{"id":1873,"date":"2018-06-08T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=1873"},"modified":"2025-01-03T12:10:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T12:10:39","slug":"ways-to-improve-a-product","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/ways-to-improve-a-product\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make product improvements to existing products"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kaizen is the philosophy of continuous improvement. Web businesses searching for product market fit think they can follow this philosophy just by shipping code.<\/p>\n

But shipping code doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re making any significant product improvements. Similarly you can make undeniable improvements to parts of your product and get no response or appreciation for it. It all comes down to the type of improvements you\u2019re making.<\/p>\n

What is product improvement?<\/h2>\n

Product improvement is the process of making meaningful product changes that result in new customers or increased benefits realized by existing customers. The two most popular ways to make product improvements are to add new\u00a0product features or improve existing ones.<\/p>\n

Adding new features<\/h2>\n

New features are risky. You have to be very confident they will be valued.<\/p>\n

Adding new features expands the scope of the existing product, often making a big marketing splash, getting a version bump, and resulting in some press releases. Often the fanfare attracts new customers and new use cases for the product. Typically, new features are the only improvements that outsiders (i.e. non-customers) will ever hear about.<\/p>\n

New features are risky. You have to be very confident they will be valued, as they\u2019re like children; you have to love them and support them no matter what.<\/p>\n

Ask your customers “Would you like a [Calendar|TimeTracker|Gantt Chart]?” and they’ll reply yes. It’s a one-way “something or nothing” offer. They haven’t had to make a trade-off between competing priorities. This leads to customers saying they want stuff that they don’t really want.<\/p>\n

Asking your customers “Would you rather that we made the product much faster, or that we added more labelling features?” and you’ll get a different answer. Everyone values speed.<\/p>\n

Improving existing features<\/h2>\n

You can improve an existing feature in three different ways: you can make it better (deliberate improvement), you can change it so customers use it more often (frequency improvement), or you can change it so more people can use it (adoption improvement<\/a>).
\n\"Types<\/p>\n

Not all improvements will be appreciated by all users<\/p>\n

1. Deliberate improvements<\/h3>\n

Make deliberate improvements<\/a> when you know why customers use an existing feature and what they appreciate about it. A deliberate improvement seeks only to make the feature better in ways that will be appreciated by the current users.<\/p>\n

Use when:<\/strong> There is a feature that all your customers use and like, and you see opportunity to add significant value to it.<\/p>\n

2. Frequency improvements<\/h3>\n

These are improvements you make to get a customer to use the feature more often. Adding more items to an activity feed, or more options to a search tool means that people read it more often, or use it for more tasks each day. This type of improvement can turn a once-a-week feature into an everyday feature.<\/p>\n

Use when:<\/strong> There is a feature that the majority of your customers use infrequently, and you believe they would benefit from using it more.<\/p>\n

3. Adoption improvements<\/h3>\n

Adoption improvements target customers who don\u2019t use a feature. For example, if you have a calendar feature that only half of your user base is using, an adoption improvement aims to win over the remainder. By adding ICS file import or a Google Calendar connection, you don\u2019t improve it for all users…but you make it more likely that the non-consumers will now adopt it. When you hear phrases like “I’ll use this as soon I can.<\/em>..”, then an adoption improvement might help.<\/p>\n

Use when:<\/strong> There is an important feature that a good chunk of your users have yet to adopt, and you see some obvious integrations or changes that will make it easier for them to get on board.<\/p>\n

I write about the different ways you can improve your application to make a point. Not all improvements will be appreciated by all users, and it\u2019s important to understand where the opportunities for real improvements are within your product.<\/p>\n

Product improvement examples at Intercom<\/span><\/h2>\n

To make these types of product improvements even more concrete, let\u2019s talk about what we\u2019ve improved in Intercom over the years and why.<\/p>\n

1. New message types<\/h3>\n

Awhile back, Intercom\u2019s message style was a pop-up to start a conversation.<\/p>\n

\"Example<\/p>\n

There are times when that doesn\u2019t cut it, for example, if you:<\/p>\n