Anatomy of a poor product demo
In his now legendary iPhone demonstration , Steve Jobs juggled between a bunch of phones on-stage, had a dedicated portable cell tower for lightning fast connectivity and performed a specific sequence of actions on the new iPhone device to deliver a magical experience.
For the rest of us mortals, delivering impactful product demo(s) is probably equally if not more challenging often with a limited set of resources.
Recently, I am seeing and hearing feedback about customer demo(s) of new products or new product features not going well.
It is nerve-wracking for product managers, engineers, developers & UX designers that pour in hundreds of hours to build and ship the product to have a poor demo ruin their launch or even worse their reputation.
Here are a few of my observations:
- Customer Context
A great demo can often fall flat if some kind of linkage to customer’s business and operational priorities isn’t there in the first place. Even if the customer walks in to a demo stall at an expo, take a few minutes to chat about their current challenges etc.. before diving into the demo. This send a soft signal to the customer that we are trying to understand their situation first before bombarding with demo. Remember, the customer is giving us their most valuable commodity “their time”
2. Target Audience
Ascertaining the audience and their priorities is key prior to the demo start. Is the audience comprised of leadership level [say VP, Dir] or mostly Engineers or a mix of both. Do you have an idea of their key careabouts esp. current product related challenges? Have they seen the demo before and if so in what detail? How much time does the customer have ?
3. Connectivity
This might sound trivial but if your demo requires robust connectivity back to your datacenter then this often turns into a frustrating experience at a customer site with added complexity of VPN access, FW provisioning etc… Remember slow response time equates to poor product performance in customer’s mind. Having Cloud based instances esp. with regional footprint helps. At Cisco, we use the dCloud [Demo Cloud] sandbox environment with demo slots that can be booked in advance for specific products. There are others available in the public domain such as such as Amazon EC2. If all this fails and it will sometime, have a backup plan.
4. Non-existent demo narrative or storyline
I have seen too many demo sessions with just a few opening remarks on what the customer can expect to see with no grounding on use cases or real-life scenarios. Expecting the customer to keep up while we navigate dozens of screens can be unfair esp. as we might have done this literally hundreds of times but it’s their first time. Demo(s) can be simple yet highly effective if they follow a sequence or narrative that customer can easily relate much like a good story. Showcasing a demo script in advance [even a simple flowchart will do] ensures a common understanding before you start. Having a demo checklist helps a lot. One more thing. Save the flashy marketing Video(s) for the conference or expo not for 1:1 customer sessions or small groups.
More complex the product or solution esp. AI-related, more simpler the demo script needs to be. Customers need to be wowed with simplicity and problem solving ability. Not confused by myriad set of product features & accompanying galaxy of acronyms/jargons.
5. The Works
In our eagerness to showcase product innovation, demo(s) end up being a parade of A to Z features regardless of customer relevance. Showcasing “one more thing” was apt for Steve Jobs but for the rest we need to resist the urge to show “cool” or “exciting” feature that have no customer relevance. Rather curating 2–3 relevant features for demo based on customer use cases and using the rest of the time for discussion, Q&A helps build more trust. If customer requests a new feature, capture it and discuss it offline. Don’t ramble on about product roadmap. It can be a turn-off. Oh and no competitor product bashing during a demo. That’s a no-no too. I have seen customers roll their eyes or squirm in their seats when this happens.
Summary:
Demo(s) are about respecting the customer’s time & prioritizing their business requirements over a vendor’s need to showcase latest product innovation. The credentials of an organization being it startup or a large technology vendor can be burnished with professional demo(s) and willingness to listen, take & act on customer feedback.
What are you pet peeves for customer demo(s) ? How have you recovered from a bad demo or managed to salvage one ? What’s on your demo checklist ? Would love to hear your story or tips…
#customerdemo #Cisco #awesomeproductdemo #customerdelight
