"Users say they want this feature, why haven't you implemented it yet?" Does this sentence sound familiar?
"Meeting user needs" is the foundation of Internet products, but this concept has been demonized by people who have not fully understood it. Many people can't even tell what users really want. When users say they want faster speeds, they wish they could add ten more horses, and they never think of creating a car.
I call this kind of behavior of lacking innovation, but simply catering to users and trying every means to "satisfy users" "kneeling and licking service."
Generally speaking, kneeling service will eventually encounter the following situations:
Because the company's human, financial and time resources cannot keep up with the various needs of customers, it eventually becomes a firefighter and its own ability development is limited;
You cannot see who your core users are, and your core users cannot see the value your product brings to them, so they leave.
The needs of both user A and user B are to be met, but there are many contradictions between them, which leads to blindness among employees, low efficiency of departments, and no replication and development;
The phenomenon of bad money driving out good money is rampant, unruly customers gradually occupy the majority of the customer base, and companies are trapped in the low-end customer base and cannot extricate themselves.
So, our topic today is: Where is the end of kneeling and licking service? Should we insist on the argument of "satisfying user needs" without any bottom line?
1. Problems in User Demand
The big premise of the slogan "meet user needs" is: Does the company really understand the real needs of its customers? In other words, is the feedback our customers give us really what they want? The answer is definitely no.
Generally speaking, the customer's apparent "needs" have the following characteristics:
1. Users often express emotions rather than needs. At the same time, market research that does not take user emotions into consideration is meaningless.
@FanFan@Pig's Feet
The issue of user satisfaction is largely a philosophical issue. Many times, satisfaction is a psychological state, and we can do something to highlight this satisfaction. For example, if you set up a class and most of the students in the class say that they have gained a lot, other students will gradually feel that they have also gained a lot - herd mentality.
Dissatisfaction is another psychological state, which is also influenced by some factors. For example, if the user is in a bad mood, there is nothing that can be done about it.
From a business perspective, we need to control the unsatisfactory ratio between the two.
@Yuying
After the new feature was launched, user feedback was very negative, so it was taken offline. Then users reported that the new feature was quite useful and asked to have it launched again.
@kaka
In fact, sampling survey is the biggest problem. We used a small number of people to conduct analysis and produce results, and the user needs we obtained were a false proposition.
We were doing e-commerce before. In order to increase the user's purchase conversion rate, we set up a user preference option and listed all the brands. As a result, users manually selected and clicked on their favorite LV/BOSS and so on, but the conversion rate of EDM push was very poor.
Later, the algorithm was changed to only display and push products to users based on the brands they had clicked on in natural shopping scenarios. As a result, the purchase conversion rate increased. User needs are always vague and there are different ways to express them, but data can restore the user's true needs as realistically as possible.
2. Many user demands are mutually exclusive in nature. One point that needs special attention is that the inner premise of users making a certain demand is that other experiences remain unchanged.
@Yujia
In the early days, Baidu conducted user surveys, asking users how to improve user experience . One of the questions is: How many search results do you want Baidu to display per page? The results showed that more than 90% of users chose to display 20 or more items per page. However, when Baidu actually made a version that displayed 20 search results per page and released it in grayscale, users complained a lot.
After investigation, it was found that due to factors such as user network speed and server return speed, 20 results were displayed per page, resulting in a bad experience. So, later we changed it back to 10 results per page.
3. Users subconsciously like to mistake solutions to problems for needs.
There is a joke in product theory: "Customers want a faster horse, but product designers use a car to make customers more satisfied." Yu Jun, the father of Baidu Tieba, once said: "I read every piece of user feedback, but I ignore all user suggestions", which is the same principle.
If a company just blindly follows the calls of its customers, it will ultimately achieve nothing.
@Waking up the forest
The previous company was developing a hospital training management platform. A large number of individual doctor users put forward their own experience requirements: live broadcast , open courses, community, communication, etc., which led to the direct neglect of the product's original core function of "hospital training management."
4. The demand scenarios are misplaced and the demands are mechanically applied. Any demands that are out of context are just hooliganism.
@Zhou Zhanhui
Now I am using a Tencent product and have some specific requirements, but when I report them to Tencent, they often give me the same answer: the product is designed like this. I didn't dig deep into my specific scenarios and needs at all. It's unrealistic to just use a set of templates to apply to all scenarios.
@Xu Xiongfei
The demand must be triggered in a specific scenario. For example: If you go to the toilet without toilet paper, paper is a necessity. But after going to the toilet, this urgent need is no longer there. From another perspective, if brands work hard to convey value to new users, so that users think of you when they want to fulfill a certain demand, they will not make any unrealistic demands.
2. What needs should be met?
Since users’ apparent demands are so unreliable, companies need to analyze and extract the real demands that need to be met. For a requirement to be met, the following points need to be considered:
Whether it is the demand of high-quality customers/most customers. Is the demand high frequency? urgent? rigidity?
Is this demand on the core value path of the product?
What is the feedback from the market and competitors regarding this demand? If everyone is doing it, why don’t we do it? What are the concerns?
In order to meet this demand, what is the ROI (return on investment)? Is my return sufficient to support me in meeting this need?
Is my team capable of meeting this requirement? If you are incapable of doing so, why would you go there knowing there is a tiger there?
What is the user learning cost? If users have to go through a long process path to get this service, the customer's overall experience may be worse than before.
@MR.Lao Wu
Product value is the user’s most basic need, and other needs are derived from it.
For example: buying a house. For most people, buying a house is a basic need, and then the derived demands include: price, school district housing, location, area, and layout.
Another example is buying medicine. If I buy the medicine, I am basically satisfied. If I don’t, then I am dissatisfied with this pharmacy. If other services are provided while buying medicine, then the satisfaction level will increase, for example, the pharmacy tells me where to buy medicine. Or can you tell me there is another medicine that can be used as a substitute and is better than this one? That's an extra experience upgrade.
@corrine
The first step is to classify the users who provide feedback, select the high-quality users for us, and give priority to their needs.
The second step is to classify the needs and prioritize the issues that receive the most feedback from high-quality users.
But we also need to be careful, because high-quality users are our fans, and sometimes the problems they see are not real problems.
On the contrary, those less frequent users sometimes respond to issues more objectively.
@冯应
I think customer needs can be divided into subjective and objective. It is best to analyze the deepest reasons for each need, and there are various solutions to each need.
Based on the demand ratio, the company's actual situation and product status, we analyze the difficulty of meeting user needs and ultimately determine whether customer needs are met.
In other words: requirements that are consistent with the current status of the company and products and are of low difficulty should be resolved immediately; requirements that are contrary to the current status of the company and products and are also very difficult can be put aside for the time being. However, those with high demand ratios, which are difficult to meet and even hinder product promotion , must be taken seriously.
@vincent
There is only one core need. For example, people need to eat and study, so there are restaurants and schools. On this basis, there will be different categories of people with targeted needs, which can be called segmented needs. As long as the needs of this type of people are large enough to support commercialization, such needs will be met.
There is a critical point when segmented demands based on core needs are not sufficient to support commercialization and can be regarded as personal requirements rather than needs.
How to balance company interests and user needs depends mainly on the market environment. Competitors can be said to be a trade-off game. When a competitor meets the requirements of users, you have to follow suit, unless you have special competitive advantages or are a dominant player.
@Ouyang
I collected user requirements for a 2B product, and in the end most of them were rejected by us. Some are not universal; some are inconsistent with the product positioning; some have unclear scenarios; some are operational problems; and some are because users are unfamiliar with the product and their needs have been met, but they don’t know it.
I think the best way to collect and evaluate needs is A/B testing. Another one is the relationship between demand and cost. For example, if the cost of achieving a certain demand is greater than the benefit brought by this demand, we need to find another way to meet it or temporarily avoid it.
@Alisa
In terms of meeting user needs, if we classify them according to "most people/minority" and "beneficial to the company"/"harmful to the company's interests", I think:
Most people & benefits to the company’s needs: immediate gratification;
Needs of a few people & beneficial to the company: Comprehensive consideration of the number of user groups, development difficulty, and benefits to the company;
Demands that are detrimental to the company’s interests: Not met, but considering providing other levels of services beyond expectations to weaken this demand from users.
3. Some tips to improve user satisfaction
As mentioned above, user satisfaction is not only a business issue, but also a philosophical issue and even a psychological issue. We can certainly meet user expectations through straight-line execution. But many times, using some disguised techniques may be able to achieve twice the result with half the effort.
1. Lower customer expectations and clarify risks before providing services
This method can be used to weed out some difficult-to-serve users (it turns out that, in most cases, the lifetime value of such users is relatively low), and users can be given a sense of surprise after consumption by first suppressing and then promoting.
2. Take a high profile and let users pay attention to you
Luo Pang mentioned in " Friends of Time 2017" that the service upgrade this time is mainly reflected in the company's need to demonstrate its professionalism, which is in line with the division of roles among people in modern market-oriented society. "If you don't understand, just listen to me."
On this point, it is completely different from the argument of most companies before, which is "let customers choose and match freely". Perhaps we can listen to both sides and get a better understanding. At the same time, you can also learn about the story of "Mi Fu (fú) practicing calligraphy". This method of allowing users to achieve their ultimate goal due to the strength of the seller is also a kind of reference.
3. Use other value-added services to fill the psychological gap of users
@Mandy
Recently, many hotpot restaurants have launched free-of-charge promotions. As long as you recharge three times the amount of your daily consumption, you can enjoy a free bill. By enticing members to recharge by offering free meals, you are actually capturing the inner desires of users.
For example, Haidilao has fulfilled the inner needs of users to the extreme, which is why so many people are willing to pay for it. Even though the taste is not very special, I am happy to spend my money.
IV. Conclusion
Where are the boundaries of user needs?
After three classes and more than 10 community discussions on this issue, everyone can see that there are differences based on industry, era, region and specific users. All we can do is to summarize a set of universal methodologies, and how to do it depends on the specific cases. However, there is a bottom line that every industry must abide by, and that is, you must keep your word and do what you promised to your customers. This solid bottom line is the foundation of all businesses.
At the same time, we should also be open-minded to various unreliable demands of users:
Don't underestimate user needs, because there are many potential explosion points hidden there.
You need to think about user needs repeatedly, because the user himself may not be able to accurately describe his real needs.
You can find some ways to improve satisfaction with higher ROI, instead of just going for it blindly.
When the main service is not strong enough, value-added services need to fill in.
Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising
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