How to be product led, on the inside and out

Something has changed in the tech space in recent years: More and more companies say they’re taking a product-led approach to their business. Organizations boast of product-led growth, product-led sales, product-led marketing, and product-led customer success. Self-guided tours, freemium trials, and countless other tactics have revolutionized the customer experience for the better, letting them experience and see the value of the product on their own terms, at their own pace. 

But the convenience, ease of use, and general satisfaction boost the product-led movement has brought to customers shouldn’t end there. If companies, particularly on the enterprise level, want to succeed in today’s work world, they need to apply the same mindset internally. Employees, after all, now expect the same quality experiences from the software they use at work as they do from the software they use in their personal lives as consumers. Companies can and should meet those expectations. In doing so, they’ll become product led on the inside and out. 

Product led and the customer experience

At its simplest, being product led means that your company puts its product at the center of everything it does. Think sales teams that let their software do the talking through freemium trials, marketing teams that promote new features within the product, or support teams that provide guidance within the app. In all these cases, touch points between company and customer that previously took place in a variety of other ways now move inside the product. In doing so, friction areas are eliminated and the product becomes more engaging for users. 

A product-led approach also puts companies in a strong position to better understand their customers. Moving previously external interactions within the software itself means organizations can leverage product analytics to glean insights about customer behavior, sentiment, and feedback that they previously couldn’t. A truly product-led organization leverages customer knowledge throughout everything it does. It’s a differentiator that helps solidify a company’s competitive advantage.

Product led and the employee experience

Similar to how companies leverage product-led strategies to support the customer experience, they can do the same to enhance the employee experience. You can leverage employee knowledge, data, and feedback to boost satisfaction and productivity throughout their organization. Using a digital adoption solution such as Pendo Adopt, IT and business technology leaders can harness robust analytics to understand how employees are engaging with software at work. They can then use the insights gleaned to understand the flow of work across apps and across time, and let that understanding inform process, workflow, and software decisions from a place of empathy for employees. 

Organizations can also leverage a digital adoption solution to create better guidance and support experiences for their teams. To take but one example, a company can onboard new employees to new ways of working in the same way they onboard customers: within the software products they work in every day. Pendo Adopt lets you deploy in-app guidance and notifications to custom segments based on metadata or behavior, ensuring you get the right support to the right employee at the right time. In the process, you can also solicit feedback from employees in the app to see how change is going. The result will empower teams to do their best work, boosting confidence and productivity across your organization. 

One mindset, two directions

A company that takes a product-led approach internally will find its employees happier and more productive. And that improved employee experience trickles down to better business outcomes. The majority of executives agree: You can’t deliver a great customer experience without also providing a great employee experience. Being product led is the answer to both.

Ready to learn more about the power of Pendo Adopt to create great digital experiences for employees? Schedule a custom demo today.