Most businesses operate in a market with tough competition. It is essential for them to be competitive not only in terms of pricing but also product features so that they don’t lose their buyers to competitors. Monitoring competitor products and their prices plays a crucial role for making strategic decisions regarding your own products. It is here that product intelligence comes into the picture.
What is Product Intelligence?
It is the process of collecting and analyzing the data about how the products are being used by the customers. It combines both operational and customer data for gathering new insights that lead to product development and improved customer experience.
Product intelligence makes use of customer data for building great product experiences for the buyers and convert them into retained users. The intelligent product solutions are integrated software that is easy to use for all the teams that impact the digital experience. It helps them understand their buyers, offer desired product experiences quickly, and fetch measurable business outcomes.
The concept of product-led growth is unique and challenging. Thus, a business needs newer products to thrive. Product intelligence enables a business to manage the following things:
- Complex behavioral data is based on complex experiences across different time spans and contexts.
- How the digital team can take action and what insight is required to understand the impact of these actions?
Product development needs a unique approach owing to its distinct demands.
With more and more buyers being informed than ever, their patience levels have also decreased. Understanding the buyer’s needs and preferences will help in catering to their needs. It is essential for a business to understand where product intelligence fits into its roadmap. This will enable them to innovate accurately and quickly.
One of the main benefits of product intelligence is that a business can adapt its products based on the needs of the users. It offers them insight into making regular changes to match the buyer’s needs. It also leads to improvement in customer satisfaction and engagement.
Tracking the product development metrics, known as KPIs will help in getting added insight into the quality of the product. When product development decisions are made based on the collected data, it leads to fewer errors. Constant analysis of the product to figure out the flaws with the help of intelligent products helps create better customer experience which brings success. It offers a competitive advantage thereby increasing the customer’s lifetime value.
What is the Role of Product Intelligence Platform?
Distinguishing itself from traditional business intelligence tools, a product intelligence platform focuses specifically on scrutinizing product performance and analytics. While traditionally perceived as valuable primarily for product managers and designers, the scope of product intelligence extends across various business departments. Sales teams leverage it for more impactful upsell engagements, marketing refines campaigns targeting users in the onboarding process, and customer success identifies potential at-risk customers based on product usage patterns.
Beyond its departmental applications, an optimal product intelligence platform offers a user-friendly, collaborative environment facilitating data aggregation and analysis across multiple teams. Real-time access to the latest usage data and statistics ensures that decision-makers are constantly equipped with the most current product insights. As businesses embrace this comprehensive approach, the symbiotic relationship between product intelligence and organizational efficiency becomes increasingly evident, fostering a dynamic and informed decision-making landscape.
What is an Example of Product Intelligence?
A good example of the application of product intelligence at work is Apple. The company collects data regarding how their consumers are using the iPhone. This data is then used for making improvements in its phones so that the consumers keep coming back for more. Product intelligence platforms and tools help them improve each model of the phone and stay ahead of the competitors in the Smartphone industry.
Product Intelligence vs. Business Intelligence
Though both product and business intelligence products offer insight which helps in making data-driven decisions, there is a significant difference between them. Business intelligence offers general report on business operations. It considers a broader view of the business operations. Business intelligences looks at the business health issues such as whether a new product should be developed, how many new user sign-ups they have had, and which divisions are performing well.
On the other hand, product intelligence is specific to a product and doesn’t take into consideration the entire business. It offers minute reporting to make informed decisions regarding the product. It tracks the user activity such as conversion rate, retention rate, buyer engagement, pain points of a product, and more.
Product intelligence focuses on the product health while business intelligence aims at addressing concerns regarding business health. For SaaS companies, these lines can be blurred as it is the product which is the main factor affecting their business.
Who Benefits from Product Intelligence?
Product and artificial intelligence products offer valuable information to team members of the product development and marketing department. The following can benefit from Product intelligence:
1. Product Managers
The product managers can use product intelligence to drive the whole process of development. The insights gathered by them will help the team develop new features and bring updates for product improvements.
2. Product Designers
Developers and designers depend on the product analytics for designing/ building various products. They use product data for making the buyer experience changes which can boost customer satisfaction and increase the rate of adoption.
3. Product Marketing Teams
Product intelligence helps the product marketers understand why buyers like their products. The information helps them create effective ads, develop stronger campaigns, and connect with buyers in a better way.
4. Sales Teams
The buyer behavior data helps the sales team understand the pain points of the users It offers insights that will lead to upsell conversations with users and lead to an increase in customer retention.
Importance of Product Intelligence
It is essential for a business to make the most of the product intelligence tools. The following practices should be followed by their digital teams:
1. Survey your Competitive Landscape
Product intelligence doesn’t simply focus on the product. A business can capture a wholesome picture by looking behind the stage at the competitors before analyzing their own products. Competitor analysis will help answer questions such as who your competitors are, what are their weaknesses and strengths, and what marketing tactics they use.
Understanding your competitors reveals what the target markets expect from the product. You will get to know about their likes and preferences along with expectations regarding the features. This information can be used for improving the product.
2. Improve Customer Experience
The main aim of product intelligence is not just to collect data but improve the product. To make the collected data useful, it is essential to act upon the data to improve the product experience. If product analytics reveal that customers struggle to make the most of any feature, it can help in making changes for a smoother experience.
3. Test Improvements with Product Analytics Data
Product managers are aware of the fact that product development is a cycle. It means that improvements based on the product data are not the end of it all. Constant monitoring of the product analytics data while releasing the new features is crucial. Businesses must confirm if their latest iteration has adequately addressed the user concerns. If not, it’s time to return to making improvements.
Whether a business aims to solve new problems, address older concerns, or add new features, only users will say if you got it right or not.
Significance of Product Intelligence Tools
Traditionally, business intelligence tools are used to offer a high-level general overview of the business metrics. However, product intelligence tools focus on the product performance and analytics specifically. These analyses are not only valuable to the product managers and designers but most of the business departments can take advantage of product intelligence tools.
Sales can witness more conversions and marketing team can make targeted campaigns for users that are stuck in the onboarding funnel. Customer success will help identify the at-risk customers when product usage decreases. Owing to its usefulness across the organization, an ideal product intelligence tool offers a collaborative and easily accessible environment where data can be collected and analyzed by several teams. It makes use of the latest data and statistics obtained in real-time so that decision-makers have access to up-to-date product information at their fingertips.
Make the Right Choice and Get Product Intelligence for You
The product intelligence tools and artificial intelligence products are as good as the data they have access to. The investment in a product intelligence tool will pay off only when it offers a holistic view of the buyer experience in terms of product and customer lifecycle. If the data required to get these insights is missing, the usefulness of the product intelligence initiatives can be diminished. Contact PriceIntelGuru or book a demo today to know more!
