Companies constantly strive to create good products with great user experiences. But in the end, it all comes to what the user thinks and what they perceive when using that product.

Many questions come to mind when working behind the experience:

“What value do my clients take from using my service? What isn’t working so well? What should I do more of?”

There's no better way to get answers and continuously improve than to speak directly to those who use the product! This will add value and data and, in the end, aid in creating even better things that cater to those users.

Let users speak to you

Users must know where they can ask questions and raise concerns. This interaction can be beneficial for both parties: they make their voice heard, and as a company, you can learn the common pains that users face.

Here are some ways you can do this:

• Contacts: make it easy for people to find out how to reach you with these matters.
  Don’t hide your contact page, and don’t make it difficult to send a simple message. Having customers contact you shouldn’t be a hassle for them.
• Chatbot: This one is more intricate. However, when a company has a good chatbot that is one click away from the correct answer, it can help users.
• Feedback callouts: sometimes, people need to be prompted to give their opinion. If you’re looking to get their thoughts on something specific or about the broader experience, make sure to feature a prompt regarding that.

There’s no better way to make customers happy than to ask them what they think, need and want.

Tell users what is happening

Often, companies know that an error is expected (because of a specific lapse, per example) or that a particular action doesn’t work for some reason — but users don’t have that insight and will only be frustrated when using the product.

Whether it’s something that you’re working on fixing or that might take a while to resolve, customers must be guided through those errors and understand them.

Having a message that guides users into the right path can be a deal-breaker when retaining them.

The keyword is contextualising — no one like to feel like they are drifting apart on the unknown. And it’s not likely that people will want to use products that make them feel lost.

Understand users from the get-go

Think ahead before making something live and get the user’s opinion as soon as you can.

If you’re thinking about launching a new feature on your product, make sure to test it first if you have any doubts. Even if all the business cases make it seem like it will be life-changing for the company, it needs to add value to the user on how it is built.

It is vital to get data and douser testing — get some participants to perform a particular task on the interface you want to test and hear first-hand what they think.

Depending on the task and the test, you can get quantitative and qualitative data to support your decision.

Understanding your business = User happiness

Remember that what you’re adding to your service should revolve not only on the purpose of what you offer but also on how that contributes to the user happiness.

That is why it is crucial to make decisions upon well thought out plans and analysis — product management and product design should walk hand in hand and complement one another.

Making products better for the user and understanding what they like more and what they need to be retained and use the service even more, will give new features even more purpose.