Presented by Janna Bastow at SaaStock - Dublin, Ireland - Sept 22, 2016
In this talk, Janna discusses what it means to delight your customers and why it's important to SaaS businesses to do so.
14. Kano
How do you feel when a hotel has hot water?
I like it this way
I expect it this way
I am neutral
I can live with it this way
I dislike it this way
Feature is
PRESENT
15. Kano
How do you feel when a hotel does not have hot water?
I like it this way
I expect it this way
I am neutral
I can live with it this way
I dislike it this way
Feature is
ABSENT
18. Why bother delighting?
“Any business with delighted customers has
a sales force they won’t have to pay; You
don’t see them, but they are talking to
people all the time.”
Warren Buffet
30. Thank you!
Let’s go for a and talk about product.
Drop me a line at janna@prodpad.com or say hi at @simplybastow
Download these slides: bit.ly/simplybastow-saastock2016
Editor's Notes
Today you’ve heard some great stories from the other amazing speakers here at saastock,
covering topics like how to acquire new customers, how to grow your userbase, and how to retain those users so they keep coming back.
But I’m going to take it that little step further, and talk specifically about, if you will, the cherry on top: Delighting your customers.
By the way, I’m Janna Bastow and I’m a product manager myself, turned founder and CEO of a SaaS company called ProdPad. ProdPad is a tool built for product people to help them solve customer problems though good roadmapping and idea management, and as part of the gig, I’m lucky to get to talk to and get insights from hundreds, if not thousands of product managers from all different regions and industries.
And there’s remarkably a lot in common with those products that delight, and the results that companies get from creating delightful experiences.
So let’s start with NPS.
How many of you have heard of NPS? Let’s be honest, even your mother has come across NPS; It’s that ‘how likely are you to recommend this product to a friend’ question, where you can rank on a scale of 0, being not likely at all.. To 10, being very likely.
The answers to that question are then calculated into a score. You take the percentage of people who rated your product 9 and above – these are your promotors – and the people who ranked it 6 and below – these are your detractors – and the result is a score between -100 to +100. So 0 is the middle point.
And it can be an interesting way to get an idea of how good your product is, especially if you’re running it long term and can see the change over time…
NPS is also interesting across industries, where you can compare scores across industries –
Which is fun if you’re a management consultant…
But let’s be honest, if you’re running a SaaS business…
NPS sucks
Experiences get higher NPS than products, brand plays a huge role, timing of the question plays a huge role – if you know what you’re doing, it’s easy to game a good NPS score.
Strange question that raises more questions… therefore unpredictable
Not granular enough - perhaps there’s one aspect of your product that someone did find enjoyable but got frustrated at another?
Not actionable. Let’s say you get a low NPS score.. What are you going to do?
Follow up question: What would you use instead?
And as a matter of fact, that question is a great leading indicator of your product market fit. If 40% of people say they’d be very disappointed if your product ceased to exist, then you’re approaching product/market fit – the holy grail, at which point you can really start scaling your business.
That great panel earlier this morning about what product/market fit looks like and what’s unlocked for your business at that time
So where does this idea of delight fit into things?
One way to look at it is that delight is simply exceeding the expectations of your customers. Let’s break that down:
One of my faviourte ways to understand delight is the Kano model.
No one’s going to be impressed if you have a reset your password option. They just expect it to be there!
But this is where it gets interesting.
Why do they change? New expectations come from new technologies, other providers pushing the limits on what’s possible.
Do you guys remember when AJAX was a thing?
B2B beginning to require same level of detail as b2C, particularly if you want to go the route of getting people to install it themselves and share within the company.
Costs you 6-7x more to acquire a new than to retain an existing customer. You know what I’m talking about, churn monster. You can fend off that churn monster with offerings of flowers and ice cream.
Warren buffet: “Any business with delighted customers has a sales force they won’t have to pay; You don’t see them, but they are talking to people all the time.”
Are you solving an actual problem? Customers come to complete a specific job
Are you providing recommendations and being useful?
Are you enthusiastic, warm and fun?
Be effortless
Frictionless
Unexpected personalisation / human touch
I’m sorry, but a cookie is not going to cut it. You can’t just give out cookies, but not offer hot water.
Make customers part of the conversation
Example: Slack group, feedback portal
Tell customers when something they’ve been waiting for is done, or keep them posted on why something’s not being done. Communication with customers is key
Have your app and emails react to who they are. Personalised onboarding emails.
Contextual in app help
Help centers that don’t suck
When getting shit from customers, change the conversation
Show the roadmap, share what you’re working on, empathise with them. It’s okay, we know this is hard.
Concierge service
Case study: Expedia
They have a UsabilityLab unit that has found a clinical way of measuring delight.
Hook up to facial muscles, along with voice, mouse and eye tracker recorders, and measure tension and frustration as well as delight
It’s open-ended, qualitative work, and certainly not the norm today… but are we perhaps on track to see this becoming the new standard for measuring delight?
For a company like this, it’s worth squeezing pennies and fractions of percentages out, but in time, these technologies and processes will become more of the norm and the way to optimise all sorts of apps and product.
So onwards to my next point, which is a little about the touchy feely. You want them to feel good. You want them to feel badass.
They should feel like they have progressed in their task and learning, and that they are good at things.
Case study: EE (myEE app)
Everyone knows those mobile operator apps suck.
Went from a 1 star in the app store to 4.5 star within the year… no new features, pared down options that frustrated, pretty much same design…. Secret to success? We just listened to our users….