Analytics often is forgotten until there is a problem or there is something you want to know about your software product. The problem is that usually, the analytics doesn’t help much because it didn’t have much information. There wasn’t much effort put into it because it was an afterthought.
In this post, I will go over why having detailed analytics data is not an afterthought and how it can lead to a superior software product.
1. Helps Identify Pain Points of the Customers
To a customer, the best software is one that addresses their problems. After all, that’s the reason why they are using the software in the first place. So, let’s say your software does help your customer solve their problems. What can you do to make it better?
Although your software enables your customers to do what they need, it is unlikely your software has the best user experience ever and there is no way to improve it. So, one thing you can do is by improving the process from getting from point A to B. It can be difficult to identify where the user experience needs some improvement. This is where the analytics data comes in to let you know which part(s) the users are having issues with. Those would be ideal pain points to address as it would make the experience better for your customers.
2. Easier to Track Down Problems
No software is perfect, so at one point or another, there is bound to be an issue that will slip by. When that happens it is really helpful to have analytic data that tells you what was going on when the issue occurred. Without the data, there could be hundreds of potential causes, but with analytics data, it can help narrow it down. Not only does analytics data help you resolve issues faster it can also save a lot of money by not letting it impact customers for a long time.
3. Helps Improve the Product
Improving a software product is always important, but figuring out what those improvements should be is not easy. It can become a guessing game if you don’t have any data or feedback from your customers. Sometimes you could guess right and the improvements do add value. Other times, it can end up being negative value where customers find the improvements to be worse than before.
To lower the chance of that happening you need to have analytics data. By going through the data it gives you a better picture of how customers are using the software, where they are having trouble, and what might be missing to help the customers even more. From the analytics data, you can create a list of improvements that will likely bring value to the customers.
4. Helps Identify Trends
Not all software is used equally every single day. There will be a time of the week, month, or year where some software will have an uptick in usage. With analytics data, you can identify those trends and be better prepared to ensure the availability of your software. Depending on what software you are building, its availability and reliability can really nurture or destroy the relationships with your customers.
5. Learn How Your Customers Use the Product
Sometimes, your customers will use your software in ways you could never imagine. This can change how the future design and features of the software will be. Other times it might lead to a new application of your technology that you can offer as a separate product. However, you won’t be able to know unless you have analytics in place and find out how your users are interacting with your existing products.
I hope this post was helpful to you. If you found this post helpful, share it with others so they can benefit too.
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