User experience of a product goes beyond the core value proposition it offers. It is formed with each and every aspect of the product interaction, be it on the product, or off it. The product discovery, the pre-sales deliberation, the actual purchase or transaction, the usage, the post-sales experience…every interaction forms the user experience. Taking care of all these interactions is the very basis on which product and brand relationships are built [1]. The journey from product awareness to product relationship where product is almost anthropomorphic and has deep emotional connect with the user relies heavily on the overall user experience of the product, both on and off it. When it comes to consumer Internet products, same principles follow.
On Product User Experience
In order to cover the main aspects of a consumer Internet product UX, let’s look at the following basic placeholders taken from the brick & mortar world’s product retail experience, covering the entire product interaction journey with the user.
- Discovery: On product discovery starts right from the splash screen and the first time user experience. This is the time when the user gets introduced to the product offering. So the focus while building this UX should be on making the user aware of the core functional value proposition she should expect out of the product. The goal should be to get rid of any distraction that might hamper this introduction. For example, for a ride hailing product, getting to know the identity of the user, which is login, and getting to know the location of the user, which is location permission on a mobile app, are of utmost importance. But to ask for these in the form of mandatory steps would distract the first time user who is yet to validate the value proposition. Delaying these to a later stage of user exploration would be more helpful in forming the initial expectations of the user. Similarly the other facets of product feature discovery should be built with keeping the intent of the user in mind. Building the UX for at least the two major segments, i.e. users with high and low intent of product discovery, would enable the product to get through to users more effectively. More on this can be found here.
- Pre-Sales: This part refers to the user’s dwell time on the product. Having discovered the core value proposition, the user is now exploring the product and deliberating on the actual commitment with the product. This commitment can be in the form of the actual payment transaction on an eCommerce or finTech product, or the actual booking on a ride hailing or events booking product, or the content selection on an OTT entertainment product. So the product UX before this actual transaction becomes very important from the lens of directing the user funnel from exploration to transaction phase. Culling all distractions and preempting the user intent while building the user flow from browsing to transacting, forms the basic hygiene in this part. The UX should be enhanced further in terms of identifying and mapping the user intent with the core product value. For example, in products where financial payment is part of the transaction, building the trust of the user becomes very important. It can be in the form of showing availability and all hidden charges transparently upfront, or showing social validation in the form of testimonials. UX can further be enhanced through personalization, a trait possible easily on tech products. The familiarity shown via personalized offerings can push an exploratory user to become a transacting one.
- Purchase & Usage: This is the part of the UX where the user commits with the product. This is the actual transaction and selection part where the user decides to try out the product and use it. Making this experience distraction free can’t be stressed enough. This is the part where very high intent users interact with your product, and building features of user delight go a long way in retaining such high intent users. This chance to be able to connect with the users at an emotional level beyond the functional value of the product becomes so important that even decisions taken at the cost of monetization are decisions well taken in this part of the UX. For example, this part is the entire checkout flow for a transaction based eCommerce or event booking product. The entire piece around online payments is a separate vertical in itself, with some of the biggest names in consumer Internet companies working tirelessly to make it more smooth and reliable. Distracting the user with another higher profit merchandise for up-selling in this flow is not wise. Similarly for digital ads based monetization products, typically in OTT or online gaming categories, showing too many and ill-spaced out ads during content consumption and interaction will do more harm in lost retention than good in increased revenue. Features that preempt user input or action, or provide ease of controlling the usage experience, form the user delight feature list. Building these optimally is very important though, carefully measuring the ROI on development effort.
- Post Sales: This is the cooling off part of the dwell time on product. The major focus should be on balancing the UX between a) pushing the user towards more commitment as the user’s mind is already primed with core product value consumption, and b) allowing users enough breathing space to reflect so that the fresh feedback on core product value consumption seeps into the unconscious mind, and paves way for deeper emotional connect with the product. This is the part where the user can be given personalized recommendations to up-sell via other merchandise in eCommerce products, or via snacks in events booking products (though it is not followed like this in contemporary products in this category, wherein snacks are offered amid the payment flow maybe to accumulate the events and snacks payments in one). At the same time, this is the part to give users a chance to share their experience with others, thereby reinforcing the good feelings they would have had by sharing it with friends. On the other hand, especially for transaction involving financial payments, this part should also focus on dissuading any fear or doubt the user might have and make them feel that there’s no risk involved with their action. So features reinforcing the trust that the user showed while transacting should be part of the UX. It can be via showing the terms of fulfillment of service transparently, and allaying the doubts by showing FAQs and making the customer support process accessible and as smooth as the transaction process. Building the trust with the user goes a long way in embodying the product as something the user can rely on.
Off Product User Experience
Just like on product UX, the UX off product is equally important to build and sustain deep product or brand relationship with the users. Let’s examine it for a consumer Internet product on the same basic brick & mortar world’s product commerce experience placeholders we identified above.
- Discovery: The principle of treating this part as product introduction to the target user segment stays true off product too. Off product this is handled entirely by the Marketing function of the company. The essence here is to carve out the product positioning in the mind of the target user segment, and ensure that the same awareness is communicated via the product promotions. As the product manager you need to ensure that the marketing communication captures the core product value proposition well, as that will be the expectation with which the user would come to the product for discovery. Moreover, with digital marketing channels, there are more tech capabilities at your disposal to control the UX and ensure seamless discovery and expectation management for the user. For example, depending upon the digital marketing channel, say social media or display ads, focus should be on customizing the landing page UX of the product to align with the UX of the source. Taking this further, you can build the UX keeping the intent of the user in mind depending on the acquisition channel, i.e. treating SEO and SEM acquired users as high intent, while display ads and re-targeted users as low intent users. Letting the users smoothly enter the product and managing their expectations helps in this part.
- Pre-Sales: The principle of pushing the users from exploration phase to transaction phase holds true in this part. Off the product, this is handled by re-targeting the users based on their activities on the product. This is another advantage that comes very easily for tech products. There should be very sharp focus on doing this re-targeting in the most balanced manner, as beyond the intent of activating dormant users, the intent should be to nudge the users in a way that is received well by them, instead of simply annoying them which pushes them to severe their ties with the product. In various digital marketing channels which serve this purpose, a product manager can help the marketer segment users in the most granular way. This can ensure that the marketing communication can be made as personalized as possible, thereby reducing the chance of irrelevance. The balance needed here is to identify the frequency and appearance of the marketing communication, so that the users don’t feel being digitally followed beyond acceptable levels. Similarly, push notifications can be used as another channel to re-target the users. In addition to the user segment targeting and content personalization, push notifications also let you to control the time of re-targeting. This added dimension can be used effectively to enhance the acceptance of the notification. For example, reaching out to the users with the offer of the day notification in a transaction based product at that time period of the day when the user is most likely to organically come to the product herself (based on past behaviour), will ensure best chances of successful transaction without annoying the user.
- Purchase & Usage: This action primarily happens on the product itself, so there is nothing much that can be done off the product for this part. But this part can be tied back to the previous part so that such user segment, which has transacted on the product and via this commitment is now in high intent user segment category, can be treated accordingly in re-targeting efforts. Appropriate options can be given to such users in these re-targeting attempts which enable them to reflect again on the good experience they had, so that it seeps through and makes an emotional connect with them.
- Post Sales: Depending on the product category, this part in off product UX can be very crucial. For products with financial payment based transactions, especially eCommerce, this part is even more important than the on product post sales UX. The basic hygiene here lies at on-time fulfillment, be it order-to-pack stage, or pack-to-ship stage. As the product manager for these aspects of the product, you need to take the UX even further by empathizing with both, the end customer as well as the internal operations and logistics teams of the company. Creating efficient solutions for warehouse management, operational processes, logistics tracking for the internal teams, and much more forms part of it. For the end customer, creating a robust customer support process and customer care team that empathizes with the customer issue, support for very granular tracking of order shipment, support for refunds and returns, support for various options of last mile delivery like control on time of delivery, control on drop point of the package, control on contact-less delivery, are some of the enhanced features a product manager can drive. The underlying thought is to focus at each touch point of the user with the product and make sure that the UX increases the trust with which the user had committed with the product, so that more meaningful emotional bonds form between the user and the product. For ride hailing transaction based products, the UX of the actual ride is more important than the ride booking on product UX. Punctuality of the ride and riding ambiance form the hygiene here, while human to human interaction between the Collaborator (the driver) and the Consumer (the customer) can be enhanced to enable the UX to form an emotional connect with the consumer. Even in other transaction based products, having a customer support that puts the users at ease and strengthens their trust on the product can go a long way in enhancing the product relationship of the user. For other product categories, carving a well thought through re-targeting UX can help achieve this.
As a product manager you must have a holistic understanding of your product and its brand, and empathize with the user at each and every touch point of interaction. Identify the user’s intent and reaction on each of these touch points, identify the issues that the user might face, and solve for those issues collaborating with the other functions of the company. This holistic approach helps carve out the best user experience of the product. When such good experience is felt in every repeat use of the product, the user starts building a relationship with the product that goes deep in her psyche. Ensuring that this relationship is sustained over the test of time with each product visit is what separates great products from the rest, and product managers likewise.
[1] “Brand Relationship” is the value that a consumer derives from a product or its brand, and it progresses from functional values to emotional ones. Advancing in multiple stages, the brand relationship extends to consumers’ personal identity related values derived from the product or the brand, with frequent and loyal use.