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We've all had the problem: a desire to change products but a fear of the disruption. Why haven't you switched from wired phones to VOIP? Why aren't you on BaseCamp for projects and Google apps for email? Why are you still using <old_thing> instead of <new_thing>?
Answer: it's less the fear of change than the hassle of change. What we have now is working; the new thing requires learning the new way and figuring out how to move existing assets (files, data, configuration, workflows) to the new platform.
Apple has had this problem for years. Some people want to switch to Macintosh but, golly, all my files are on a PC. Does Mac have Word? How hard is it to understand the file system? Is the Mac compatible with <whatever> at work? That's why Apple offers the "Why you'll love a Mac" which assures you that it's easy to switch from Windows.
I love Posterous. This new (to me) service is simple; just email it to blog it. While some services require you to mess around with HTML, with Posterous, just email your post and forget it. Instead of a silly email address, it knows anything from your email address must be for your posterous blog. Nice! Oh, and then it autoposts to other blogs and social media. Super easy.
"But wait"--you say--"I already have a blog and all this great content on <something_else>!" No problem, go to http://posterous.com/switch/ and they'll move all your data too. Still not sure? Check http://switchto.posterous.com/ for success stories and see what other have to say about it. Oh, and what a great marketing message: Switch your site to the simplest publishing platform on the planet.
Many of our development plans focus on adding new functionality to win new deals, or upgrading functionality to help existing customers. But what about your competitor's customers? How can we help them? Do you want them to drop what they've been doing and switch to you? If "yes," make it a development and marketing priority. Make "Switch" a development and marketing theme for an entire release or series of releases. Develop tools to move their data, workflows, scripts, configurations. And create marketing programs to explain how easy you've made it to switch.
Now... how do I switch the house over to Ooma?
I received a confidential internal document today via email... sent to the wrong recipient. It seems like today's email programs should be smart enough to question this. Imagine a new feature: when I mail a document with "confidential" in the text or attachment, check that all recipients are in the same domain as the sender. If not, warn the user and also send a log record to the IT staff.
The feature would catch mistakes but also rat out people (I'm thinking "Kevin") who send confidential documents to customers.
Until that day, always check your email addresses a second time whenever you send confidential documents.
My travel service writes:
In order to ensure your company receives the optimal value from this airline ticket, it is imperative any changes or cancellations are reported prior to your flight's original date of departure. This value may have a limited time for future use so be certain to find out all the details upon cancellation.
It's certainly clear who matters to the travel service, isn't it? Not, "Steve, you have a trip coming up. Are YOU ready?" but "don't you want to make sure the company receives the optimal value?"
I think this is a negative case of buyer personas and user personas.
People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like. —Abraham Lincoln
A person I met at a party said, “You’ll love this book.” So I read it but hated it. Couldn’t finish it.
A waitress said, “This is my favorite dish—you’ll love it.” I didn’t.
Some people think if they like it, then you’ll like it.
A good reference is not just anyone who likes it but someone like me who likes it.
Your sales team gets these requests all the time: “can I talk to someone like me?” That’s why it’s so important to have buyer and user personas defined—and then match those personas when someone needs a reference.
Regular people don’t like to talk to innovators; they want to talk to another regular person. Geeks don’t want to talk to non-geeks. Millennials want to talk to someone else in their group.
My neighbor is a laggard. She asked me what computer to buy. Knowing that I’d be her tech support, I recommended a Mac. She called me a week later saying that her Dell had arrived and could I come teach her how to use it. ???? What happened of course is that she checked with her father who had a Dell and liked it. She got confused: Steve says Mac; Dad says Dell. What to do? Then she saw an ad in the local paper saying that Dell is #1. The advertisement became the tie-breaker.
Your buyers ask around. They look for people like them to give a recommendation. If they can’t find anyone like them, then they’ll ask anyone. Be sure that your sales team is providing the right references with the right recommendations to the right personas.
You know how you can tell a company is in trouble? When the employees refer to the company as "they" instead of "we." As in "They won't let us do it" or "They've always done it that way."
I've lately been enjoying Tom Fishburne's weekly comic panel as part of his Brand Camp series. My favorite so far:
Do your execs (and sales people and developers... and product managers) get caught up in the Shiny New Thing syndrome? (Can you say "Cloud"?)
Don Norman's talk from Business of Software 2009
Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management
Posted on June 21, 2010 at 10:01 PM in Industry News & Commentary, Presentations, Tips & Tricks, Working with Customers | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)