[Refutation] Even if the product is shit, you have to operate it

Yesterday I answered a question on Zhihu: "What operations say most often is "even if the product is a pile of poop, you still have to promote it", but what if this pile of poop always stinks? 』

The answer is very brief, but I think it's worth saying more. But I'm too lazy to change the answer, so I'll just write it here.

"Even if the product is a piece of shit, you still have to make it work as an operator." I don't know who said this. But after this statement was made, it seemed to have created a very bad trend; it seemed that as long as the boss had determined the direction and the product produced, no matter whether it was good or bad, the operations department had to make it perform brilliantly.

Let me first tell you about a very old case.

There was a game that experienced a delay in the development of a major version. So the project team did one thing to smoothly get through this awkward stage: they launched an event to review past versions, took out all the outstanding major versions in the past, and organized players to play them again, with quite good results.

I can’t remember whether this game is Legend or Legend World.

But I believe that as an operator, you have more or less had similar conversations with your boss or supervisor:

Boss: Xiao Wang, how are the number of users/income recently?

Xiao Wang: Boss, the data isn’t very good recently.

Boss: Why?

Xiao Wang: There are problems with the development progress/product design/…

Boss: So what are you going to do?

Xiao Wang: I thought about applying for a budget to organize activities, but the current situation is that we can use various means to attract users, but now we can’t keep them.

Boss: Then you have to find a way.

Xiao Wang: But the current version is not enough to support our retention and activity.

Boss: I don’t care. You must have a way. I believe you.

Xiao Wang: ...

We all know that Xiao Wang must have a million horses galloping in his heart, but Xiao Wang may still have to chew this bone.

When we talk about the example of Legend/Legendary, it is actually a good one, because after all, there are excellent versions and excellent activities in history that can be used as resources for operations.

But what if not?

It’s like someone would ask Brother Liang, how to operate a tool product?

I always tell him to make the function good first.

Products and operations are inseparable. The premise is: everyone must form a joint force and not pull each other apart.

As another answer to this question on Zhihu quoted the opinion of a CMO of an international hotel chain:

If the product is really bad, then of course it should be the product. But if it's above the average, do marketing for sure.

If the product is really not good, then of course we have to make it good first. However, if you exceed the (industry) average, then of course you have to do marketing .

Internet operations and traditional marketing have different paths but the same goal.

So, how do you tell if a product has reached average level?

It's simple, compare yourself with your competitors.

When comparing with competitors, it is not about comparing how comprehensive the functions are, but whether the core functions can reach 80 points or more.

As long as the core functions meet this condition, then use the edge functions to open up differences.

As both are group buying, is there any difference between Meituan and Dianping?

As both are comic apps, are there any differences between Buka and Manhua House?

Since both of them do food reviews, are there any differences between Chengmi and Fanben?

The answer is obvious.

But what is even more obvious is that the gap between them must not only be caused by differences in product quality or operational capabilities.

Even if we go back to more than a decade ago, when Taobao challenged eBay, although its operating strategy was right and it used free services to attack eBay's weak points, Taobao also needed Alipay to help Taobao solve users' purchasing trust issues from the product end. Otherwise, it would rely on free services for merchants to attract sellers, but what about buyers?

B2C like JD.com also allows payment upon delivery; when Taobao was a C2C, how did it pay upon delivery? Then use UnionPay or bank gateway.

If you try to queue up at a bank and open a professional online banking account, you will know how much support Alipay provided to Taobao's operating strategy at the product level.

Shanda has a famous saying: What products lack, operations make up for.

Many people have misunderstandings about this. I think: Look, Shanda was so awesome back then, didn’t it admit that even if the product was not good, it still had to do its job well in operations?

However, this is not what the sentence means. The context and semantics of this sentence itself is:

As a game company, we operate a game, and the game itself is constantly iterating. Therefore, there will definitely be deficiencies and design deviations in some versions. The core of a successful game is its playability. Even if there are no major flaws in the game itself, if there are deficiencies in a certain version, the game operators must take the lead and use various operation methods , such as organizing activities or creating public opinion, to get the game through this stage of deficiencies, maintain a good continuity of users and revenue, and smoothly hand over to the next version.

It emphasizes the collaboration between products and operations! Instead of just pulling out a pile of shit and throwing it to the operation, let the operation remove the stench, turn it into fragrance, or even turn shit into gold.

Products and operations are two wheels, and the company is a bicycle; add development, it is a tricycle; add marketing, and it becomes a car .

If one wheel is round and the other is square, the car will have problems moving. If both wheels are round but of different sizes, the car will not move steadily.

The topic here is directly replaced by how to make products and operations work together to move towards a happy and beautiful life.

There are ways, but in actual practice, "the butt determines the head" will definitely appear. Only by reducing the occurrence of this phenomenon can the business run faster. Here are several methods. Some methods are for human resources, and some are for products and operations. Each can take what it needs.

Project team structure

This is said to human resources and also to company bosses.

I have experienced project team structure and flat structure. My personal experience is that under the project team structure, the convenience of communication and the positive level of collaboration among the three organizations of product, operation and development can be maximized.

Because under the project team structure, everyone's communication and understanding of the business will be more synchronized, the business goals are consistent, and they share common KPIs. It is impossible not to work together, and there is no opportunity to blame each other.

Flatness is not a bad thing, but it places extremely high demands on the coordination ability of the product manager and the initiative of the entire organization's members.

Sometimes, a flat structure makes it more likely that there will be scheduling disputes and the passing of responsibilities, because no matter it is product, operation, or development, they are all doing more than just one project, and it is more difficult to work together at this time.

Think differently

Before designing a product, the feasibility of operation must be considered; and when operating, the complexity of the product must be considered.

Often times, product managers, operations managers, and developers will complain to each other: “This is so simple, why are you doing this?”

Don't think other people's things are easy just because you haven't done them.

A small requirement raised by operations may involve multiple systems, which operations may not fully understand, and product management may not even understand them as well as development.

A small change in a product may cause a lot of impact. For example, Alipay 9.0 removed the lock screen password. I think the product manager may not have a deep understanding of the negative feedback from users before designing.

The same goes for development, but we won’t talk about development today, just understand the meaning.

Keep communicating

Keeping communication is very important. Many people say it, but many people just keep it in lip service.

Product managers should be able to listen to feedback from operations and be willing to take the time to draw conclusions from a professional perspective.

Operations must be able to keenly identify users' potential needs from operational data, and be able to express demand points in a way that product managers can easily understand, paying attention to the logic of demand.

For each function involved in a version change, the product should communicate with the operation department, and everyone should use data to speak for themselves. What has been changed, why it was changed, and what actions the operation department needs to take, including guidance, announcements, appeasement, and activities. These things must be communicated in advance, and plans must be prepared in advance.

Before a major version is released, product and operations teams must join in the testing together, have a full understanding of the adjustments to the major version from the logical, operational, and user perception levels, and make all preparations.

Don't hold back on problems.

Whether it is product, operation, development, or market, it is easy to see some business risks, but from different angles.

At this time, don't think that as long as you do your part well, others will naturally do their part. Even if they don't do it well, it's not my fault.

This is a question of responsibility and professionalism.

It is very important to share the risks you see regarding the business so that relevant personnel can be aware of and evaluate them.

Although this point should be put into the category of communication, I think it is really worth mentioning separately.

Finally, let me emphasize this again.

Don't use operational capabilities to cover up product flaws. The solution is to face the problem and prescribe the right remedy.

If you really encounter such a situation and have to do it, I also have the following suggestions for operators:

1. Perform operational actions on a small scale, and record and analyze operational data in real time.
2. Get user feedback in a timely manner and record it in an organized manner.
3. Summarize the data analysis results and user feedback results, provide solutions and submit them to the leadership.
4. Prepare emergency plans in advance. If any problems arise, customer service and operations must resolve them as soon as possible.

Finally, a wordy sentence:

For any promotional operations, you should avoid rolling out them all at once. Try it one channel at a time, and one group of users at a time, and control the scale yourself. Controllability is the key.

This applies whether the product is gold or shit.

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