understand how the new feature actually is perceived.
In the software, provided it is delivered in source, the first step that could possible send telemetry, is the build process. And to drive adoption, you have to offer the customer a good first impression in documentation, before he can build your component. Should the documentation not deliver on this first step, you lost a customer even before he saw the product. If you are in the situation to receive feedback on this first impression, take that very serious.
Customer Relationship Management ist schon länger der am stärksten wachsende Software-Markt. Als Gewerbetreibender kommt man nicht umhin, sich mit dem Trend auseinanderzusetzen. Nur durch den Einsatz von Software kann man seinen Kunden besser verstehen und so sein Angebot verbessern. Heute möchte ich einmal kurz die andere Perspektive einnehmen, und eine kurze, aber mir sehr auffällige Erfahrung aufzuschreiben.
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In the age of Big Data, product management can leverage plenty of feedback. Any product decision can be based on data, too. Product Coalition has an article. Setting up User Analytics.