Understanding Why People Buy Software

2 Replies

Note- When I say software, it’s understood I mean SaaS as well.

Awhile back someone sent me a link to a video clip of a Mad Men episode. It’s a scene in which Donny Draper is pitching the Kodak Carousel. If you notice in his pitch he rarely mentions what the product is or what it does, but rather tells a story about an experience he has. It’s easily one of the most powerful and possibly eery television scenes I’ve ever watched. Take a look for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus (embedded disabled unfortunately)

“Well, technology is a glittering lure.”

I’ve worked in both the B2C and B2B market in software and this story resonates very well for me. Why? Because it’s interesting to understand why both Companies and Individuals chose to buy software and I think it comes down to one prime thing: individual user experience. Let’s break it down:

Consumer – It’s no secret that in today’s B2C software market that user experiences always win out. It’s the reason Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Google are all winning. Their offerings mainly rank high in the following areas: How easy is the product to use? How easy is it to interact with friends? How much enjoyment do I receive from the product/service?

Businesses – There are generally two buyers of business software – CIOs and Line of Business heads. In the case of the CIO, enterprise software is largely completed by the shake of a hand. If you ask anyone experienced enough in enterprise software sales they will tell you that CIOs buy enterprise software because (1) they like the person selling it to them and (2) they don’t want to get fired. The offerings from business software vendors rank highly in the following areas: How easy is it to keep my job? How easy is it to find people to implement and support the software? How easy is it to pass blame to service provider? How much enjoyment did I get out of the sales process? You may have noticed I mentioned nothing about the user experience of the people who will actually use the software! This is important, because this is largely the reason many end users complain about enterprise software. This won’t change until the CIO reports to it’s end users and not to a CFO/CEO/Board. For Line of Business heads, it is slightly different, because they do have direct interaction with their end users. They software they tend to purchase is more user friendly, but still has a good personal experience for them. Their offerings mainly rank high in the following areas: How easy is it for my team to use the software? How easy it is for me implement the software? How easy was it to purchase the software? How easy is it to prove to my management that the software is working?

Zed Shaw says it better than me: (watch 17:53 on)

“You didn’t buy it, your boss did…How did they sell this crap? Steak and strippers baby!”

There’s lots of ways software vendors answer these questions. For example, their software has features such as scalability, premium support, longevity of vendor’s establishment, references, etc. I’ll get more into this in detail in an upcoming blog post about how start-ups work in the enterprise area.

 

  • Interesting article.

    You say “user experiences always win out”. Is user experience the lowest level of analysis that is appropriate in cases of technology selection? Or, can user experience be further described by its component parts? There are many theories about user acceptance and adoption of software such as TAM, UTAUT and IDT. These identify various attributes that one can argue roll up into something that resembles the notion of what you describe as user experience. It can be said that different people have different experiences with the same technology. So, do you think there is value in understanding what makes up user experience or just measuring user in some way the only necessary task in understanding user experience? Being able to measure experience will require some metrics and thus an understanding of what makes it up can be one way of developing some tools for measuring it. Please share your thoughts.

    • http://www.techdisruptive.com Mike Bestvina

      Yes, I believe the user experience is the key level of analysis. For example, many sales teams for technology firms focus on references. Why? Because it alleviates one of the largest pains for the purchaser of technology…accountability and buyer’s remorse. As a manager (most likely a CIO) adopting technology your daily user experience is 1) eliminate pressure 2) drive value of IT 3) save on costs. If someone else (another CIO) has gone through this same exercise you can largely help drove those three key areas. Now draw this same comparison to the Facebook mobile app user. “Just make it work” is all they scream. Their user experience is connecting with friends, uploading photos, etc. 

      Is it possible to break down the user experience to be even more precise…possibly. I guess my conclusion is that you can break down selling any piece of technology (whether B2C or B2B) down to a user experience. So if you’re focus is to sell to B2B or B2C your focus is largely the same, it’s just manifested differently. I find most people who have a B2B background find it hard to sell B2C and vice versa. I think it’s a good starting point in understanding the sales process. 

      Interesting you mention breaking this down to specific metrics. I personally believe trying to quantify aspects that normally qualifiable is fairly dangerous. I have a blog in queue to address this. 
      I wasn’t aware of TAM, UTAUT, and IDT, thanks for bringing those to my attention. UTAUT especially sounds interesting…any good references or studies on it?