Data-Driven Decisions: Are Product Metrics Enough to take a decision?

Listen to user voices to understand the "why" behind the data. Here we explain why choosing the right product metrics for your product is essential.

In the fast-paced world, where competition is global, especially in digital products, making the right and timely call is crucial. But what information does it take to make the right, informed decision?  Data, particularly product metrics, has become an essential tool for a product manager to make informed decision-making. But are metrics alone enough to steer the ship and to make the decision?

I remember during my undergraduate studies in the USA, my roommate was a big fan of American football. He was a student at the health profession department, and he was obsessed with statistics. He tracked his running times, carefully logged his progress, and was following his performance stats.  We had many dinners together where he explained to me what a great sport American football is, and that is too bad that in Europe it is not popular. Unfortunately or luckily 😊 , I never became a fan, but I admired his passion for sports, which I never had.

One evening he told me that his coach noticed a decline in his overall game. He was deeply disturbed, wondering how this could be possible when his statistics were well.

Even though his numbers were improving, a longer conversation between him and the coach revealed that my roommate was focused too much on himself, and neglected the teamwork and overall strategy.  Thanks to this deeper and longer conversation they managed to discover why this was happening, and as a result, my roommate became aware and started focusing on the team and the strategy as well. The “longer conversation” as my roommate said it, translated in product management would be a qualitative interview with your customers, which helps you get an answer of the “why”, i.e. to hear it first hand from the customer about a certain pain point.

The Numbers can not tell the whole Story:

• Missing the "Why": Numbers reveal what's happening, they will help us identify pain points, e.g. on what screen from the whole flow customers are mostly dropping. However, they can’t explain to us customers’ frustrations, motivations, or difficulties during the process. This is even more difficult when we work on a global product with many foreign markets and customers..

• Misinterpretations: A high churn rate could raise an alert to us that customers are leaving, unsubscribing, or uninstalling the app. However qualitative data helps clarify our hypothesis of why this is happening and answers/confirms the "why" behind the numbers.

• Blind Spots: User satisfaction with a core feature might not be reflected in usage numbers. Interviews can uncover hidden issues.

Another added benefit that comes with qualitative data is innovation. Focusing solely on the quantitative data we can overlook opportunities and fail to understand what the customers want. Qualitative interviews can spark creative ideas based on user needs.

Qualitative data helps us to leave our biases. Sometimes it can happen to look at metrics that confirm our existing hypothesis, which can lead to the status quo. User feedback injects fresh perspectives and challenges assumptions. Involving and cooperating with the UX researcher in this stage can be very helpful,

Product metrics are the 2^nd step

Well-defined product strategy, business goals, and product vision are extremely helpful when defining the product metrics for your product.

The initial and guiding metric in a product should be the North Star metric. The North Star metric is there to guide us, show us directions, and tell us why our product is there to help customers. Most importantly, the North Star metric is customer-centric and customer-focused, which helps us ensure the added value for the customer.

Less can be more

Choosing the right metrics is a crucial step. Concentrating on a couple of key metrics that reflect the customer needs and are aligned with business needs and goals is the key.  This is easier said than done, especially nowadays when we have many tools to gather a variety of data.

Long story short, very often there is no point in having product metrics on everything that can be tracked.

That is why having a well-defined product strategy and the product vision are needed, so we don’t end up with an abundance of metrics that we can not even use.

Summary:

Product metrics are an indispensable tool for product managers, but they should not be the sole source of truth. Having product metrics and an abundance of data will not take us far as product managers. 

Having the right product metrics and combining quality data with customer insights, we as product managers can make informed decisions that drive product success and increase customer satisfaction.