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If you are a SAAS founder or a product manager, or the one working on customer retention, then this one is for you!
Through our journey of turning ideas into reality for over a decade, we have learned through our experiences that the onus of customer retention is 80% on the product itself and 20% on the teams you think are right for it.
Let’s begin by understanding the journey of selling your product to its prospective users. Honestly, the best analogy is to compare the activity of buying a product offline.
Let’s say you wish to buy a new laptop, sound bar, or any other device of your choice.
A typical buying journey would involve:
In the above-said journey, we can see three key events happening across customer purchasing decisions. Customer Acquisition -> Customer Activation-> Customer Retention
Let’s shift the focus towards activation a bit.
Retention without activation is not sustainable.
It’s the activation phase that will validate the solution to your customer. Ask yourself this:
- Ever purchased a car without trying it?
- Ever bought a piece of jewellery without trying it?
- Ever purchased headphones without trying it?
It’s a no for all of the above examples. We all very well know that there is neither money involved nor an obligation to try before you buy.
That brings us to the essential learning that “Freemium is the right way to let users consider your product for purchase.” We see this in almost all SAAS products today and it’s validated to do so.
But how different can you be by just doing that? Here’s where that one secret sauce resides. It’s about what happens once the customer gives your product a chance.
The “Onboarding Experience”
The onboarding experience is not about flashy UI/ rewards/ coupons or anything gimmicky. Please stay away from all of these and embrace a mindset of curating the onboarding experience so that the customer can do that one activity, and use that one feature that helps her decide to pursue your product more.
- Simply put, get to the point without any bells & whistles.
- Secondly, make it without too much friction.
Time to value — Are you keeping your promise in trial?
Most of the users get onboarded to your product when they come to try it. From a perceived value, you need to get into delivering value at this phase.
Examples. Let’s say,
Health-monitoring mobile app
As a user, I wish to see how easy it is to import the lab reports that help me organise my records first — This might not be the key objective, but definitely acts as an activation feature, keeping my interest glued to the app.
Habit Tracking App
I would love to experience how easy it is to create a habit.
Meditation App
I would love to get started with a small exercise without any friction.
Do you see a pattern here? It’s that we, as users, first evaluate how easy would be to use it for our use-case and then comes the decision of pricing, etc.
It’s hard to forget what you experience and relate to, right? That’s precisely what we call an activation phase.
Activation is an activity/group of activities performed by the user on a product that helps her realise the actual value or perceived value of your product. It’s here where the product has to shine brightly on the solution it tends to solve.
When the user is convinced that the perceived value & actual value are closer, that’s when they decide to stay longer to see the product’s full potential. Here’s where the product experience as a whole comes into the picture, leading to a final purchase.
Retention & Growth are preceded by a well-performed activation. This not only makes users connect, but it also ensures the right users join you. Activation is a fine sieve that works both for customers & the product.
We hope this article has helped you see the importance of activation for customer retention. Stay tuned to read more about product building, MVPs, and more!
Ready to keep your customers coming back for more? Discover the key to boosting customer retention with Think201, the best technology company in Bangalore! Let’s craft strategies that keep your audience hooked and loyal. Connect with us today to elevate your customer experience!
