Is it time you stop adding product features?

Are you worried about your product not being able to gain the desired traction in the Market? But do you realize the real reason behind it? Probably it is time for you to stop adding new features to it and focus only on the core product itself.
We need to comprehend that the true utility of any product is solely based on the benefits that the customers derive from it, rather than the long list of product features. So how do you figure out when is the right time to stop adding new features to you product?

 

 

Here are a few tips to help you find out:

 

1. Consider Survey Results: Your opinion may vary from the customer’s opinion. But you need to focus on what the larger audience demands. This can be achieved by carrying out surveys and analyzing the results obtained. The results help you accomplish the desired outcomes based on feedback and beta testing for continuous improvement of your product.

2. Focus on Customer Issues rather than adding features: You need to focus on the problems that the customers are currently facing when using the product. Look for ways to solve their issues. Deliver a complete solution which caters to the main issue faced by the customers. It is important to stay focused on the bigger vision of customer satisfaction rather than trying to add new features to the same product and complicating it.

 

3. A/B Testing results are not positive: After you have completed A/B testing you realise that a popular in-demand feature that was added has decreased the conversion rate as well as retention, then its time you stop building new features. Concentrate on the core feature(s). Try to make the core feature prominent and make other features few and secondary in order to achieve your goal. If there are too many features they tend to remain unused and do not add any value. Test your product to see if it meets the expectations of the larger audience.

 

4. When you have lost track of your Goal: What is the main purpose of your product? Do not digress from the main goal. Today the market is feature passionate. Test all the product features to find out whether they add value to your customers or are you just wasting your time and effort of your resources and losing track of what need to accomplish.

 

5. When you have a “Minimum Viable Product”: It is unstoppable to just keep adding product features during development, to an extent that you postpone the product launch itself. For a successful product launch, the product needs to fulfil the minimum basic requirement in such a way that customers find it useful. Concentrating on number of features tends to degrade the core product. The idea is to develop a minimum viable product which fulfils the most basic requirements of your target audience. Once you have launched the product with minimal features, look into building a few more features based on the customer requirements.

 

6. Lack of Real Feedback: When the product lacks real feedback you have no direction to move forward. But the only obvious thing is that problems need to be resolved even when there is no feedback. Do not focus on building features to solve nonexistent issues instead focus on what customers are paying for because they will get back to you when the product is not delivering what it is supposed to. Until you get that feedback do not waste any time instead debug your product and keep improving it without adding multiple new features.

 

7. When Your Customers are not able to understand your Business: It’s high time to discontinue adding new features when your customers are not able to understand your business and what you really do. Best thing to be done in such cases is to develop only core functionality of the product for the Business and get additional features developed only when necessary for customers.

 

8. When the Product is not very appealing: if you compare a laptop to a tablet you will soon realize that tablets are preferred compared to desktops for obvious reasons known to all of us. You should build products that are appealing as well as useful to customers on a day to day routine basis. There is no use of adding features list that will not be of any utility to the customers. The best method is to do a complete market analysis on your new product with limited and basic features and testing it out first so that you can decide later about adding new features or not.

 

9. When there is no monetary gain: If your customers stop paying you for your new services/features, you must know that you need to improve your core product or service. Your customers will not be willing to pay for extra features; in such cases you need to laser-focus on what’s important to your customers and selectively build features on priority that they are ready to pay for. Customers do not like to spend on unnecessary features that add up the cost without much utility.

 

10. When you are happy with the product: Do not quit thinking about adding new features let the thought process continue. This thought process is only to ensure that you don’t have unwanted/extra features in your product. But you should always be on the move to replace some old features with better ones. Does not matter if you have too many features developed for your product, many of the features are not really useful or necessary but you still have them. This is the right time to evaluate them one by one, but never quit thinking about Innovation and how you can bring it into your product.

 

Conclusion:

Today’s Product development companies should focus on having more number of specialized products with lesser but only the required utility features, rather than having a single product overloaded with all features out of which most features are not going to be used by the customers. They should keep improvising their product to give the best without digressing from the main goal of customer satisfaction and delivery of their best products.