I want to share the best experience I’ve ever had with an app.
Not as a review or to share my affiliate links (don’t have any), but because I think it’s a great example of how to keep your customers for life.
And we all know that the best customers are your current customers.
Backstory…
I started a pretty rigid diet regimen in the past 5 months, first with a coach and only lately transitioning to using an app.
My habits after 5 months are dialed-in and I thought I could just move forward with some general guidelines.
So I started trying this Carbon Diet Coach app.
The founder, Dr. Layne Norton is big on social media and in the podcast scene, for his no BS science-backed approach.
Credibility-wise, this ticked my boxes.
But what about the app itself?
It’s $9.99 a month and I was already paying for the classic MyFitnessPal.
What could make me switch.
I was intrigued as I often am, to see what the whole onboarding experience would have been like.
Suffice it to say I was shocked at the value.
Not only the interface and system is light years ahead of others in simplicity, intuitiveness and gamification, but there was an element of surprise too…
You actually have a personal nutrition coach supporting you if needed!
The app coaches you continuously by adjusting your nutrition based on your goals through an algorithm, which in itself is great. But I tried sending a couple of questions to support and here are some of the replies I got:
This is crazy value for $9.99 a month if you think that you’d pay a personal trainer or nutrition coach hundreds of bucks a month if not thousands.
And the even crazier part?
They don’t even mention it on the website!
This surprise element and the extra real value, increased my perceived value 10x.
And this is the big point and lesson I wanted to make…
After the conversion, you need to sustain the momentum if you want to retain buyers.
How?
Here’s my simple formula:
Retention = Engagement = (Utility value + Education value) * Unexpected value
When you’re able to keep your customers engaged through a good combination of learning and the actual usefulness of your product AND you also add in some element of surprise in how you deliver value – you’ve got them for life.
It’s about interrupting and disrupting patterns. Making our zombie-selves wake up and pay attention.
It’s about going the extra mile, too.
Doing things that sometimes are not so scalable. Going against your need to “AI-ify” every single step of the process.
How can you do it in your business?
And in your copy?
Let’s kick off this week with a bang.
P.S. I love thinking and writing about UX other than copy. It’s the alchemic part of what I do. If you have any questions on how that works just get in touch or reply to this email.
Quote and reflection of the day:
“to me, calling someone a “savage” is the highest compliment. A savage is an individual who defies odds, who has a will that cannot be tamed, and who, when knocked down, will always get back up!”
– David Goggins, Never Finished
You will be knocked down at one point, either mentally or physically. It’s not a case of “if” but one of “when”. How are you going to react? Preparation, building the individual who will be ready, is critical.
