PMs routinely weigh product innovation’s benefits against their potential customers’ psychologies. Often, this entails balancing the push for new features and squashing customer resistance, a concept well-articulated in the reading.
Loss aversion psychology is one framework adopted by PMs to understand market and consumer trends in order to optimize their product offerings. Risk mitigation goes hand-in-hand with this framework, and is a central tenet of the duties of a PM. When introducing new products, PMs need to accurately grasp what strategies are deployable to create conducting environments for consumers to buy their products. For example, a limited-time trial lets users experience the new features of a product without committing resources upfront. A robust money-back guarantee can also make consumers think investing in a particular product is less risky. Assessments made by consumers are crucial to PMs to understand as well. When discussing a consumer’s thoughts behind assessing innovation, the reading discusses how innovations are thought of in terms of “what [consumers] gain and lose relative to those existing products.” To me, this seems like the most important consumer behavioral aspect to consider when weighing product innovation risks. This is particularly important when thinking new products are simply better products. Effective communication can also significantly alleviate buyer resistance. Educating consumers is another way POMs can mitigate customer resistance to new products. Leveraging multiple channels like the company website(s) and social media accounts can provide detailed info on benefits and functionalities of new features. Tutorials, FAQs, and product demo videos can facilitate a smoother transition for consumers of new products. In turn, these ploys can provide valuable insights to the PMs and the larger product teams at play. Product transparency regarding what changes are happening, why they are necessary, and what benefits they bring is also important. Achieving this can be done through tactics like product newsletters, social media posts, and direct communication channels like customer support. Building trust in this way can significantly lower risk perception, persuading users to try new features and product offerings.
