Driving stronger user adoption among paying trial customers can be just as important as new customer acquisitions to a growing company. To be truly effective, product adoption must be an interdepartmental effort. In particular, that means that all crucial units in an organization from the customer care desk, to the marketing teams and product development wing must work symbiotically to improve user adoption and product engagement. Here are five tips to help drive product adoption.  

Mind that Price

When developing a product or service most companies ponder what price to sell the service or device. Quite a few simply add a certain percentage to the cost of production, not taking into account the buyer’s side of the story. This works pretty well for a successful product, but is it always the smartest approach? No. In today’s harsh economic times, customers are doing everything to save money and maximize on value. If your prices are too low, you might scare some potential customers from buying your product for the wrong belief that is of low quality. To increase product adoption, you must take into consideration what message you’re sending the buyer with the price itself. 

Manage Complexity by Introducing User-Friendly Tools

Densely packed features with rigid workflows and endless navigation options will only serve to frustrate your customers during a typical transaction. Most will choose to abandon the process mid-way. The resilient lot may be tolerant enough to finish the entire “daunting” process but will most certainly not want to work with you in the future. Good user experience is a vital ingredient in driving product adoption levels higher. Adding user-friendly features to your website such as WalkMe can help reduce onboarding costs and make it easier for customers to complete their transactions. Incorporating turn-key user engagement tool however requires one to first understand customer behaviors and preferences. 

Gather Feedback at Each Stage

One of the keys to the successful adoption of a new product is to drive step-wise adoption and gather regular feedback to evaluate progress. Employee surveys and discussion forums provide effective channels to gather qualitative feedback that you can use to improve your product or device. Most customers like it when they know that their input matters to your decision making. Here’s the catch, you launch a product, market it and encourage your customers to give plain-truth comments on its merits and demerits. You gather all this feedback and sit down with your team to see how you can incorporate different ideas to improve the product before releasing a 2.0 version of it. This will help you capture at least a good chunk of your paying customer wishes meaning you’ll be able to fulfill their needs better thereby increasing product adoption.  

Research Never Stops

Your customers have unlimited needs. That being said, you need to keep searching for new ways to cater to their ever-growing expectations of you. You should never run tired of attending those business seminars or gathering feedback from your clients. Neither should you ever cease from looking for new ways to improve your product. Times are changing so fast and you really don’t want to lose your customers to your competitors who are more creative and dynamic. A recent trend in regards to research is the introduction of a full-time research and development department. There are really no two or three ways about it, you have to keep your finger on the pulse of the market trends - it’s worth it.

Reinforce Product Adoption by Providing Good Training and Support

As the old adage goes “An informed customer is a satisfied customer.” It is important to provide adequate training and support to your clients/users. Training is particularly important when you introduce a new product or add a new feature to your already existing goods or services. Excellent customer support is the heart and soul of any business. You want to provide a quick and easy means for people to get answers to their burning queries in an appropriate platform. Besides nominating a moderator to run your help desk and receive alert notifications when questions are posted, having a handy tool such as WalkMe for self-support can help increase product adoption. 

Now that you are familiar with these five essential tips, think carefully about how to customize them to fit your unique needs. You’ll soon start reaping the benefits. 

Mark Silver is a project manager at WalkMe, and the editor of a blog, SpecTechUlar, which looks at various issues related to product management. Follow him on Twitter (News - Alert) at @SSpectechular.