Embrace Customer Co-creation for Product Managers

A product is likely to fail if customers are not involved in the development stage. Many businesses do not realize that customers are great assets who provide real value. You cannot achieve long-term success for your product without customer feedback.

Product managers should always work closely with their customers. This will help them build a customer-focused product. Remember, the key to sustained profitable growth is effective collaboration.

We will explore why product managers need to embrace customer co-creation for product delivery.

What Is Customer Co-Creation?

Customer co-creation is a strategy in which product managers collaborate with customers to develop a product. It involves asking for their input in the product development and decision-making process.

Product managers are expected to strategically partner with their customers to build products that align with their needs and solve problems. It is not just about listening to them but incorporating their invaluable insights to build better products.

When you co-create, you can uncover their pain points and develop your product around them.

Benefits of Customer Co-Creation

Making customer feedback central to development from ideation to the final stage will increase feature adoption and customer satisfaction. Co-creation is the future of building products. Let’s look at the benefits of co-creation.

1. Innovative Ideas

Co-creation leads to innovation. It unlocks fresh perspectives that can shed light on innovative solutions you may not have considered.

In the evolving and competitive landscape, customers are no longer passive participants. By listening to your customers, you uncover new ideas and unexpected solutions. Information needed to make your product a success is shared. Product managers are also challenged to think differently and approach tasks from different angles.

Customer co-creation helps companies build innovative product features and functionalities that are unique, thereby leading to long-term growth.

2. High Product Adoption

If you work closely with your customers, you get to know their needs, preferences, expectations, and insights. This will guide you in developing a product that meets their needs. Businesses that prioritize co-creation present products that customers love.

Once customers realize they are being listened to, they become excited and are more likely to adopt your product.

3. Free Real-Time Insights

Instead of brainstorming endlessly or wasting resources to gather valuable insights for your product, why not consider co-creation? It is the best way of gathering free and real-time information.

Your customers can offer real and actionable insight grounded in their daily experiences. Through this, you identify customers' needs and improve product performance.

4. Enhanced Product Quality

When you involve your customer in the early stages of development, you gain valuable insights into their needs and expectations. Their feedback contributes to improving the overall quality of your product.

5. Brand Advocacy

Customer co-creation strengthens trust and loyalty. Customers feel connected and appreciated when they are actively involved in the decision-making process. When they know they are valued, they are likely to recommend your products to others, sharing the benefits of its features.

6. Increased Customer Satisfaction

Effective co-creation leads to increased engagement and customer satisfaction. You deliver solutions that surpass their expectations and needs, and they feel happy and satisfied.

Customer Co-Creation Frameworks

You can use different customer co-creation models and frameworks for your product development. They include:

Crowdsourcing

This model involves gathering ideas and insights from a large group of people. It is usually done through an online platform. When you gain access to them, you allow them to vote on existing ideas and share their thoughts on them. Then, you reveal your product strategy.

When customers interact and share their opinions on a platform, you not only collect feedback but also create an organic community for your product. You might also consider using feature voting tools to streamline this process.

Design Thinking Workshops

If you want intense interactions with others, consider design thinking workshops. Customers and teams, along with yourself, come together in a workshop designed specifically to discuss your product.

This framework triggers discussions that will bring about new and fresh ideas. Many potential solutions for enhancements are also provided.

Customer Advisory Boards (CABS)

Customer Advisory Boards are another framework you can use to get feedback. If you want ideas from a specific group of customers, use CABs.

Customer advisory boards include customers who commit to an ongoing partnership with your company to give you feedback. These key customers meet regularly to offer insights and feedback on the product.

By engaging with CABs, you gain valuable insights into customers' preferences and emerging market trends. This channel of communication enables businesses to better understand customers' needs and expectations, helping them to align their overall strategy accordingly. Implementing a customer feedback management strategy can enhance these interactions.

How To Implement Customer Co-Creation

There are several ways to generate desired outcomes with customers. Here are basic guidelines on how to get started:

Define Objectives

Before getting started, the first thing to do is to clearly define your goals and objectives. Objectives differ depending on the goal of your company. It could be developing new products, improving existing features, identifying customers’ needs, or emerging market trends.

Identify which goal you want to accomplish. Once you’ve figured it out, you can now go ahead to co-create. Implementing a customer feedback management strategy can enhance these interactions.

Select Relevant Users

The next step in co-creation is to identify the users you need to work with. Involving all users is not strategic enough. Some feedback might not be beneficial to your product development. Hence, the a need for relevant users.

To make this purposeful strategy work, get the right customers on board. Prioritize selecting relevant users who will contribute valuable insights and advice.

Craft a Communication Plan

Co-creation is a strategy that needs to be carefully executed. You do not just select users and ask for their input without a thoughtful communication plan.

Effectively communicate with users about what you aim to achieve. Tell them how their ideas and contributions will make the product better. This way, they will be more willing to contribute significantly.

Choose the Right Tool

Co-creation can be effective with the right set of tools. Select a tool that allows for free interactions. You and your customers need to chat, share ideas, and give feedback.

Using the right idea management tool can help you track and monitor customers’ feedback. Exploring the best product management software can help identify the most suitable options for your needs.