Balancing Innovation and Resistance to Behavior Change
Because PMs are responsible for ideating and carrying out the long-term vision of the product, including prioritizing feature development, it is their responsibility to strike the correct balance between innovating and ensuring the behavior change from the product’s adoption is still acceptable. Some strategies from the reading include making behaviorally compatible products, seeking out the unendowed, and finding believers. To start, sometimes introducing a product that requires a significant behavior change like a fully electric car won’t be easily adopted by customers who have use gas-fueled cars. Instead, many car companies created hybrid cars which embrace both the innovation and benefits from electric cars as well as the usability and convenience of gas cars. To seek out the unendowed, companies can target consumers who have not yet invested time or money in incumbent products. For instance, consumers may be more willing to purchase an Owala if they have not previously bought a Hydroflask, making this their first reuseable bottle purchase. Lastly, finding believers relates heavily with choosing the correct target audience. It reminds me of the phrase the riches are in the niches where building your product’s reputation within the correct target audience and conserving your company’s resources towards this market allows you minimize behavior change resistance.
The Role of Loss Aversion
The concept of loss aversion explains how consumers and users have a preexisting attachment to their incumbent products, creating a gap in their incumbent’s product’s actual worth and the product’s perceived value to the consumer. The reading highlights that buyers typically value their current products by 3x their actual value, meaning they are less willing to switch to a superior product unless it can overcome this 3x gap. The status quo experiment actually surprised me because I thought more people would have the grass on the other side mentality and would choose to switch. Some ways to overcome loss aversion in a user’s mind is to lower the barrier to entry such as free trials, promotional deals for new consumers, short signup process, no ads, etc. Additionally, creating behaviorally compatible products as mentioned before can ease the transition to your product.
Facilitating the Adoption of New Features
PMs can leverage this knowledge to facilitate adoption of new features by clearly outlining the costs and gains from the consumer’s perspective before investing resources and time into feature creation. It’s important to meet the consumer’s where they currently are rather than innovate for the sake of innovating. For instance, the article mentions conserving resources when testing consumer adoption before you know if your product is a long haul or a smash hit.
How Price Affects Product Adoption
One thing not mentioned in the article was how price may play a role in product adoption and attachment. For instance, when pilates or exercise memberships dues are more expensive, people become more likely to go because they have already invested capital. That presents another trade off as you want to lower the entry barrier for people to try your product but you also want them to be invested in your product.
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Mina Ky
