when they depend on you

Customer adoption is achieving operational dependence, while simultaneously achieving business value by using the right features and functionality of the solution.

From The Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch

Have you thought of product adoption like this? I hadn’t.

Adoption as how deeply an account and its users explore a product. Adoption doesn't end. People cycle in and out of organizations, and new features are launching. Training never stops, and neither does adoption.

But McCulloch’s idea of “operational dependence” kind of caught me off guard. It feels almost too strong, like how “moments of delight” can feel a bit too fluffy. But we all aim to build products that people come to rely on.

When someone depends on our product they’re more likely stick around. When that happens, we have a responsibility to ensure our product delivers real value.

Dependency without value is a burden (or worse).

It's natural that customers make effective and helpful products part of their workflows. That kind of dependency is a net positive. Save time. Remove friction. Deliver results that feel impossible to copy.

With all this in mind, it's fair to as a few questions when building a product:

• Do we create clear, demonstrable value?

• Do our customers find it easy to inject our product into their routine?

• Is our product reliable and valuable enough that customers will find it hard to replace it?

Adoption doesn’t end after implementation and onboarding. New features and new users keep the process alive.

Building a product that customers weave into everyday ops and workflows, that helps keep them around for the long haul. That's operational dependence we can all get behind.

Peter

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