How to Implement Product Updates Organization and planning are the keys to continually providing customers with the products they want and need.

If you're in the business of selling products, then the ideaof updates and upgrades shouldn't be a foreign one. In fact,customers expect-and demand-constant evolution,especially in a marketplace where the barriers to entry are low orwhen there's competition.

If your product remains the same with no upgrades, the chancesof someone else surpassing your products through better quality,lower prices, new add-ons and the like are pretty good. And keep inmind that "upgrades" doesn't just mean addingon-it can mean subtracting functionality if that creates abetter user experience. So to keep up with customer expectations,you just keep upgrading your product, right? Well, not exactly.

The key to rolling out product upgrades is to establish asystematic structure for a) determining which upgrades to makebased on customer feedback, b) prioritizing the "wishlist" of your customers, c) maintaining a shared list of theupgrades so everyone involved can be on the same page, d) managingengineering teams to implement the upgrades, and e) effectivelyoffering the upgrades to your customers.