We've been working on a product at KnowCap called ScaleRiver. In a nutshell, it will help us unlock an entirely new revenue stream (both internally and externally).
One of the key requirements in building the product strategy was value reinforcements. You may have read about how when creating a product, you want to lower friction and allow someone to get to a "point of delight" as quickly as possible. Sometimes this may manifest itself by using a freemium pricing model, other times it may be making it extremely easy to share in the value (see Dropbox or the OG Hotmail).
No matter how you cut it, there is likely a never-ending list of ways you can dial in your product (through features, engineering, or design) that will get your customers to that "aha" moment much faster.
That's not what we're here for today. We are here to talk about value reinforcements. In other words, what happens when your customer has that "aha" moment? Are you leveraging customer success teams to continue reinforcing the value of the product? Are you tracking new ways that customers are using your product/service and then repackaging it as a new use case for your other users? Are you bringing users into feature-building with you?
For ScaleRiver we plan to do all of the above and then some. We want to build value reinforcements directly into the product itself. Where the product features themselves make someone want to use the product more. This isn't by leveraging network effects to make the product more valuable. ScaleRiver is single-player, aka does not have collaborative features.
We envision our customers logging into email, bank account, or SR itself and realize that the more times they log in, the direct correlation to how much value they receive.
When you think about your product/service are there areas where you could build in value reinforcements?
If you're a mechanic, are you not only diagnosing issues and proactively pointing them out...are you giving the costs of what they will be down the line? The more your customers speak to you, the less headache they'll have down the road. If you are an accounting firm, are you tax planning in real-time as months pass and new tax savings are generated that can be used throughout the year?
There are so many ways to create opportunities for value reinforcements across your business. It may start with an "aha" moment, but then it turns into "why haven't I always had you in my life." Which then turns into, "my friends and family NEED to have you in their lives."
It doesn't help to just be proactive. Many times proactivity isn't scalable or repeatable. It's difficult to build a process around proactive actions unless your work is extremely cyclical in nature. For most professions and technology applications, you will want to build value reinforcements directly into the offering to your customers.
Want to create your own? Write down a list of ways that you can improve your customers' lives and choose the top 3-5 with the highest order of magnitude. See if your top/most engaged customers would find them valuable. Then chose 2-3 that are have the most potential for being able to scale and repeat. Of those choose one that you can train your most junior employees…or if you are a tech company that would require the least amount of engineering upkeep.
Then go down the list. One by one. Check them off until you have implemented the list that your top customers approve. Test their efficacy.
Then rinse and repeat.