Welcome the customer onto the product journey

The world is becoming smaller by the minute. As a lecturer I sometimes talk about the world as an example of a huge system thoroughly interconnected by invisible arcs linking every physical object in existence. A bit over-dramatic but you get the picture. Fueled by the Internet and social media, reality nowadays is a lot closer to my depiction that you actually think. As individuals, our personal and professional world has expanded. Our links and relationships with friends and family on the other side of the world have become stronger. Information and news reach us quicker and in turn we are quicker to reply and react.

The same is true for organisations and products. Think about it, thanks to the internet now we can reach more potential customers and suppliers than ever before. Our products can reach them quicker than ever before thanks to the likes of Amazon Prime or the new products available from DHL or even the national post service.

However, there is a downside to all these wonderful relationships and newly found customers. The point I made about being able to sell your products easier and quicker works both in your favour and against you. Competitors that in the past wouldn’t have come near your customer pool, are now taking those customers away. Think Alibaba.com eroding some of the well-established eBay markets.

There is more bad news. It’s not just new competitors your organisation has to worry about. Customers are also becoming more proactive, more vocal and more impatient. They have unlimited access on tap to reviews on your company, customer service and product quality. Furthermore, they have more choice and as a result of this choice their loyalty has become fickle.

In my experience, the answer to the problem of customer loyalty has always been cross-sell. Entangle the customer with so many of our products that leaving us is more of a hassle than it’s worth it. That is true to a certain degree, and if executed properly that strategy delivers not only loyalty but also increased revenues and customer satisfaction. There are other options but the one that from my point of view is the most exciting at the moment is co-creation.

As a concept is relatively simple: ask the customer what they want and involve them in the process of developing it. By doing this, the product becomes an intrinsic part of the customer. How could you ever leave the product that you helped to create? It’s par with abandoning a puppy after Christmas.  

Aric Rindfleisch defined co-creation as:

“Co-creation is the realization that one’s customers can lend value beyond the traditional means of simply choosing and using your product and/or service.”

This realisation translates into business changes that enable the participation of customers in the development of new products and services. I would go one step further and suggest that the co-creation process should not only involve customers but internal stakeholders too. In that way we can deliver customer propositions that are closer to the real needs of the customer while at the same time we can enhance the new product development (NPD) process supporting these propositions.

Is product management ready for Millennials?

Let’s face it, as product managers we tend to stay away from the world we consider the exclusive domain of marketers with their segment definitions, campaigns and advertising. After all, we are modest beings with an aversion to the limelight. We are the engine room of any organisation where new products and services are launched to satisfy the needs of our customers. Yes, we take into account the voice of the customer (sometimes) in order to fix bugs and features that aren’t working properly. If customers shout loudly, often and over a short period of time, we may incorporate one new feature as requested by them.

This has worked fine to-date, so what's the big deal? Millennials, the Y Generation. These guys are a completely different kettle of fish. They are impatient, they behave differently, they shop differently and do not follow the rules and that has a significant impact in how we, as product managers, view and carry out the development of new products especially in the consumer space. We have to understand them and design new products and processes with them in mind or we run the risk as organisations and professionals of being bypassed by them.

First of all, why is this generation important to understand for product managers? Statistics from the US Census Bureau puts a figure of 83 million people being born roughly between 1980 and 2000 in the US alone.  To put it in perspective, that means one in every four US citizens is a Millennial. Global figures from Millennial Week 2014 estimate that there are approximately 1.8 billion Millennials worldwide. To put it bluntly, there are a lot of them and they’re everywhere.

Why is this significant? Because, according to Time Magazine thanks to globalisation, social media, the exporting of Western culture and the speed of change, millennials worldwide are more similar to one another than to older generations within their nations. This has implications when it comes to purchasing products from global brands since Millennials listen to one another no matter where they are.

They also have more spending power than previous generations. Jason Dorsey, Lead Millennials Researcher at the Center for Generational Kinetics has said that by 2017 Millennials will bypass the spending levels of Baby Boomers and that’s something that any product led organisation should be aware of. If they think that their colleagues in the marketing department will take care of fine-tuning the brand message to capture this market, they will soon find themselves without revenues and customers.

There are plenty of studies and articles that describe the traits of the Millennial generation. Depending on whom you read today the same attribute can be seen both under a positive and a negative light. Consider the following example: Millennials are brilliant multi-taskers. For the more cynical readers the message is: Millennials have short attention spans and are easily distracted into several activities at the same time. For the sake of this article I’ll concentrate on those traits I consider relevant for the product development process. 

What are they like?

Connected

This generation cannot picture life without the Internet or a mobile device and they will use these as their primary vehicles to communicate with family, peers and companies. Marketing and customer care departments in some companies already use social media as a means to have a dialogue with their customers. How does product management collect feedback from this generation?

Results oriented

If they want something new or one of your products is not working as they expect it, they’ll want it fixed. How quickly you can fix it or deliver it to the market will determine whether you can retain them or not.

Fickle

Baby Boomers were a loyal generation as consumers and as employees. Millennials don’t play by those rules. They have the least established loyalty as customers. However, they have strong principles and beliefs and once they select a brand, product or service they stick with it and are quite vocal about the fact.

What do they want?

Transparency

As consumers, Millennials demand to know where your products are coming from, how they were manufactured, and if they were ethically sourced or produced. If you are not capable of answering those questions satisfactorily these consumers will not trust you and will make sure that everybody in their social network knows about it.

Recognition

The Me Generation is all about being heard and being recognised for the effort. They want their opinion to be taken into account. They want to be involved in the creative process as long as it gives something in return. Are you willing to accommodate them in return for their loyalty?

Instant gratification

You want to hear the voice of the customer but have nothing to offer in return? Quite simply, it’s not going to work with this crowd. They are multi-taskers and therefore, easily distracted. Thus, if they can’t see what’s in it for them right away they won’t devote any of their precious time to help you.

The product management function in many organisations usually sits quietly in the background taking input from other customer facing departments and delivering new products using that input. For the Y Generation this is not good enough any more. Companies must find a way to bring product development to the fore and join in the conversation.