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Feedback as a driver of innovation

Feedback as a driver of innovation

The change in the corporate mindset must, of course, also encompass the entire communication behavior. Customer feedback, for example, is a central factor as a driver of innovation. After all, no one knows better than the customer which value-added element might still be missing or could be improved.

Positive reviews, for example, can be used for image maintenance and further customer acquisition, while criticism and suggestions for improvement often contain helpful information for product development.

Companies that automate such feedback and integrate it into their process routines provide important impetus for their success in the subscription economy. They can, for example, deploy specialized customer success teams to actively monitor usage metrics, offer training, and provide preventive support.

Customer success teams continuously analyze customer feedback and digitally captured data to identify trends and patterns, potentially with AI support. Their insights flow into product development and help ensure that new features or improvements genuinely meet the needs of target groups and provide them with recognizable and tangible added value.

Decouple subscription management system

The acceptance and thus the success of products and services in the subscription economy depend, not least, on the end customers being able to manage them without any issues and configure their product anew without further assistance.

This, however, only works if all associated processes, systems, and the entire IT landscape are highly flexible. This is the task of the subscription management system. It must provide the capability, for example, to quickly test new pricing models with the customer or to incorporate insights gained from data analysis into product development. To achieve this, the subscription management system must be integrated across nearly all areas of the company.

However, it is advisable to decouple the subscription management systems from traditional transactional systems. Otherwise, there is a risk of transferring issues from one area to others. Such decoupling has proven effective in the practice of software development, as it makes the overall system significantly more flexible and stable.

Develop sustainably successful business models

It is clear: the subscription models of the subscription economy offer companies the opportunity to develop sustainable business models. The basis for this is connectivity and digital services. Proper timing and precision significantly contribute to success. Ideally, providers continuously improve their products and services to anticipate or at least precisely meet the specific needs of the target groups.

This can also help curb the amount of product variants and functionalities that arise due to a lack of specific knowledge about customer needs and often do not truly address the actual customer demand. This causes unnecessary costs and is more likely to undermine customer acceptance than promote it.

In the subscription economy, however, it is important to identify and cover each central customer need—with a specific combination of product, digital, and traditional services. Well-established subscription providers are thus relatively quickly able to significantly reduce the complexity in their service offering and the abundance of variants.

Note: An earlier version of the text stated that subscriptions were displacing the traditional sales model. We have corrected this in favor of a more nuanced phrasing.

*Meike Vogt works as Team Leader for Subscription Management at Doubleslash.