How To Increase Perceived Value Without Redesigning Your Product

The market value of a product is all about customer perception. You can have the best product on the market but if people get it home and they only grasp half of what it can do, or they have trouble getting it set up, you’re sunk.

If you’re like me, before you make a big purchase you often go online to read the reviews. I tend to be suspicious of glowing reviews, wondering if the manufacturer hired people to write them. We all know that people are more motivated to complain than to praise but it seems like 90% of the reviews you see online are positive. It makes you wonder.

So I tend to pay more attention to the negative reviews. Some I discount if the person seems unreasonable, but I read them all. If enough red flags go up, I start checking out other brands, widening my search.

The point here is that a few negative reviews can really hurt your business. You need to pay attention to the whole experience of buying and using your product, not just how to get it into the shopping cart.

Let’s assume that you’ve put a lot of thought into the design of your product, it stacks up well against the competition and sales are good. Now your customer has it home but things are not going smoothly.

How many times have you yourself been frustrated while trying to assemble a product or trying to get it hooked up? You’re sitting there reading the manual and you get confused and annoyed.

One of two things has probably happened. The manual uses jargon or diagrams that are hard to understand making you feel stupid, or the manual is so poorly designed that you form a negative opinion about the product.

What happens next is 1) your customer takes the extra time to figure it out himself, 2) they spend an hour with the call center or 3) they return the product to the store.

In each case, you just lost someone who could have joined your virtual sales force. You transformed a happy customer into a dissatisfied customer, or worse, a guy who goes online and posts a bad review.

So, what are the attributes of effective product documentation?

1. Clear language that explains the product without being condescending.
2. Effective use of graphics. People comprehend and remember graphics quicker than words.
3. Engaging page layout that doesn’t intimidate. A good layout makes it easy to read or scan the content and leads you through it in a logical sequence.
4. Effective balance of content and white space. Huge blocks of text put people off.
5. Links and navigation aids in electronic files.
6. Advanced functions separated from the commonly used ones so people can learn the basics first.
7. Separate sections for each language. If you mix languages in the same section, people will miss important facts.
8. Safety issues highlighted and located where they make sense, not just listed in a big block at the beginning.

If your customer quickly learns all the features that they need and a few that they love but didn’t know they needed without getting frustrated, you’ve won.

Don’t let half of the cool features in your product go to waste. You need to find a way to maximize your product’s perceived value by staying with your customer after they get the product home.