Dealing with Failure of New Product or Service

Introducing a new product in the market is not the only challenge but ensuring the same has exceeded customer’s expectations is more important. A new product is launched in the market almost every day but how many actually manage to touch customer’s hearts and win over their confidence. Infact, very few. When a newly launched product fails to impress customers, it is indeed a huge loss for the respective organization which not only invests money but also time and labour into designing, developing and finally promoting it.

The expectations and hard works of lots of individuals involved with the development of the new product go for a toss when it fails to create a buzz in the market and also earn money for the organization. It is definitely a lean phase for not only the organization but also individuals who have actually put their hearts and souls in planning and launching a new product, but trust me, life should not end here. There is no point getting demotivated and crib over things which are now beyond your control. Learn to move on and plan judiciously so that you not only overcome your failure but also revive some part of the losses incurred through product failure.

First and foremost, understand as to why your product failed in the market? Try to analyze the reason so that you do not repeat the same mistakes in future. A new product fails to create a mark of its own due to any of the following reasons:

Marketing Failure - Organizations fail to promote their products aggressively leading to failure. Addressing the product to wrong target market.

Technical Failure - A product is launched with technical defects.

Product is launched at the wrong time when it is not required, thus fails to fulfil customer’s needs and expectations. What is the sense of launching a new heater during summers? Who will buy it? No one. It will definitely be a failure irrespective of its style, price and specifications. In the same way, what is the point of launching a soft skills or personality development program for professionals who are mature, well -read and polished?

Committing mistakes is human but not learning from your mistakes is a blunder. It is always healthy to accept failure rather than playing dirty politics and blaming each other. When a product fails, the entire organization has to take the responsibility. Some organizations tend to wash dirty linen in public and this is one of the most foolish things to do. Instead of losing interest in business, sit together, and jot down the reasons which led to failure of your new product or service.

Work on even the minutest details. If you fail to understand the reasons behind the failure of your product get associated with an external agency and ask them to evaluate the production pipeline and submit a report which gives a detailed insight as to in which all areas, you need improvement and guidance.

Try to relaunch your product with some new features, additional benefits and promoting it more aggressively this time. Expand your customer base and try to reach to maximum clients possible. Understand their expectations and make sure you do not give an opportunity to complain this time.

Careful analysis of your competitor’s offerings also helps you understand as to why your product failed to outshine other available brands in the market. Remember, a product failure does affect your brand name and end-users tend to lose their trust in you.

Plan something interesting which would attract customers towards your brand so that your business does not suffer in the long run. It is always better to accept mistakes, learn from them and move on.

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