The Power of Retention and Customer Service in Product Management
Product management and development are ultimately about solving a problem for your target customer through a solution you create and refine over time. A key part of this process is engaging with customers—understanding their experiences, identifying pain points, and continuously improving the product to keep them coming back.
Peter Drucker (Management Guru), once said, “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.” This highlights a fundamental truth in product management: retention is one of the most important metrics—arguably even more critical than revenue. Are customers coming back? Are you providing enough value for them to return and continue using your product?
This brings me to an experience I recently had with Fintonic, a platform designed to help users manage their finances while offering various investment and financial products.
Last week, I encountered an issue where the Fintonic app suddenly stopped syncing with my bank account. I hadn't changed anything on my end, yet the app displayed an alert informing me that there was a synchronization issue, and they were working on a fix. After a couple of days with no resolution, I decided to reach out to their customer service—something I don’t usually do unless I rely heavily on an app. Since I use Fintonic daily to track my expenses, I needed a solution.
To my surprise, contacting their support team was straightforward. I found the option within the app, sent an email, and received a quick response acknowledging the issue and apologizing for the inconvenience. Even more impressively, a few days later, without any follow-up from my side, I received another email letting me know that the issue had been resolved.
I was genuinely surprised twice:
Because customer service responded promptly to my initial request.
Because they proactively followed up once the problem was fixed.
From a product management perspective, this experience underscores the often-overlooked role of customer service in retention. While we focus heavily on features, user experience, and engagement metrics, we sometimes forget that customer complaints and support interactions are invaluable touchpoints. Providing exceptional customer service isn’t just about solving issues—it’s a powerful retention and growth strategy. Satisfied customers are more likely to stay, return, and even recommend your product to others.
If you want to build a product that thrives, don’t just measure success by acquisition or revenue—focus on retention. And sometimes, the key to keeping users engaged isn’t just in the product itself, but in how well you support them when they need help the most.
