Strategy: Business Strategy

For any business-to-business (B2B) startup, an effective user-onboarding process isn’t just a nice-to-have, but a pivotal factor in driving customer satisfaction and retention, increasing customers’ Lifetime Value (LTV), and driving sustainable business growth. An effective user-onboarding process can turn a customer’s initial interest into a long-term commitment.

The path to successful user onboarding in the B2B world is distinct from that of business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations. The challenges are unique and stem from the different expectations and needs of business clients. In B2B, the process of making a decision to become a customer typically involves multiple stakeholders, who have their own concerns and criteria. This complexity requires a more tailored onboarding experience that caters to the diverse roles and interests within a single large organization. Read More

This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Jim Kalbach’s new book The Jobs to Be Done Playbook: Align Your Markets, Organization, and Strategy Around Customer Needs. ©2020, Rosenfeld Media.

Chapter 4: Defining Value

In this chapter, you will learn about these plays:

• How to find unmet needs
• How to create goal-based personas
• A new way to compare competing solutions
• How to define a value proposition

The product marketing manager at a company I once worked for stood up in a meeting to present his strategy. He proceeded to describe the top customer needs that we should support with our solutions. I was thrilled to see him align to a customer-centric model. Read More

Most UX designers I know are constantly working to improve their craft through learning more about User Experience or experimenting with new and exciting UX tools and technologies. This is a positive quality that may be a byproduct of the UX design process itself, which is heavily predicated on constant improvement, experimentation, and innovation.

However, one of the most important ways of expanding your understanding of UX design is also one of the most underrated. In my experience, novice UX designers tend to avoid trying to understand the business objectives of their clients, which can complicate what are already new concepts to them. In contrast, I observe that most experienced UX designers seek to understand and absorb business objectives—ultimately, making that effort a major part of their UX design process.

In this column, I’ll break down the value of understanding your clients’ business objectives and show how this can not only improve your design process but your designs. Read More