AI is changing the way we measure success

In today’s world, or should I say yesterday’s world? The success of a product or feature launch is measured by acquisition, engagement, retention, and customer satisfaction. If we aren’t acquiring new customers or retaining the ones we have, we will eventually reach a point of shutting down. If customer satisfaction is low, the moment a new competitor enters the field with similar services, they will be trialing your competitor to see if the move is worth it.

Those three points are all pretty standard. The one that is changing, however, is user engagement. Let’s take an example.

There is no short supply of productivity tools in the market. If you have worked cross-functionally in a large organization, you may have used tools with similar functionality from different providers. For example, at a previous organization where I worked, I had to juggle Zoom and WebEx, Microsoft Teams and Slack, Notion, and Confluence with Jira, Asana, and Monday. Talk about a nightmare. Most of my time was spent knee-deep in these products instead of getting actual product work done.

I can guarantee that user engagement is a success metric for each one of the products listed. This way of defining success is where the story changes and new challenges emerge.

Increasing value, reducing engagement

The title says it all. The more time a product (depending on the industry) can give back to the customer, the better. Let’s take a look at our productivity tools again.

Imagine spending 20 hours a week managing tasks in a tool rather than doing what you were hired to do—create and innovate. Then you see an ad. A new product that will decrease your time in their tool to a maximum of 5 hours a week while delivering the value and results you expect.

You try it out and find it to be true. This tool learns and your time has decreased exponentially, giving back time to work on real customer problems. The product is working for you.

A few years ago, this may have felt like a pipedream, however, with AI exponentially improving, the market winner will be the company that sets their sights on giving as much time back to customers as possible.

Decreasing engagement while increasing value.

The challenge of this method

As I mentioned, new challenges arise. If a business embarks on this journey, it will be crucial to be aware of customer sentiment during this transformation. After all, until the product is proven, the lowering of engagement can either mean it’s working, or people are departing as the value for them is wavering.

The change won’t happen overnight. It’s advised to make incremental changes towards this goal, with fine-tuned measurements of success. By understanding on a deep level the challenges, workflow, and goals of the customers, we can begin to automate their tasks.

Internally at many businesses, IT and technology teams always talk about automation, for internal functions—it’s time to start ramping up the talks of automation for customers.

Are you ready to shift your mindset to reduce engagement while increasing value as a business goal? Let me know in the comments!