A product is made for its users. However, with the onslaught of new technologies, solutions are being created by showcasing the benefits that this product can provide. Regardless of its actual benefits or value, if its purported users do not see that value in the product or adopt it to its full potential, even a great product is rendered worthless and becomes a waste of valuable resources like time, effort and money.
In fact, a recent user adoption study showed that 74% of respondents spent almost half of their week dealing with user adoption challenges. The majority of respondents were from Customer Success (65%) roles in the B2B market (72%).
This challenge is rampant in the Identity and Access Management space. Products and solutions available in the market have evolved greatly over the last decade. Be it Access Management providing single sign-on, multi factor authentication and password management, or Identity Governance and Administration providing lifecycle management solutions and governance solutions. Although critical, Identity Management has often got a reputation of being complicated and difficult to use with complex workflows. Fearing this, businesses often hesitate to even make the initial investment. Below we list a few key challenges faced by the IAM domain and how Cross Identity offerings succeed in providing solutions to these challenges.
Complexity Driving Users Away
Often, the reason for complexity in products occurs when features are just dumped in, instead of addressing the customer’s perspective. Too many workflows, features that aren’t needed for the organization, and the transitions in the product that just aren’t smooth.
These solutions are, more often than not, too complex owing to these reasons. Most organizations don’t even need the additional features and yet pay through the roof for the same. Only to realize it is overwhelming the user.
How we address it:
Our flagship offering, Cross Identity, is a comprehensive Identity Management solution. We have built the solution from the ground up only to address this very demand of the customers. It provides all the necessary IAM features for an organization to thrive. The workflows are simple and easy to follow.
Often the hesitance with complex products is that there must be an expert for managing IAM in the company. Considering how this domain has a handful of experts, hiring one or training one is even more challenging. But CI can be implemented and managed by a non-technical person with minimal help or supervision.
Lack of Understanding of the Customer’s Need
As addressed previously, products become complicated when the perspective is of the features, and usability is considered later. User need, UI and UX must be the leading criteria while building the product itself. There can always be revisions based on feedback. But, if at the core of the product, it isn’t built for the user, there will always be friction.
From simple needs like transitions to the most usable feature, everything is key in user adoption.
How we address it:
Cross Identity has over two decades of experience in the Identity management space, and most of our years have been spent in implementation. Implementation has given us a deep insight into the most important needs of users, how they interact with a product, their pain points, and what it is that they need from IAM, which currently lacks.
Cross Identity is built by understanding the very demands of the customers and addressing their needs.
Understanding the Product/Solution is a Never-Ending Support Call
Every product indeed has some buffer period before it gets accepted by the end-users. This happens when they begin to see value in the product, and it helps in making their job easier.
When the end-user begins to achieve the desired goals, the goodwill is automatically built.
Although, for all of this to happen, the user has to understand the product first. They have to know how to go about it without having to give in to support calls every now and then—or having to look up the FAQ section constantly.
When this period prolongs, users are bound to experience product fatigue. And humans being creatures of habit, they are inclined to go back to their old ways rather than adopting a newer albeit better solution.
How we address it:
We know that to understand a product, the user must also feel like they can help themselves. They shouldn’t lose valuable hours talking to the support team to figure out how to switch from one workflow to the other or understand a dashboard.
This is why our product is inbuilt with contextual walk-throughs. Every step of the way, the user is prompted and guided on using the product. There obviously is constant support provided, but with virtual guides at all times, the user can help themselves. This enables them to understand it better and explore as they like.
Solution Fails to Demonstrate Immediate Value
We live in a fast-paced world. Everything happens digitally, and the ability to produce ROI at the earliest is the need. Most solutions, take from months to years to implement and sustain. By this time, the stakeholders have already lost interest as they do not perceive any value from the solution. Sometimes, owing to complications and time-consuming functionalities, the true value the product may provide is often lost.
How we address it:
Our solution can be implemented in weeks. This keeps the users’ and stakeholders’ interest piqued. Most importantly, its functionalities deliver business outcomes rapidly. New hire access provisioning required at the earliest? It can happen the same day the user joins. The manager, in collaboration with IT and HR, has to simply define their roles and responsibilities, and based on this data, entitlements are provided. As for other additional accesses, there are workflows built in no time for quick but informed business decisions.
Attachment with Familiarity
Whenever products are ripped and replaced with another, the users find it difficult to manage their new work software. It isn’t only about familiarity. It is also about their usual habits that are now supposed to be rewired.
How we address it:
For users that want to maintain some familiarity, Cross Identity products seamlessly integrate with various other industry leading products. Phased implementations are something we support. The “low-hanging-fruit-first” approach enables users to see value one feature at a time while retaining their familiarity.
But, the value that comes out of it is evident when you have high retention rates, low retention cost, and, most importantly, high customer lifetime value.
User adoption is key to the success of any product, but it must be a forethought rather than an afterthought. Today, great UX design is extremely important to the success of a product.
If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likable person: respectful, generous, and helpful – Key questions to ask ourselves is whether what you’ve designed so far does indeed behave like a likeable person. Is it respectful of the user’s objectives? Is it generous and helpful in guiding them through their journey?
A product is only as good as the user perspective it carries. Even if you have the fanciest technology backing it up, if a user does not benefit from it, or is unable to understand it, who then is going to use it?
