If a product or service you have just launched has not received the attention you expected, you may have skipped the “insight” phase or not used it efficiently enough. This applies to all types of products and services, even websites like Spin Casino. In today’s competitive world, no matter how good an idea you have, if you do not manage the product insight process well, it will be inevitable that you will fail or at least not achieve the level of success you want. Below we describe what this process is, what it involves, and how it should be carried out.
What Is Product Insight?
This is the name of a process that is carried out during the design phase of a product, that is before it is released to the market. In some exceptional cases, it may happen after the product is launched, but this is not preferred. Because it means accepting that all that time and money spent developing and selling the product was wasted.
Product insight, in its simplest form, means executing the design phase based on user feedback. You have an idea in your mind, and you know what kind of product that idea should turn out, but you take into account the opinions of the users to create the final result. Product managers carry out this whole process and make the final decision by directing their teams according to feedback.
This process includes fixing problems with the product, adapting it to user trends, and improving the overall experience it delivers. In short, the overall goal is turning a prototype into an actual product that will achieve satisfactory sales figures. For example, users may say that they found the product too complex during testing and that it contained too many buttons. In such a case, the product manager assigns the design team the task of preparing a simpler design. This process basically consists of two steps:
- Product analytics. This includes keeping track of what users are doing with that product. A working version of the product is delivered to the user group selected for testing, and they are asked to use it for a certain period of time. The product is reshaped according to their feedback. In some cases, it may even need to be designed from scratch.
- Customer insight. This is the name of research of a general nature that analyzes the behavior of users. It is mostly performed before product analytics. It is a process that tries to determine what users want, what the trends are, and how their behavior patterns are shaped. The prototype of the product is prepared with consumer insight data, and the product analytics phase begins afterwards.
Product Insight Examples
There are many successful examples of product insight. “Puss in Boots,” an interactive show for kids by Netflix, is the most frequently cited example. Here, Netflix hosted children of different ages in a lab and tried to figure out what each of them liked. In other words, it wanted viewers to decide how fun and satisfying this experience would be. Puss in Boots is an example of product analytics where children make most design decisions.
Sometimes, however, customer insight alone is considered sufficient to make the final decision. For example, an e-commerce site called “Envelopes” sent promotional messages to its members at different intervals for the products they left in their carts and followed which ones were more successful. As a result of the research, it was understood that messages sent after waiting 48 hours had a 40% higher conversion rate. We can give other examples too:
- Before entering the US market, “Evive Nutrition” determined which flavors would be the most popular in the states it would serve and changed them according to feedback during product analytics.
- “Organic Valley” has determined the flavors to be used in its product called “Egg Bites” by changing it multiple times in pilot laboratories according to the feedback of different age groups. “Spicy tomato salsa” has been the most popular flavor.
The most common mistake made in the product insight phase is to think that using only one of the two steps we mentioned above is sufficient. For example, a company may think that customer insight is sufficient and skip the product analytics phase – and vice versa. However, these are steps designed to work together and guide each other. Performing just one can mislead the company.
In the past, the opinions of surveys and focus groups were considered sufficient, but nowadays, it is not possible to rely on them alone. These are the most primitive versions of product analytics and customer insight. Today, both processes must use feedback from different channels (e.g., social media) and be able to analyze competing products or services too. The more successfully this process is carried out, the more satisfactory sales figures will be achieved.
