Make it Fast by Communicating
I’ve been writing code for 20 years. I will use a fast tool over a slower more fancy tool every time. Every. Single. Time. However, speed is all about perception. You can make slow things seem fast. It all comes down to communication.
Whether it’s code, products, manufacturing or really anything else I can think of, communication is the key to speed. We just need to know what is happening.
My single greatest mistake as a human is lack of communication. When I don’t communicate well, people make assumptions. And when people make assumptions that is their reality. Regardless of whether or not they are right. I have found that people can deal with almost anything if you let them know what is happening. Here’s a couple of ways to think about this from a technical perspective and a product sales life cycle.
Your App Is Slow. Show Fast.
Pre-load screens are becoming more and more common. Facebook famously started using them in the feed that they presented to users to show that “something” was happening in the background. This way you know that there is something happening on the interwebs. You visually communication that something is happening with grayed-out text bars and squares that represent the content that is coming.
So instead of staring at nothing, your users will see that something is happening. And users will wait, as long as they know that something is happening.
When will it ship?
For the product side, let’s look at Kickstarter. Part of what they do is encourage you to put out updates about the product and how it’s going. The products that I supported in the past have put out at least monthly blog posts with updates on manufacturing and what they are learning as well as information about the products in general. Even when products took longer than usual it was ok as long as I know what’s going on.
Tell them how to use it.
Whether it’s a physical product or software, your users will wait for it if you keep in touch with them. On one product I worked on the content team sent out weekly emails that told people how they could use the product while we built it. It included instructional content as well as features of the product and use cases.
The beautiful thing about this is that it did two things. One, it kept the customer in the loop. They remained engaged and learning. Two, it helped us build up your knowledge base. So, when it was time to launch, we had background content that could be referred to by future customers.
It never ceases to amaze me how little customers, clients, and loved ones want from us. What they want is so easy to do, but it is almost always the first thing that we mess up.
It comes down to just talking to folks. Whether that’s through your app, your customer service or email. When people don’t hear from you, they assume that you are not there and that you don’t care. And that slows things down.
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This is the from the archive of an ongoing series called Making Things That Matter. Each week I will send you an email with another step in the process of building products and launching ideas. Signup here to join the conversation.
