Can Your Product Design Directly Influence Your Operating Cost And Adoption Rate?
Many of the products in the market need installation by a dedicated and specialised skilled workforces. Post buying the product, the after-sales or operations team send their representatives to install the product in the customer’s home or premise. However, in recent past there has been a spike in DIY, Plug and Play concept where people can assemble and install product components themselves.
Your user’s journey doesn’t start when he/she switches ON the product, it starts when he/she receives your product.
A decade before traditional multichannel television or broadcast channels used to be the only option to watch TV until Internet streaming services came into picture. These traditional channels needed a setup box or receiver, dish antenna, cables. The setup and configurations are so complex that the service providers maintain dedicated workforce with specialised skills to visit the location and install it.
However in last 5 years, OTT/Streaming devices or Content service providers like Roku, Firestick, Google ChromeCast has gained immense popularity attributed their rich on-demand content. A report by fortune points that 50% smartTV owners already own a streaming player and more than 3% of traditional cable or satellite TV subscription users cut the cord last year, highest in record so far in US.
Apart from the product capabilities/features what else could be the reason behind its popularity or rather fast adoption rate? Well there is one thing common in all of them..”DIY” or “Plug and Play” design ingrained in the product. In none of these OTT or content streaming providers the consumers have external dependency on any other technician to visit and install it. The installation is so easy and fast that they can simply plug it to HDMI port and its up and running! Yes DIY Plug and Play Design!
Recently I came across another interesting product in India from Waterscience which is sold under the brandname Cleo or Iris.The product has gained immense popularity among urban residents for its effectiveness and ease of installation. Traditional home softeners have installation dependency on plumbers as you need to cut and fit it to your supply pipe line or disassemble the tap, which is difficult task for any individual in general. But incase of Cleo, there is no dependency on any after sales service or plumber to install your product. Its a plug and play filter cum softener which is fitted to the end point of a tap and installation that can be achieve within 5 minutes. All that the user need to do is is unscrew the aerator and screw Cleo into it. A great amount of effort has been put forward to make the product standardised and scalable in design. The same product can be used in overhead shower, handheld shower and tap as well as to all 24mm/28mm aerators. A simple search comparison with other home water softeners will show how much dependency on labour, time and skills you need to install their product over Waterscience’s. This is a clear competitive design advantage for Waterscience over others.
Undoubtedly a product’s success is highly dependent on the capabilities or features that it offers to meet user’s expected benefits. In the process many of the Product managers focus on the user journey once the product gets installed or is switched on or ready to be used. Till that point, PMs assume that trained dedicated workforce can do the job. But this approach inherits a dependency in your product design and subsequently makes your product more expensive to maintain by specialised and dedicated channel. At the same time a PM who thinks or takes care of the user journey starting from the moment product is received, designs products that can have competitive advantage over others in the market. Consequently the adoption rate is highly influenced by the “How well it does the job” and “How fast it gets ready to do the job”!
DIY Plug and Play design is a Win-Win approach for both organisations as well as users.
While the organisation will reduce its operations cost, the buyers will access and use the product faster with ease. This will help in spreading the “Aha!” moment for the product and hence faster adoption rate for the product as well.
