In a software-driven world, customer experience wins

Management23 Feb 2023

Sponsored by Product School

With CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs) skyrocketing by as much 222 per cent over the past decade and marketing budgets being cut in light of economic uncertainty, more and more companies across all verticals are looking to their product itself as a means to retain and acquire customers.

A decade ago, famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote “software is eating the world.” Today, as McKinsey puts it, software hasn’t merely eaten the world—it is the world.

Every company is a software company. Whether you sell financial products or french fries, in other words, you’re also in the software business.

This matters, because it means your competitive edge is the customer experience you provide.

With CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs) skyrocketing by as much 222 per cent over the past decade and marketing budgets being cut in light of economic uncertainty, more and more companies across all verticals are looking to their product itself as a means to retain and acquire customers.

You can’t fake a great customer experience

Your customer will know when their needs have truly been served—and when they haven’t (just ask Netflix). If you get this right, on the other hand, your Product itself can become a key customer acquisition channel. This is called Product-Led Growth, or PLG.

Product-Led Growth doesn’t just mean giving someone a free trial of a SaaS product or enabling in-app purchase. It’s an organization-wide Product Mindset that understands that sustainable growth comes from customer experience, and customer experience is everyone’s responsibility.

Product-led growth (PLG) isn’t just for product managers or tech companies

Even traditional sales organizations can make use of Product-Led Growth methodology: Your sales team can use data delivered by your Product team to qualify leads. Your Product team can work with your sales team to deliver a world-class experience early, so your sales people are speaking with prospects who have already experienced the value that your product can provide.

Delivering a world-class customer experience can result in:

Customer Retention: When users are getting true value, they stick around.
Customer Expansion: Leverage existing users as an inbound distribution channel to bring net new customers.

Product has moved to the centre, and to the top

Product Managers—if a company even employed them—used to report to a Chief Marketing Officer, and were seen largely as a Silicon Valley phenomenon.

Today, over one third of Fortune 100 companies have a Chief Product Officer (CPO)—that’s a 41% growth over the last few years, and this trend is only accelerating with over 2,000 CPO jobs currently open on LinkedIn in the US alone.

As Product becomes a strategic priority, Product as well as L&D leaders are focused on aligning Product Talent with Product Adjacent roles like Product Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success. Product Team training can accelerate this process and drive efficiency by creating shared frameworks and best practices organization-wide.

Product has earned a seat at the table

A majority of L&D leaders know Product will be more important in the future than it is now, while LinkedIn reports that 41% of L&D leaders expect their budgets to grow this year. This reflects an understanding that how companies onboard, align and leverage Product Management talent is critical to their success, especially during economic uncertainty.

Learn how to use Product to drive growth, cut costs, and stay ahead in the 2023 Future of Product Management Report: Be the First to Read It