I got a Tesla a few months ago and had got a 30 day free trail of their Autopilot feature but I was not that interested and did not bother trying it out. For context, I have a Nissan that has some self-driving features and after the initial excitement of using the feature, I had stopped using it. Every once in a while on a long drive I would use it. So, I did not want to bother with the Tesla feature and I did not want to pay extra.
Last week, I was driving my son to LaGuardia and as I was driving a little message popped up on my Tesla screen that said, if you push this lever, auto pilot will engage. Plus I had got a note from Tesla that they were giving me another 30 day free trial. So I pushed the lever and the car took over.
I was blown away by how good the self driving feature was. Driving to LGA during rush hour on a Friday is not fun. I was in stop and go traffic and the Tesla drove me there with me doing nothing. It switched lanes, it cut in front of other drivers as good as a NY cabbie and it made the driving experience quite enjoyable (plus I got to connect with my teenager on a cool topic).
The parallels with this and Customer Success -
Make it really really easy for your customer to use your new product feature (the 30 day trial helped me try it out).
Drive customer engagement through the product (if I had got a call from Tesla I would not have picked up the phone and I would also probably have ignored the message as a sales call).
Solve the entire customer workflow. This was the big difference between Tesla and Nissan. With my Nissan, it would self drive and keep me in my lane. It would not work in stop and go traffic and it was really annoying about keeping my hands on the wheel and it could not switch lanes and I would not trust it to cut in front of other drivers. Since it required me to still be 'driving' I see the Nissan feature as a gimmick and my adoption of that feature was pretty low (it was shelf ware). Tesla's ability to take over all aspects of driving meant it really freed me up. It still prompted me to keep my hands on the wheel but it's sensors were better at knowing my hands were on the wheel and it worked in stop and go NY traffic.
So now the big question - Will I spend the $99 per month to buy the feature? The answer is no. I don't drive a lot. I use the Tesla for local driving only. That being said, if I were driving it a lot and in NY traffic every day, I would absolutely spend the money. So, in that sense it is cool but did not solve a big need for me.
This reminds me of so many SaaS companies I see - they solve a need but the need for the user is compelling but not critical or mandatory. Which means they don't buy. So just because you have come out with a new feature, it does not mean it is relevant to all your customers.
Lastly, I know a lot of people feel that GenAI is all hype and there has been a lot of talk about how Elon Musk has hyped up self-driving cars. All I can say is that this experience has taught me that AI will take over a lot more of the things we do today. I don't know when and it might take longer than we think, but it will happen.