How to Tell if Your Product or Service Isn’t Working for Your Customers

When your business rolls out a new product or service, you and your team hope that it’s effective and meets the needs of your customer base. Unfortunately, there are instances where that product or service simply isn’t working as intended for your buyers — and it’s up to you as a business leader to determine whether this is the case.

To help you make this determination and understand your next steps, a panel of leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

“What’s one way you can determine if a product or service isn’t as effective or needed as you thought, and what should be your next step once you make this determination? Why?”

Here’s what they recommend you do to get started.

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1. Track Rage Clicks

“Rage clicks happen when a user clicks or taps the same thing repeatedly, which usually indicates frustration. Tracking rage clicks can help business owners identify buttons that aren’t working properly, broken elements, confusing content or slow-loading pages. You can easily track rage clicks with behavior analytics or during in-person usability testing.” ~ Shu Saito, SpiroPure

2. Speak With Your Customers

“A consistent stream of communication with your customers and clients will not only provide you with the data and feedback that enable you to get a proper assessment of your business’s effectiveness, but it also allows you to ask your customers for their own ideas or solutions to their unique problems. These ideas can provide you with new and profitable directions for your business.” ~ Kyle Michaud, Carolina Dozer

3. Review Your Metrics

“Look at analytics that matter to your company. If retention or consistent use drive growth for your company, then you must review those metrics and see if they align with your projections. If they aren’t aligned with forecasts, it’s likely that the product isn’t as effective as you thought. To remedy this, you must gather feedback and tweak as necessary, review your metrics again, rinse and repeat. ” ~ Jared Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.

4. Conduct Product Testing or Surveys

“Product testing is a great way to determine if a product is not as effective or needed as you thought. Surveys can also help analyze social feedback. Using these insights into customer intent, quality and value, you can update your product or service or create a new offering that better resonates with customer needs.” ~ Brian David Crane, Spread Great Ideas

5. Consider Your Product’s Cost and Benefit

“The decision of whether or not to use a product or service often comes down to a question of cost and benefit. Cost is substantial because it reflects the financial outlay necessary to purchase the product or service. Benefit, on the other hand, is essential because it reflects the potential benefits that may be gained from using the product or service. It’s the most scientific way to decide.” ~ Kelly Richardson, Infobrandz

6. Determine the Feasibility of the Product

“You can determine if a product is right by looking at its feasibility. This consists of asking yourself if the product is physically possible to make, if you have the resources required to make it and if there’s a market for it. If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no,’ then the product might not be as feasible as you think and you should discard it.” ~ Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

7. Search for Value Leakage

“The most telltale sign that a product or service isn’t doing what it should is that you’re having to constantly remind the customer to use the product. That usually means that the product isn’t top of mind and there’s value leakage somewhere in the customer journey. Search for the leak! Start with collecting real feedback on what’s misaligned, then iterate from there to close those gaps.” ~ Daniel Voskin, Goals Aesthetics and Plastic Surgery

8. Ask if the Product Fits Your ‘Universe’

“A simple way to gauge if a product is needed is to check if it belongs to your ‘universe’ — meaning your industry, audience and products. Some products are so out of left field that you’re unlikely to have the expertise or resources to make them work. If a product or service doesn’t seem to fit in your universe, it might not be as effective or needed as you thought.” ~ Blair Williams, MemberPress

Image: Envato Elements

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