How clear is our product journey? Are users getting what they need? Do they understand what we’re trying to accomplish?

B2C can be challenging. Once you’ve succeeded in capturing users’ attention, you have to ensure that they quickly understand what makes your product unique. But how do you know how long it takes them to understand it all and how can you optimize it?

This is where Time to Value (also known as TTV) comes into play. Let’s deep dive into what it is, how to measure it and most importantly how can you make it better so your users get the value they came for.

What is Time to Value (TTV)?

Time to Value is a metric that measures the duration it takes for a customer to realize the inherent value of a product or service after their initial engagement. In other words, it’s the span between a customer’s initial interaction or purchase and the moment they perceive its full benefits. 

TTV is a crucial indicator of the efficiency and effectiveness of your product’s onboarding process and its initial user experience. A shorter TTV indicates that customers are rapidly recognizing and reaping the benefits of their purchase, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

How to Calculate Time to Value?

Calculating TTV can vary based on the nature of your product or service, but here’s a basic approach:

Define the ‘Value Moment’: Determine the point at which your customer will perceive value. For a software service, it might be when a user completes their first project. For a physical product, it could be the first successful use.

Track the Starting Point: This could be the time of purchase, sign-up, or when a customer first engages with your product or service.

Measure the Duration: Measure the time it takes from the starting point to the value moment. This duration is your TTV.

For instance, if a customer signs up for a software service on January 1st and realizes its value by completing a task on January 5th, the TTV is five days.

Remember, while this offers a generalized approach, you should adapt the TTV calculation to the specific nuances and expectations of your product or service.

With the understanding of TTV and its significance established, let’s dive into actionable steps to decrease TTV and in turn, enhance your customer’s lifetime value and user retention rate:

Here are 8 ways to reduce TTV for B2C companies

Understand your customer’s journey: What are their needs, pain points, and goals? Map out their entire customer journey, from initial awareness to purchase to ongoing use. This will help you identify areas where you can improve the TTV.

Optimize your onboarding process: Make it as easy as possible for customers to get started with your product or service. This could include providing clear instructions, offering 24/7 support, or providing access to helpful resources.

Make your product or service easy to use: A complex or difficult-to-use product will lead to frustration and churn. Keep your product or service as simple and intuitive as possible.

Deliver immediate value: Don’t make customers wait to see the benefits of your product or service. Offer them a free trial, a discount, or some other incentive to get them started.

Personalize the experience: Tailor the experience to each individual customer’s needs. This could involve offering different features, pricing, or support options.

Measure and track your results:  Keep track of your TTV and other metrics so you can see what’s working and what’s not. This will help you make adjustments to your strategies as needed.

Use technology to your advantage: There are a number of tools and technologies that can help you reduce TTV. These include customer relationship management (CRM) software, analytics platforms, and chatbots.

Get feedback from customers: Ask customers for their feedback on your product or service, including how you can improve the TTV. This feedback will be invaluable in helping you make changes that will make a difference.

By following these  tips, you can reduce TTV for your B2C company and boost your CLTV and user retention.

The Power of Optimizing Time to Value

Time to Value stands as a pivotal metric in the B2C landscape, serving as a reflection of how swiftly customers perceive the value in their interactions with a brand. A short TTV can significantly enhance user satisfaction, loyalty, and metrics such as customer lifetime value and user retention rate. By understanding what TTV is, knowing how to calculate it, and implementing strategies to optimize it, B2C companies can foster stronger, more rewarding relationships with their customers. In an ever-competitive market, refining and reducing your TTV can be the distinguishing factor that sets your business apart. Embrace the insights, put them into action, and watch your customer relationships thrive.

“Two things remain irretrievable: time and first impressions”, as Cynthia Ozick once said. Even in the online medium, this saying is still quite true. Businesses may help their customers get up and running with a new product more rapidly by using a self-streamlined onboarding approach. Well, this avenue has a significant competitive advantage since it accelerates product adoption and boosts user participation. We have previously covered some essential steps for deciding which product-led revenue model might be right for your business.

Instead of depending entirely on standard assistance from sales or customer service teams, product-led onboarding shifts the emphasis to using in-product experiences. 90% of companies in 2022 said that digital user onboarding caused consumers and users to abandon new products and services, according to the ABBYY State of Intelligent Automation Report.

So, what are the core steps for product-led onboarding? We uncover them in this article:

Understand Your Client’s Profile

When you know who you’re selling to, you can create onboarding material that gets them hooked and keeps them using your product for the long haul. 

Having a clear picture of your ideal client allows you to cater to their needs and demands from the start of their relationship with your company.

Gather as much data as you can about them. What industry are they in? What’s their role? This information can usually be found on company websites or professional networks like LinkedIn.

Streamline the Sign-Up Process for Seamless User Onboarding

The initial sign-up process sets the tone for your users’ experience with your product. It’s crucial to keep it simple and hassle-free. Avoid adding unnecessary complexities that can deter potential users.

In short, you enable users to swiftly begin their journey once they are motivated to sign up by minimizing barriers to entry. 

The critical information you should request at this stage is their email address, which serves both as an account identifier and a means of communication with your business.

Get Your Users to the “Aha!” Moment

Product-led onboarding revolves around leveraging your product to guide users through a series of value realizations, commonly referred to as “aha moments.” 

Through an engaging and intuitive onboarding experience, you aim to help users recognize your product’s unique benefits and value. 

To put it simply, the end goal is to not only drive initial purchases but also foster long-term customer retention.

Introduce Product Tours

When new users first log into your product, they may encounter landing pages, dashboards, and workflows that are unfamiliar to them. 

So, how can you help them navigate this unfamiliarity? The answer is – guided product tours and informative pop-ups. As defined by Whatfix, “Product tours are in-app tutorials that guide new users through an app, website, or SaaS tool’s user interface (UI) and key features.”

Thus, these guided tours and contextual pop-ups help users understand the functionality of the app’s most important components and functionalities. Users’ self-assurance and drive to continue using your product improve when you explain its features and how to access them.

Identify & Remove Friction 

Finding and fixing user friction points is essential for a smooth product-led onboarding process. To do this, the onboarding process must be tracked and monitored in real-time so that trouble spots may be addressed.

Also, any product-led onboarding should encourage users to give feedback during onboarding. This can be done through surveys or by providing an easy way for them to get in touch with support.

Data silos are a major stumbling block to this process and may result in inefficient onboarding methods, longer periods to fix app issues, and other negative user experiences.

Provide Comprehensive Support Options 

Even with a seamless product-led onboarding experience, it’s important to acknowledge that customers may still have questions or need assistance. While the goal is to minimize the need for support, having support channels in place is essential.

Offering options such as website chat, support e-mail, and a knowledge base allows customers to easily seek help and ask questions even after completing the onboarding process. 

Eventually, this human touch adds value to the customer experience, can increase conversions, and even generate valuable customer support leads.

Combine In-product and Email Onboarding 

Whereas the initial onboarding experience within the product should be the focus, leveraging e-mails can effectively re-engage users and bring their attention back to your product.

Similar to welcoming users within the product, sending a welcome email with helpful resources for getting started can further enhance their onboarding journey. 

In fact, the email’s content, copy, and structure must align with the in-product onboarding experience, creating a cohesive and consistent user experience. This way, it is feasible to reinforce key information and provide additional guidance to support users in their product adoption process.

Never Stop Onboarding

Onboarding doesn’t end with the initial user experience – it should be an ongoing process even after the purchase. 

As new customers engage with your company, they will require onboarding, and as you introduce new features, onboarding becomes crucial for driving adoption and retention.

Besides, allowing users to re-run checklists or onboarding guides might be beneficial, even if they have completed them. 

Frankly, users may not fully grasp everything during their initial onboarding, so offering the option to revisit onboarding materials can be helpful.