Makers often focus on the shiny objectâthe product theyâre buildingâand forget about the rest of the journey until theyâre almost ready to deliver it to the customer. But customers see it all, experience it all. Theyâre the ones taking the journey, step-by-step. And they can easily stumble and fall when a step is missing or misaligned.
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3.1. Make the Intangible Tangible
âPeople are easily distracted. Weâre wired to focus our attention on tangible things that we can see and touch to the point that we overlook the importance of intangible experiences and feelings. But when youâre creating a new product, regardless of whether itâs made of atoms or electrons, for businesses or consumers, the actual thing youâre building is only one tiny part of a vast, intangible, overlooked user journey that starts long before a customer ever gets their hands on your product and ends long after.
So donât just make a prototype of your product and think youâre done. Prototype as much of
the full customer experience as possible. Make the intangible tangible so you canât overlook the less showy but incredibly important parts of the journey. You should be able to map out and visualize exactly how a customer discovers, considers, installs, uses, fixes, and even returns your product. It all matters.
There are bumps between Awareness and Acquisition, between Onboarding and Usage, between every phase of the journey, that you have to help customers over. In each of these moments, the customer asks âwhy?â
Why should I care?
Why should I buy it?
Why should I use it?
Why should I stick with it?
Why should I buy the next version?
Your product, marketing, and support have to grease the skidsâcontinually communicate and connect with customers, give them the answers they need, so they feel like theyâre on a smooth ride, a single continuous, inevitable journey.
Your productâs story is its design, its features, images and videos, quotes from customers, tips from reviewers, conversations with support agents. Itâs the sum of what people see and feel about this thing that youâve created.
And the story doesnât just exist to sell your product. Itâs there to help you define it, understand it, and understand your customers. Itâs what you say to investors to convince them to give you money, and to new employees to convince them to join your team, and to partners to convince them to work with you, and to the press to convince them to care. And then, eventually, itâs what you tell customers to convince them to want what youâre selling.
And it all starts with âwhy.â
Why does this thing need to exist? Why does it matter? Why will people need it? Why will they love it?
The process of convincing someone to buy and use your product needs to respect the customer, needs to understand their needs at different points of the user experience. You canât just shout your top ten features at people in a billboard and a website and packaging just like you canât simply hand someone your rĂ©sumĂ© at an interview, then lunch, then on a date. Sure, youâre giving them important information, but different moments in the journey
require different approaches.
Your message needs to fit the customerâs context. You canât say everything everywhere.
If you want to build a great company, you should expect excellence from every part of it. The output of every team can make or break the customer experience, so they should all be a priority. [See also: Chapter 3.1: Making the Intangible Tangible.]
There canât be any functions that you dismiss as secondaryâwhere you casually accept mediocrity because it doesnât really matter.
Everything matters.
And itâs not just about you.