Make Customer Adoption Part of Your Strategy

There are so many customer-framed business terms today – customer service, customer experience, CX, customer-facing – and here’s the latest: “Customer Adoption”. This is the process whereby an organization introduces a new product to the marketplace, resulting in the acquisition of new and repeat customers, and it plays a huge role in the success of your business. Let’s face it – when you introduce a new product, service or feature into the marketplace, your goal is to have it accepted and purchased by customers – both existing and new.

Customer adoption is all about encouraging your audience to adopt your new products and services. It’s the end-to-end process of the entire customer journey – from product awareness right through to product integration into your customer’s life. It also reflects the rate at which these customers adapt to the use of a new product or service. It strongly parallels the buyer’s journey from a marketing standpoint, in that it encompasses the process a customer will undergo to learn about the new product/service, express interest, evaluate, test, and finally adopt by purchasing and using it.

It’s important to remember that the types of customer service required throughout this process will vary – the type of service required by a potential buyer in the awareness stage is different than what they’ll need at the adoption stage. As a business principle, customer adoption is closely related to the ‘diffusion of innovation theory’ – which explains the process where an idea or product gradually diffuses throughout a population or social system, is embraced, and ultimately becomes part of our day-to-day.

So if we consider those five critical stages of customer adoption (awareness, interest, evaluation, testing and adoption), it leads to the next question: how does an organization increase customer adoption?  Here are the basics:

Beta Testing

This is a no-brainer and provides you with information related to how your product works in the real world. It can arm you with an opportunity to fine-tune your release – and of course, you’ll only test on a limited, hand-picked selection of customers.

Evaluate Feedback

After beta testing, rely on your customers to steer the process. Have them fill out a survey to help you evaluate what works, what they liked, and what they didn’t like.

Tap Into Your Loyal Customer Base

Customer adoption strongly relies on existing loyal customers – you might consider giving them special offers to generate interest. And don’t forget first-class service – it will literally take you the furthest in the customer adoption game.

Improve Customer Experience

At the end of the day, your customer adoption rate will only be increased by providing a quality product supported by exceptional CX. These are the things that capture – and retain – a customer’s attention.

Speaking of retaining – if we agree that customer retention can increase revenues by 25-95%, it’s clear to see why customer adoption is simply the other side of that coin. It’s critical, and one way to support this strategy is by partnering with a company like award-winning Anexa – one of North America’s leading customer service outsourcing companies. Studies show that most US companies have an FCR of 72% or lower, and our call center initiatives are geared toward moving that number as close to 100% as possible.

Our experience in the customer service field confirms that empowered customers are more in control. Partnering with Anexa and dedicating strategic resources to your customer adoption and experience processes can leave you to steer operations at a higher level.

Give us a call today to inquire how we can support your customer adoption initiative and sharpen your edge in the marketplace. Reach out to Anexa today.