5 Surprising Things We Learned About Product Data—Results From Our First Product Success Survey

At the beginning of the year, we launched our first Product Success Survey. We wanted to better understand what dimensions of product data were measured by product teams, and which measures were the most predictive for long-term product success. Over three weeks in January, we surveyed nearly 200 product managers and executives from business and consumer-facing technology companies. Some of what we found was usual and expected, but some of the results were surprising. This blog quickly walks through some of the more surprising findings from our survey. To read the full survey results, click here.

1. Product data is not as prevalent as you might expect

It seems like analytics and analytics-driven decision making are becoming the norm across a lot of different business functions. Certainly nobody would attempt to practice marketing or sales leadership today without a strong understanding of the value of data. However, product teams didn’t leverage data nearly as much as we thought they would. Nearly 25% of respondents didn’t measure any analytics on their products at all.

2. Product data use varies significantly by business type

Our survey was limited to product teams in the technology industry, however, we saw significant variation between different types of companies. Those in the B2B software space were the most likely to use product data with 82% reporting regular product analytics use while those in the consumer software space were the least likely with only 40% reporting regular product analytics use.

3. Frequent user feedback is the norm

We expected that every company would regularly solicit user feedback, but were surprised at the frequency we found. 90% of respondents collected regular user feedback, and over half of respondents collected user feedback more than once a month. More and more organizations are embracing lean methodology with rapid experimentation and tight feedback loops to rapidly and continuously improve their products.

4. NPS is still nascent

Net Promoter Scores℠ are an increasingly popular way to measure customer satisfaction and predict growth potential. A simple score, based on a single user survey question – NPS helps organizations clearly quantify and benchmark their performance based on customer satisfaction. Although companies are increasingly using NPS, only 35% reported using it regularly, while 30% of respondents were not familiar with the approach at all.

5. Companies with the most advanced analytic programs significantly outperform their peers

It’s not surprising that companies who measured more performed better, but the difference between the most advanced companies and those with little or no product analytics was significant. Companies with the most advanced analytic programs saw 2x higher revenue and reported higher profitability, faster growth, and lower churn than their competitors.

These are just a few of the insights that we found from the survey. You can read the full survey results here. To learn more about the best data practices from the highest performing product organizations, watch the on-demand webinar Building a Product Management Data Strategy.