5 Tried and Tested Strategies for Quick Time to Value

Successful companies don't limit themselves to addressing generic and evident customer expectations; they actively explore evolving and unspoken needs, seeking innovative ways to provide value. Experience design plays a central role in this transformation, enabling businesses to broaden their understanding of the complete product experience.

This, in turn, reduces time to value, increases engagement, and enhances the chances of product success. That’s why design-focused companies tend to outperform their competitors with significantly higher revenues and shareholder returns.

While customer-centric product design offers clear commercial benefits, achieving it consistently is a complex task. However, with the right approach, tools, and a commitment to ongoing improvement, any organization can gradually master it and achieve game-changing results.

Why is TTV a key metric for every product?

Customers are not very patient when it comes to delays. They expect a new product or service to instantly come in handy and bring them the awaited benefits.

A short time to value (TTV) helps customers see a return on their investment sooner, increasing the likelihood of them staying with your company. On the other hand, a long TTV can make customers look for alternatives or lose interest in your business.

To maintain a strong brand reputation, businesses need to consistently deliver efficient solutions without spending too much time on them. If your product’s TTV appears too long, customers may choose to turn to your competitors rather than stick with your company. This is definitely not the outcome you would expect, is it?

How to measure TTV?

There are various approaches to measuring time to value, and the choice of the most suitable method depends on your specific software, customer needs, and business model.

• Evaluate customer onboarding time. Measure how long it takes to prepare customers for using your product across their organization. Quick onboarding is crucial to avoid delays due to extensive training.

  
  

• Track time from free to paid transition. Monitor the time it takes for customers to switch from the free version to the paid one – this is a valuable marker of them recognizing the product's value.

• Analyze new feature adoption time. Assess the speed at which customers embrace newly introduced features. Slow adoption may indicate low demand or obstacles hindering usage.

• Calculate the time to achieve the desired ROI. Determine how long it takes for customers to realize their desired return on investment after using your product.

How to decrease TTV?

As you see, short TTV brings businesses a number of strategic advantages that lead to improved business outcomes and help them reduce customer churn rate. If those are on your agenda, here are five approaches to help shorten your time to value and retain customers more effectively.

Introduce Value Gradually

Keep in mind that you don't need to onboard all new clients with your product at once. Often, software and app developers attempt to offer an extensive array of solutions simultaneously, leading to customer overwhelm. Instead, develop a clear roadmap for the gradual rollout of solutions, providing customers with a deeper grasp of the platform before advancing to the next phase.\

Address the Right Problems

Focusing on the right problems involves understanding your audience's unmet needs. Surprisingly, more than 40% of companies fail to engage with end users when creating software solutions, hindering the creation of relevant, value-driven products. Bridging the gap between Following a user-centered approach to design allows us to bridge this gap and empowers quick, evidence-based decision-making and iterative improvements.

Just like that, a well-crafted user experience strategy rooted in thorough customer research, analysis, and user testing, along with the development of an efficient information architecture, can transform prospects into loyal, repeat customers.

Include In-App Tutorials

Carefully crafted in-app tutorials are a user-friendly way to provide clients with essential information on using your solution effectively. These tutorials should be concise, easily accessible within the app, and designed to guide clients through software usage, from basic features to advanced solutions.

Educate Through Onboarding Materials

Provide new clients with essential resources for effective product usage, including comprehensive onboarding guides and in-depth case studies. Offering personalized guidance, answering queries, and supplying extra resources for a swift start will help reduce time to value.

For instance, a marketing automation software company can assign a dedicated Customer Support Manager to assist users in setting up accounts, creating campaigns, and tracking metrics, ensuring a swift value realization process.

Make an Efficient Use of  Empty States

An empty state occurs when a product screen lacks data or content. For example, there appears to be an empty dashboard orinbox. While these blank states can pose a psychological challenge for customers seeking value, you can turn them into **an opportunity to prompt action.
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Final thoughts

Enhancing user experiences, improving time to value, and catering to customer needs should be the core focus of any company. A customer-centric approach, which is rooted in understanding unmet needs, streamlining product development, and maintaining relevance in the customer journey, is essential.

\Digital leaders who prioritize these principles and continuously refine their offerings based on end-user insights can expect to increase profits by up to 15%. These figures confirm that your success as a company begins with your customers' success.