UX Research Led-Growth: Why SaaS Companies Should Focus On Customer Centric Data
This article is part of Pensieve AI’s Intro to UX Research series.
Are you investing in resources to help achieve customer-centric led growth for your business? If your answer is no, you might be walking into a perfect storm without realizing it.
Achieving customer satisfaction dictates the success of a company. And since your end-users are your customers, you should be asking yourself these following questions: Is your average customer technically savvy enough to use your product? Do they have the potential to become power users on your platform? How can you create value and incentivize your customers so that they keep coming back to use your product?
In SaaS focused businesses, the road to developing a sustainable product can be achieved through this one simple hack — talking to your users to develop a platform that directly serves their needs.
Although it seems simple, this is actually a nuanced skill that involves utilizing the right combination of tools and techniques to develop the right solutions for your product from daunting to streamlined.
According to a well known study done by Peter Kriss, Research Scientist formerly at Medallia and featured by Harvard Business Review, his team found that when studying two companies, one transaction-based and one relationship-based, quantifying the impact of customer experience was not only possible, but is also exponentially proven to generate more revenue than without.
Subsequently, if it has been proven that UX research directly correlates with a company’s success, why aren’t founders prioritizing it? So if we know the method for success lies in UX research, why do so many founders not prioritize it? In a market where being competitive is hyper prioritized, for instance, “move fast, break things” or “do it now and ask for forgiveness later” it has become culturally acceptable to put something out into the world to meet deadlines rather than meticulously strategize a product, feature, or solution, without little credence. Regardless of what stage or size a company is, it is time we start normalizing the implementation of healthy processes during the product development cycle prior to the launch.
Vastly different from academic research where you spend many years studying one particular case, conducting user research (also known as UX research) can be done in a short period of time, especially since technology trends change rapidly and end users are left to adapt. UX research allows you to be inclusive to the broad spectrum of humans because creating technology for all to experience easily is your end goal.
If you’ve heard the new term “community-lead growth,” you’ll see the emphasis placed on end users, at large. When you build a product or solution for a network of end users who share similar values, ideals, pain points, and frustrations, and if you’re able to meet their needs, that’s fundamentally what user-lead growth is. By getting to the root of an end-user’s problem, it’s proven that it’ll scale more effectively and efficiently than trying to build various features for a wide array of people. And this is when you should be relying on your UX designers and UX researchers, and even your experienced product managers, especially in hyper growth stages. The UX research that’s conducted earlier on will be longer lasting, and more evergreen when done correctly.
You might be wondering how to invest in the right resources if you’re keen on getting started now. There are many tools and platforms that support your UX research flows and one thing to keep in mind is to always advocate for utilizing the right tools that also keep user data privacy in mind.
Interested in joining our effort to democratize user research? Check us out at pensieveai.com or on social (LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter).
