The Power of Product Lifecycle Management and Product Success.
by Helen Tsaganos
As a product manager, I've seen the importance of effective product lifecycle management firsthand.
I was working on a product launch. We spent months doing market research, developing product features, and creating marketing materials. We were confident that we had a winner on our hands.
But when we launched the product, it didn't perform as well as we had hoped. Customers were confused about how the product worked and what it could do for them. We quickly realised that we had overlooked a key part of the product lifecycle: customer education.
We had been so focused on developing the product and getting it to market that we had forgotten to think about what would happen after the launch for post-sale customer support. Customers started to cancel or required increased customer support which in turn grew contact centre volumes and wait times and so on...
We assumed that customers would understand the product and its benefits right away and how to use it for different use cases.
But that wasn't the case. The tension was high as we scrambled to figure out a solution.
We knew that if we didn't address this issue, the product would fail.
We developed a customer education campaign that included webinars, tutorials, and other resources and a 3-step customer support email education campaign which was automated post the sales process.
We worked closely with our customer support team to ensure that they were equipped to answer any questions that customers had and picked up any new learnings and insights around the customer experience and product support journey.
It wasn't easy, but we were finally able to resolve the tension as we started to see an increase in customer engagement and satisfaction and a decrease in the cancellation rate compared to when we first launched. For example, in the first 6 months of launching the cancellation rate for new customers in the first 3 months was 7%. Once we introduced our education toolkit the cancellation rate decreased to 2% and remained at that rate.
By focusing on the entire product lifecycle, from ideation to retirement, we were able to salvage the product launch and turn it into a success.
When you're working on a product, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the launch and overlook the importance of ongoing product lifecycle management.
Effective product lifecycle management means taking a holistic view of your product and the entire customer and product journey.
It means monitoring your product's key financial and non-financial indicators of product health. When you do this, you can catch potential issues early on and ensure that your product is always meeting the needs of your customers. It can also help to catch those potential issues before they become major problems.
For example, let's say that you're monitoring the sales, cancellations, and net promoter score of your product and notice that there's a drop in sales in a particular channel and region. You also notice that for the last three months, the cancellation trend rate is increasing month on month.
By digging deeper, you discover that there's a competitor offering a similar product at a lower price point in that channel/region and the cancellation rate is being impacted by longer fulfillment lead times which have grown from 5 -7 days and have started to average 10-14 days on and off throughout the period.
Customers have been contacting customer service to follow up on their orders and have commenced canceling the ongoing subscription part of your product. This is a considerable concern as the ongoing revenue of the subscription part of the product makes up the core business model.
Armed with this information, you can make adjustments to your product or marketing strategy to stay competitive and understand where in the fulfillment journey is adding increases to the fulfillment period.
Once this is understood, strategies can be put in place to improve and reduce the fulfillment period with the easiest and most effective to be implemented first.
Another benefit of effective product lifecycle management is that it can help you stay compliant with regulations and guidelines.
For example, if you're working on a product that's subject to regulatory oversight, you need to ensure that you're meeting all the necessary requirements. By incorporating compliance into your product lifecycle management plan, you can avoid potential fines or penalties down the road.
Effective product lifecycle management also means that you can optimise your product to meet the needs of your customers. By gathering feedback from your customers and analysing data on how they're using your product, you can identify areas for improvement and make changes that will make your product more valuable to your customers.
For example, let's say that you've launched a software product that's designed to help small business owners manage their finances and save time with invoicing their distributors. You've analysed data from the platform and noticed that many of them are not using one of the two core features for automating invoices. This is of concern as this is one of the core features which is intended to save time for customers and manage their finances from distributors.
You conduct a deep dive with the contact centre and customers and identified there are user experience areas for improvement as some of the customer journey is not intuitive. As a result, many customers don't end up using the automated invoice feature - they start the setup process and then back out and do not complete the journey.
By analysing this data and gathering feedback, it's identified that changes are needed to make the automated invoice feature journey intuitive, user-friendly, and effective.
By making these changes, you're not only improving your product, but you're also showing your customers that you're listening to their needs and responding to their feedback. This can help you build stronger relationships with your customers and improve your brand reputation.
Ultimately, effective product lifecycle management is crucial for any product manager who wants to create successful products that meet the needs of their customers.
By taking a holistic view of your product and its journey, you can catch potential issues early on and ensure that your product is always meeting the needs of your customers.
Here are some key takeaways to keep in mind:
- Effective product lifecycle management means taking a holistic view of your product and its journey, from ideation to retirement.
- It's important to consider everything from compliance and regulation to customer education and support.
- By monitoring your product and its performance, you can identify areas for improvement and make adjustments as needed.
- Gathering feedback from your customers and analysing data on how they're using your product can help you optimize your product to meet their needs.
Effective product lifecycle management can also help you build stronger relationships with your customers and improve your brand reputation.
Product lifecycle management is an essential part of creating successful products.
By taking a holistic view of your product and its journey, you can catch potential issues early on and ensure that your product is always meeting the needs of your customers.
Don't overlook the importance of ongoing management and be sure to focus on the entire product lifecycle.
How Skyjed can help?
The Skyjed platform offers a comprehensive product lifecycle management and governance solution for product teams, providing them with the tools they need to manage their product lifecycle and their domains of product health.
With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics, Skyjed has made it easier than ever for product managers and teams to stay on top of their product management, customer and product health indicators, and governance needs.
Watch the Skyjed demo