Product launches require a lot of time and resources to launch successfully. After the work is done and the product is released, work on the product continues. The next step is to review and track the performance of the product. Post-launch product launch evaluations are valuable because they demonstrate how well the marketing campaign promoted the product and the creation’s ability to serve its target audience.
Although testing and pre-launch steps are standard in the product development process, it doesn’t always guarantee that the product will meet your sales projections. Post-launch helps you compare expected versus actual performance. Live data review can help you see where marketing efforts or product development can be improved to meet or exceed your anticipated goals. Another important part of the post-launch review is to accumulate more affirmative data for the next release.
When your launch is successful and you’re selling an evergreen product or service, you’ll probably relaunch it in the future. Post-launch helps you add testimonials and data to provide social proof that your product does what it says it will. While you collect testimonials in the testing phase of the development process, the more data you collect can help the product sell itself. The post-launch review includes:
- tracking marketing campaign performance
- collect social proof from satisfied customers
- confirm that customer support channels responded and resolved issues promptly
The other vital section of the evaluation process is tracking the performance of your customer support response to issues. At a product launch, everyone is busy with their tasks and excited. However, it is critical to have staff available to take calls, respond to emails, tweets, and Facebook posts about issues they are having purchasing the product. The last thing you want as a developer is to have a product available that consumers can’t buy.
The customer support section is the only part of the launch process that is live tested. You can do a practice run, but until you launch the product, you won’t know how well you’re prepared to handle unexpected situations. It is accepted that technology can and does have its unforeseen problems that we all have to deal with when they occur. However, customer service is perceived to be under the control of the company. “Why aren’t you answering the phone or responding to my email?” The goal is to minimize this type of customer frustration as much as possible.
The post-launch review of the product helps you monitor your performance and confirm that you are meeting your sales targets. Conducting this assessment after your product launch will help you structure future product launches by creating better projections, improving marketing, and customer service planning for your launches.
