Not every customer is a silent customer, nor is every customer vocal in sharing valuable feedback about our product. Customers will continue to put up with a lot of discomfort, up until the time that they can find a better alternative. We could be completely in the dark about this, because the customers never spoke up or because we didn’t make an effort to reach out to them. In a competitive business landscape, finding the differentiating value that will ensure that our users stay loyal to our product, even if they have to bear with a broken or incomplete product experience must remain the top priority. Product experience could mean everything from marketing, sales, ease of access, ease of purchasing, product support, ease of use, and so on. Based on how customers value the product or solution (how well it solves their problems / meets their needs / is desirable and the availability of other alternatives) and based on what their overall product experience is (support, service, accessibility, pricing, and so on), we can categorize customers, as shown in the following illustration:

Early adopters are the customers who are willing to jump through hoops to use our product, because our product offers them a very valuable solution to their pressing problem. They will not mind a broken product experience, as long as the product delivers value. Loyalists are the customers who swear by the product value. The product experience keeps them locked in. The product meets their core needs, meets their price point, and in general, offers an end-to-end experience that the customer feels great about. Also, the alternatives in the market may not measure up to our product’s value or experience or the cost of switching could be higher.

The negotiators may have no incentive to adopt our product or they may be in a position to find many alternatives to our solution. So, they perceive our product’s value to be low. They find every opportunity to negotiate in order to compensate for the perceived lack of value by negotiating on price and requesting additional support, discounts, or freebies in order to use our product. The indifferent users and the silent users are forced to use the product for lack of viable alternatives or for not having a say in product selection. This could happen when the paying customer is different from the actual user of the solution.

All four categories of customers will be ready to switch to an alternate competitive product/solution when such an option is available. The loyalists may take longer to switch, but eventually if the market is moving toward a new alternative, they will follow suit.

An alternative solution that offers better value will always be attractive. What may prevent users from discontinuing using our product is the high costs of switching products. This could be in terms of the commercials of switching, locked in data, and so on. However, if the value provided by the alternative product supersedes the costs of switching, then there will be little hesitation from a customer who wants to switch. Product experience must ensure that consumers stay locked in, even when alternatives exist in the market that offer the same or a higher value.

Naturally, businesses want to lock users into the loyalty box. The investment we make in seeking product feedback should enable us to gain insights that can help to scale up value, gain an edge over the competition, and improve the product experience:

Our efforts when seeking feedback should help us assess these two aspects: