How to Convince Users to Adopt Your Technology
As innovation confronts today’s consumer at every turn, what determines a product’s success?
If eons of evolution have taught us anything, it’s that human beings aren’t exactly wired for sudden change. Even the most adaptive among us may resist innovation at first — which is why introducing new technology within a workplace has historically been a challenge. Even though new systems may positively impact workflow, convincing a group of people to collectively change how they operate can seem daunting.
But where I work, at Compass, people join the company for exactly this reason. As a technology-driven real estate platform, our in-house product, design, and engineering teams are constantly developing new, proprietary tools to support our team of agents. And the amazing part? Our agents — many of whom have spent years in a regulated, relatively analog industry — have embraced this culture of innovation.
Designing for users who represent both colleague and consumer poses a unique challenge for our product and engineering teams as well. While we have the advantage of direct interaction and immediate feedback, our agents, as independent contractors, are free to conduct their business however they choose. This means that despite our proximity, we still have to earn their adoption, same as we would a typical consumer.
How have we not only succeeded, but built the lifeblood of a business on such seemingly tricky foundation? Here are a few of the learnings we’ve cultivated along the way.
Tread lightly
Changes that are overly fundamental in nature or too abrupt are doomed to fail. Our goal as we develop new products is to introduce change, but not force it, by emphasizing existing processes and improving upon them. “We make incremental enhancements to user experience, not major changes to the business model,” Yaron Schoen, Product Design Lead at Compass, often says of his team. “We don’t tell our agents to alter how they do their business; we just make the necessary processes easier and faster for them.” The product team also actively solicits agents’ requests, meaning every tool starts and ends with its future owner. This already veers from the standard B2C dynamic: we’re not attempting to convert them as users; they’re contracting us as service providers. As a result, they feel invested and supported throughout the development process and look forward to the initial release as well as the future iterations to come.
Consider a basic example: client collateral. A critical staple of real estate, these pitch documents were costing our agents a lot of time to assemble. The output didn’t require much improvement, but the creation process did. Our product team started by examining how it could be better: increased speed, wider scope, more distinct aesthetic? Then — because we’re fortunate enough to have immediate, direct access to our target market — we talked to the agents themselves to confirm we were on the right path. This process ultimately resulted in a proprietary piece of software that reduced the amount of time it takes Compass agents to construct an entire pitch book from hours to mere minutes.
Connect the dots
Once you’ve determined where opportunities for improvement exist, examine the patterns of your target audience. Do they spend a lot of time on email? Do they conduct their business mostly over the phone? Do they work more in Excel or Keynote? Once you’ve made these determinations, model elements of your product around those interfaces they’re most comfortable with. As our product analyst Ishika Das is quick to note, the more intuitive your product feels, the keener your audience will be to adopt it.
In our case, agents are heavily reliant on spreadsheets and analytics, so many Compass products feature customizable data tables. Forcing users to incorporate new paradigms for the sake of novelty unnecessarily heightens the learning curve; by trying to mimic the behaviors they’re accustomed to, you can foster adoption. It’s basic consumer psychology: if you present anyone with unrecognizable features, the heavier the cognitive load becomes and the less likely they’ll be to espouse your product.
This tactic is all the more pertinent when designing products for users who possess a foreign or advanced knowledge base, as it creates common points of reference between the developer and user. “We respect complementary intelligence and our teams reflect that,” stated Alex Stern, our head of growth, in a recent meeting. “Our engineers and product staff have tremendous knowledge in their respective fields, but must also rely on the agents’ own expertise to build meaningful solutions.” A product designer at Compass may not have a real estate background per se, but can glean immediate industry insights by looking at which universal design elements are most pervasive.
Invest in quality
A common myth is that products developed exclusively for professional use cases don’t need to be as polished or user-friendly as those intended for the public. This is overwhelmingly not the case; if our products aren’t compelling in experience as well as outcome, our agents won’t use them. We all respond to the same visual, tactile, and experiential elements on a visceral level, according to Das, who partially credits the tools’ polished functionality for their high adoption rates. How do we ensure that our products meet these criteria? Simple — we ask.
While most companies in our field rely on IT teams to simply administer the technology of remote, third-party developers, our tools go straight from the hands of the product team to the people who use them. As a result, our development process is highly iterative and subject to continuous communication. Our agents inform everything we create, from first ideation to later refinements based on actual usage, and every contributor remains fully involved throughout the product lifecycle.
Develop a Network
Many of the most successful technology companies in the world have constructed their businesses around product networks — integrated groups of complementary tools designed to build upon one another. The more isolated a product’s usage, the more limited its potential for success. But create a logical, intuitive platform to serve as a central hub for all necessary operations, and users will remain more engaged.
We’ve adopted this strategy at Compass, creating a complete suite of interconnecting products to address every step of an agent’s business. Once they arrive on the platform, they have uninterrupted access to the apps, data, and assets they need to perform searches, develop show sheets, or conduct valuations. We’ve designed each product to organically feed into the next, allowing the user to continuously toggle between functions without ever having to switch service portals, upload external content, or login to multiple platforms. Not only do our distinct products work together; each one enhances the strength and functionality of the others in turn. Increasing the timespan and depth of our user interaction also helps us track patterns and use cases, which in turn informs future iterations and refinements.
Build buzz early
Much like the way Apple starts hyping the next iPhone edition before it ever hits the shelves, our marketing team leads multi-pronged campaigns around every tool under development. They’ll update agents on progress and invite their feedback along the way, enlisting them as contributors and fostering a sense of collective ownership. By the time the products are officially released — each complete with email campaigns, professionally-produced video tutorials, celebratory events, and training sessions — the staff views them with anticipation, not trepidation.
In a broader sense, our company culture greatly contributes to the success of our product implementation. When agents join our team, they fully expect an environment of continuous change for the better. “The fact that we externally tout our technology and product capabilities inspires agents to master using them,” recently explained Indira Vaidy, Product Marketing Lead. “We position ourselves as an intelligent company, and the agents’ ability to demonstrate that firsthand to their clients is incredibly compelling.”
Ultimately, implementing new processes can test any company regardless of model, but approaching them with confidence, transparency, and innovative messaging is key for easing any transition. When technology is exemplary, swift and enthusiastic adoption is not only possible; it’s inevitable.
Liming Zhao is Chief Technology Officer at Compass. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and previously worked at D. E. Shaw Research developing software for the specialized supercomputer Anton for molecular dynamics simulations. While there, Liming built high-performance platforms and tools for protein folding simulations and analysis, as well as the job execution framework for Anton supercomputers.
