Product Experience Examples

What Is a Product Experience?

A product experience is any interaction a user has with a product, both directly with the product and with digital experiences related to the product, such as an online product manual or troubleshooting guide. 

Product experience is crucial to a business as it directly influences customer satisfaction, loyalty, and brand reputation. A positive product experience not only attracts and retains customers but also generates word-of-mouth referrals, fueling organic growth. Exceptional product experiences are a competitive edge. Manufacturers who offer memorable, user-centric interactions set themselves apart.

Product Experience Examples

Product experiences span every interaction a user has with a product, including in-person and online. Below are examples of an omnichannel product experience strategy. 

• Product Catalogs: Consumers, dealers, and partners reference product catalogs to explore a brand’s product portfolio. Many manufacturers have moved to digital product catalogs instead of heavily printed documents. Digital catalogs enable manufacturers to update product information as it changes and ensure the end user always has access to the most up-to-date information.

• QR Codes on Products: NFC tags or QR codes that provide direct access to product information like manuals and training videos.

• Trade Show Booths: Opportunities to showcase products and their features at virtual or in-person events.

• Product Registrations: Capturing customer contact information and product details can streamline the support process. It also aids manufacturers in communicating about important product updates and gathering customer demographic data. 

• Maintenance Tracking: Monitoring the lifecycle of the product to determine if or when maintenance is required to upkeep the product quality.

• Product Recommendations: Related and recommended products to accompany a product purchase or customer need.

• Manual and Parts Sharing: Shareable manuals and parts lists for customers to easily track down their product information.

• Websites and Microsites: Product-specific pages or microsites that guide customers to the right product information and support tools.

What Is a Digital Product Experience?

Digital product experience is a growing part of the customer experience and includes all digital channels and touchpoints related to the physical product. Digital experiences help connect the customer to the product via digital interactions and online activities. Some common digital product experience examples include:

• How-to Videos: Guides and step-by-step instructions for customers to learn how to use their products or troubleshoot common problems.

• Interactive Product Tours: Demonstrations in video or interactive VR form so customers can explore different product functions online.

• Social Media Posts: Highlight product features and benefits and share across digital social network channels that are relevant to customers.

• Digital Product Catalogs: Always up-to-date and searchable digital product catalogs for easy navigation and product search.

• Virtual Events: Creating digital assets that mimic in-person demonstrations and connect customers with product information.

What Is the Role of Product Experience?

The role of product experience in manufacturing is to ensure that customers have a positive experience with a product from the awareness and consideration stages of the customer journey through the evaluation and purchase stages. It even goes beyond the product purchase to onboarding and long-term usage of the product, along with any repurchase or expansion options that the customer has later.

To fulfill this role, brands need to have a product experience strategy that outlines all the potential interactions that a customer will have with the product. The strategy should map these interactions throughout each step of the customer journey with the product. The different interactions should outline how a customer will interact with the product in that specific stage of the customer journey. Examples include how they should feel as they interact with the product, what content they should receive during each interaction, and the ultimate goal of the interaction.

A positive product experience should last throughout the entire customer journey. If this role is met, the product experience will drive increased user acquisition, onboarding, product adoption, conversion, retention, and overall revenue for the business.

What Is the Difference Between Product Experience and Customer Experience?

Product experience and customer experience are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably. However, there is a difference between product experience and customer experience. Customer experience is a much broader term that encompasses how the customer feels about the company and the brand overall, not just the product. Product experience is a more narrowly defined term that only refers to customer interactions with the physical product and related digital product assets.

Product Experience Strategy

A product experience strategy is the overarching strategy for all the product experiences in the entire customer journey. Typically, it will involve mapping out the entire product experience and every potential interaction a customer will have with the product. Each step should define what will happen during that interaction and how the customer will respond, along with other important information like the end goal of the interaction and how to guide customers to the next step of their journey.

Product Experience Management

Product experience management (PXM) is defined as the process of delivering a compelling and accurate product experience. This means that in all product experiences the product-related content is always accurate and relevant to the applicable use case that has been defined for that interaction. For example, a product experience for showcasing all of your product offerings such as a product catalog should have different information than a digital product experience aimed at educating a buyer in-aisle on what product to purchase.

The product experience has to take into account why the information is going to be accessed by the customer. It also needs to know who is accessing the product information, what their goals are at that moment, and how they will go about accessing it. Brands need to determine what changes can make the experience more delightful.

At the end of the day, manufacturers need to think about product experience management as an extension of their customer experience management. A majority of the interactions that a customer has with a manufacturing brand are product-related. The goal should be to provide every customer who touches your business with a personalized product experience throughout their entire customer journey.

The Benefits of Product Experience Management

There are numerous benefits to product experience management. These benefits help drive the strategy you create and how you go about planning your product experience interactions. Some of the most relevant benefits include:

• Shortened Time-to-market: Most product experience software solutions allow you to easily add and manage your product information with no IT or development required.

• Brand Consistency: PXM ensures that all of your product experiences include brand-approved digital assets that are easily accessible.

• Accurate Product Information: Taking advantage of a centralized location for all of your product data and related assets ensures you’re always using the most up-to-date information through all of your product experiences.

• Improved Customer Experience: Every customer wants a personalized experience. With a PXM solution, you can easily tailor the product experience to match the needs of each specific customer and meet them where they are in the customer journey.

• Data-driven Digital Experiences for Your Products: Utilizing real-time product information to create data-driven digital experiences to showcase your products enhances the customer experience.

• Increased Sales: Accelerate your revenue growth by driving increased conversions, recommending relevant products, promoting related parts and accessories, and more.

• Empowered Collaboration and Increased Productivity Across Your Business: Using a software solution to manage your product data and digital assets allows multiple users within your business to update this content at any time. When you use a platform like Lumavate, any updates made to this content are automatically updated in any related digital experiences.

What Is PXM?

A Product Experience Management (PXM) platform is a third-party software solution that includes a Product Information Management (PIM) solution and typically Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality.

A PIM solution allows you to centralize and manage your product data in a single location. A DAM solution allows you to manage and store all of your digital assets in one unified source, including assets like your images, documents, videos, and other product supporting materials. Some PXM platforms such as Lumavate also include a Digital Experience Platform (DXP). The DXP platform allows business uers to easily create any type of digital experience, such as a website, landing page, microsite, or web app.

A DXP provides extremely important functionality to your product experience tech stack. Most product-related experiences in today’s business world are digital, and marketers need an easy way to create digital product experiences for specific use cases without requiring advanced coding or development skills. That includes digital product experiences like product catalogs, virtual events, and other online experiences that pull from data in your PIM and application product content and assets in the DAM.

PXM Platforms vs. Standalone PIM Solutions

A PIM solution on its own allows you to centralize and manage your product data, while a PXM platform has much more robust functionality. The PXM platform has the capabilities of a PIM along with DAM and sometimes DXP functionality. While PIM functionality is more critical for all manufacturers to have, it’s best to invest in a solution that has broader PXM capabilities for even more opportunities to enhance the product experience and customer experience.

Product Experience Management Software Use Cases

There are multiple ways to use the product data and digital assets stored in a PXM platform. Some of the most common PXM use cases are product catalogs, websites, packaging and labeling, sales resources, brand portals, product sheets, events, campaigns, and channel partners.

How Do You Create a Product Experience?

What makes a great product experience? The first step is to put all of your product data in a PIM and store all of your digital assets in a DAM. Some solutions like Lumavate offer you functionality for both of these solutions right out of the box, so you can easily transfer data or upload documents into the right solution. These foundational steps are necessary in order to have data and assets to pull from when creating digital experiences.

The next step is to create the actual digital product experiences needed for every moment of the customer journey. A DXP solution will make this easy and accessible to all marketers. Some manufacturing companies will want to take it a step further and create product experiences not just for customers, but for partners like retailers, dealers, and distributors, as well as for internal employees.

What Is a Good Product Experience?

The most important aspect of good product experience is its relevance to the customer based on where they are in the customer journey. That includes how they are accessing the product experiences, what their current goals are, and what they need to get out of their interactions with products.

If a customer is trying to sort through your overwhelming product catalog, then they need an experience that gives them an easy way to ask a few questions and get a list of recommended products that you are confident will meet their needs. In this use case, the customer likely wants detailed product information on a variety of your products. However, if the same customer is in the aisle at a store trying to compare two similar products, then they want only the high-level differences between the two options to make an immediate choice, not detailed information.

How Do You Evaluate Product Experience?

The product experience should always be evaluated with both a quantitative and qualitative approach. For example, you should measure your customer satisfaction scores, retention rates, and market share from a quantitative perspective. On the qualitative side, you should conduct customer interviews, obtain product feedback, and compare the product experience you provide to that of your competitors.

Mapping out your entire product experience is extremely helpful, so you have a better idea of where the potential pitfalls are in your product experience examples. That allows you to easily make improvements during your evaluation processes to create better product experiences in the future.

Creating a Product Experience Team

A product experience team can be a standalone team in a company with the title of product experience or a collection of people in various roles that are collectively responsible for the overall product experience. No matter the structure of the product experience team, they are responsible and accountable for developing and implementing the product experience strategy. They are also responsible for ensuring that customers have an overall positive experience throughout the entire customer journey.

One role that the product experience team needs to manage is the product experience evaluation. In order to accomplish this, the product experience team will focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as:

• Customer acquisition

• Product adoption

• Customer satisfaction scores

• Ongoing product usage

• Product feedback

• Product repurchase

• Expansion sales to other brand products

• Customer retention

Regardless of what the structure of the product experience team is, in order to be successful they will need to work cross-functionally across departments and roles to ensure an exceptional product experience is created and implemented for customers. This team is often responsible for the PXM software solution that the business uses. As the owners of the platform, they are accountable for utilizing tools that make product experience easier to implement and manage.

What Is a Product Experience Manager?

A product experience manager is responsible for the overall product experience on one or more products. Some companies will have a product experience manager for each of their products, while other manufacturers have their product experience managers take ownership of more than one product.

While the product experience strategy and implementation is cross-functional with different roles and departments, the product experience manager is ultimately the sole individual in the organization accountable for product experience. In some manufacturing companies, the product experience manager is also the product manager, but they may have a separate full-time role dedicated entirely to the experience aspect of product management. Typically, the product experience manager is an expert on product experience and a customer’s expectations for the product experience.