What is Time to Value?

Time to value (TTV) is when customers need to see a significant return on the money they spend on a product or service. This measure is significant for SaaS because the speed at which a product can deliver measurable benefits directly affects how happy and loyal customers are.

“How quickly can a customer start benefiting from their investment in your product?” is what Time to Value (TTV) tells you.

Five main things cause TTV:

• Onboarding time is how long it takes to get a customer set up and trained to use the product.
• Configuration time is the duration required to customize the product according to the customer’s needs.
• Implementation time: any necessary integration or installation processes needed for the product.
• Time to first value (TTFV): the time it takes for a customer to experience the product’s first benefit or solve their initial problem.
• Time to full value (TTFV): the total time it takes for a customer to realize the full potential and benefits of the product.

A faster TTV improves the customer experience because it lets them see the return on their investment more quickly. In markets where items have similar features, a shorter TTV can also help them stand out. People will be more likely to give you comments and help you improve if they use your product immediately.

Synonyms

• TTV
• Time to value in SaaS

Why time is essential to value

How important it is for customer success

Customer success is all about ensuring customers get the most out of a product or service. This leads to higher happiness, loyalty, and, ultimately, retention.

• Time to value is one of the best ways to judge the success of a new customer in this situation.
• Customers are generally happier when they start seeing a product’s or service’s benefits quickly. They’ll feel like they made a good investment if the TTV is short, essential for keeping customers happy.
• Customers are more likely to fully adopt and use a product if they see its benefits quickly. This is especially important for complicated goods or services that need much work or changes in how you do things to fit into your current workflows.
• Giving your customers something of value quickly builds trust and trustworthiness. It shows that your business cares about meeting their needs and is dedicated to providing solutions that work.
• If you quickly meet your customers’ needs, they’re more likely to be interested in other goods. You’ll have more chances to cross-sell and up-sell, improving their lifetime value.
• People who quickly see how valuable your product is are more likely to tell others about it. In the long run, this means more natural growth and lower prices to attract new customers.

Why it matters for B2B companies

In the B2B world, keeping customers is the best way to show that you’ve done well. Time to value is a big part of ensuring that B2B companies keep many customers. How quickly your customers see value has a direct effect on whether they’ll still be with you next year at this time.

• A shorter TTV lets customers give comments more quickly. Product teams use this input to make changes based on real user experiences that align with customer pain points and use cases.
• It also makes your value proposition stronger. A suitable method for onboarding new users makes your brand’s reputation better and
• If your company needs to, they can quickly change direction more easily. You know what to look into and what changes your product team needs to make if usage rates aren’t what you thought they would be.
• Shorter TTVs mean more money in the bank faster. If your pricing is based on freemium, trials, or usage, a shorter TTV means that buyers will become paying customers more quickly. Getting rid of your TTV makes your process run more smoothly. Yes, you’ll make it easier for customers to sign up. You’ll also improve your internal support processes, reduce the steps needed for onboarding, and lower the number of support tickets.

How to Figure Out Time to Value

Time to worth isn’t a standard “metric” because you can’t just plug numbers into an equation and get a clear answer. Instead, it’s an idea that can be broken down into several parts that can be measured.

Explain what “value” means.

First, you must clarify to your customers what “value” means. For instance: • Raising a specific KPI by X% • Fixing a particular issue or pain point

They were able to reach their goal and save $X in costs.

Time to worth isn’t very clear on its own. You need to put “value” in its proper place for your business and your customers because it can mean either something qualitative, like “increased user satisfaction,” or something quantitative, like “ROI.”

Most businesses do this by first breaking down customer goals into measures that are easier to handle. Instead of “improved customer satisfaction,” you might say “reduced churn by X%.”

You could also think of “value” as the end of the hiring process or the point at which customers can handle their needs. Then, all you have to do is look at how long it usually takes from the start of the onboarding process to the end.

Figure out the critical points in the customer trip.

Once you know what value means to customers, you can start looking at specific points in the customer path. These are what made them valuable in the end.

• The onboarding part is over.
• Adoption of the product (use of core functions) • Use of advanced functions or connections
• Full freedom

For some products, you may need to keep track of more goals. For example, with a complicated software product, onboarding goals might need to be broken up into completion stages, or each feature’s use might need to be tracked.

Figure out how long it will take to reach each goal.

You can start to figure out how long customers can hit each milestone once you know where they are in their journey. You can get a good idea of how long customers can see value from this. Take the mean of these numbers for all of your buyers.

Use tracking tools to track how customers behave and how far they get along the user journey. This will give you more accurate and detailed data. Customers can also be polled at different points in the journey to learn more about their experience and how long it took them to get value.

Ask your customers how happy they are.

Customers can be asked how long it took them to see the value in a product as a way to measure TTV after the fact. You can do this through surveys after a while or during the onboarding and implementation steps.

You can’t get a complete picture of every customer with customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. Still, you can find out how happy customers are with their overall experience and if they feel like they’ve gotten value quickly. When several customers seem to be having trouble with the same part of the hiring process, that’s a sign that you should look into it more.

Keep an eye on churn rates.

Regarding B2B, customer churn is one of the most critical factors. One thing that high churn rates mean is that there is a problem with time value.

You might see many customers leaving your service during or after signup if they don’t see its value quickly enough. This could be a sign that your TTV needs to be fixed.

Linked to It is time to value metrics.

How long it takes to market (TTM)

It takes a product from being an idea to being sold. This is called “time to market” (TTM). Time to value, on the other hand, looks at the experience and journey of the customer instead of how things work inside the company.

This measure judges how well your product or development team works. It shows you can quickly create new goods and improve existing ones.

Time to Make Money

Time to income tells you how long it takes for a new product to start making money for your business. It shows how thriving sales are and how well the product fits the market.

Time to value and revenue are linked, but time to revenue doesn’t always show the customer’s experience or journey. It only cares about how well the company does financially.

Time to Make Money

The time it takes for a customer to start making money for your business after signing up for your product is called “time to profitability.” It’s often used to see how well a business plan works and how long it takes to get a return on investment (ROI).

It’s time to break even.

The time to break even is when your product comes out, and the company’s total costs and sales are equal. It helps determine if a product or business will work and last.

You can also look at this statistic from the customer’s point of view by measuring your CAC payback.

How Long to Convert

Your time for conversion changes based on the conversion you want to discuss. This could be the time it takes for a lead to become a customer or for a sale or cross-sell. Or, it could be any kind of sale in your sales process.

Most businesses see time to conversion as a similar measure to sales velocity. This is the time it takes for leads to become customers after moving through your sales pipeline. In general, an effective sales process means getting leads that are a good fit for your product. This increases the likelihood that they will see the value of your product sooner.

Time to Get Things Done

Time to productivity is a measure you’d use to judge your staff on the job. It tells you how long it takes new employees to get up to speed and do their jobs well.

Even though this might not directly affect your customers, having workers who are more knowledgeable and skilled can improve the customer experience. This raises the value of your time without you knowing it.

Time for Users to Adopt

One type of time worth is time for user adoption. However, it narrows the focus to when customers use your product’s most essential features and functions. It skips over other vital points in the customer process and only looks at where customers start seeing value.

It’s essential to keep track of how long this process takes for your customers so you can find any problems or trouble spots in their adoption and work to fix them.

TTFV stands for “Time to First Value.”

It tells you how long it takes buyers to get value from your product for the first time. Time to first value is one of the most essential TTV metrics. People are more likely to keep using your product and see its benefits if they can see the first value quickly.

How long until I get my money back (ROI)?

Time to ROI is a financial metric that tells you how long your business or customers take to get their money back from the goods they bought. This can be judged from both the company’s and the customer’s points of view. From a TTV point of view, the product’s success is financially crucial to both sides.

How to Get Time to Value Down More Quickly

Know your customers’ goals, needs, and pain points inside and out if you want to speed up time to value. To ensure you’re always providing value, constant communication and feedback loops are needed.

Here are some things you can do to make your time worth it:

• Make an easy-to-use onboarding process that teaches customers about your product and its benefits.
• Give them lessons and product documentation, among other things, to help them get the most out of your product.
• Use in-app walkthroughs, tooltips, and guided processes to show people how to use the features of your product.
• Give personalized help and, for more complicated deals, help with execution and training.
• Always ask your customers for comments, and use them to improve your product for those who use it.
• Measure and evaluate your TTV metrics regularly to find ways to improve and see how things are going over time.

Making a minimum viable product (MVP) is one of the most important things you can do after that. Keep changing until the user flow matches precisely what your customers want.

It’s also a good idea to automate both your onboarding process and your users’ journey.

For your buyers, this could mean setting up automated email campaigns to walk them through the features of your product or setting up regular ways to get feedback.

For your team, this means automating jobs that used to be done by hand and collecting real-time analytics from every interaction with a customer to find out which features they find most useful and how they use them.

What You Should Know About Time To Value

The most important thing to remember is that time value isn’t just a measure of customer progress. It’s a company-wide measure that impacts everything, from the bottom line to how happy and loyal your customers are.

Time to value comprises several parts, such as break-even, conversion, efficiency, and user adoption. It’s essential to measure and look at each separately because not all clearly affect the customer.

Here are some more things to think about:

• The time to first value (TTFV) affects the time to next value, and so on. People are more likely to keep using your product if they see value in it quickly.
• Automation, personalization, and continuous growth are vital ways to shorten time to value. Time to value can’t be sped up just by the customer success and training teams. It starts with marketing and sales, which bring in and close customers, whether they are qualified or not. They won’t get much value if they bring in customers who aren’t eligible.

You’ll get the most out of your sales, onboarding, support, and customer success methods if you work to improve all of your TTV metrics ultimately, which makes customers happy and helps them see the value in your product faster.