{"id":14571,"date":"2026-04-22T15:41:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pearsonhamgroup.com\/?p=14571"},"modified":"2026-04-22T15:41:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:41:33","slug":"value-creation-clarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pearsonhamgroup.com\/de\/value-creation-clarity\/","title":{"rendered":"Value Creation Clarity: How to Turn Greater Customer Understanding into SaaS Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most SaaS businesses have a strong sense of what their customers think about their product.<\/strong> They track net promoter scores (NPS), review QBR feedback, and listen carefully to renewal conversations. What\u2019s often missing is a clear picture of what different segments genuinely value, how that varies across the market, and what customers would willingly pay more for if the value were made obvious.<\/p>\n

PHG\u2019s monetisation research across 80+ software and technology firms shows that while most understand customer needs at a high level, fewer than 25% translate that into differentiated, appropriately priced service levels. That gap matters more than most businesses realise, and it tends to show up in the revenue line long before it shows up anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Consider a simple test.<\/strong> Ask five of your most important customers what they believe they are paying for. Not what the product does technically, but what value they feel they are getting in return for their spend. The range of answers is usually surprising, and it points to something worth taking seriously: when customers struggle to articulate why your product is worth what it costs, you are more exposed on price than you need to be.<\/p>\n

The gap between product value and commercial value<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Product quality and commercial value are related but distinct. Product quality drives retention and satisfaction. Commercial value, meaning value that customers can articulate and are willing to pay a premium for, depends on something additional: a clear understanding of what specific customers in specific segments care about most, and how they weigh your offering against the alternatives available to them.<\/p>\n

Web tracking and analytics company New Relic<\/em> illustrates this well. For years it sold observability tools through a per-host pricing model and thirteen separate product SKUs. The technology was strong, but the commercial structure worked against adoption: customers would monitor sixty of their hundred hosts and leave the rest unobserved simply to manage costs.<\/p>\n

As New Relic\u2019s founder Lew Cirne described it publicly, it was like buying health insurance for two of your three children and hoping the sick one was covered. The pricing model was not aligned with how customers actually experienced value, and growth lagged behind competitors as a result. When the company overhauled its model in 2020, collapsing thirteen products into one platform with usage-based pricing, account growth and data ingestion both accelerated. The product had not changed. The commercial architecture had.<\/p>\n

Five customer value blindspots that undermine your Monetisation
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When your understanding of customer value is underdeveloped, the effects tend to surface in recognisable ways.<\/p>\n

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  1. Product investment that doesn\u2019t flow through to revenue growth<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    When research focuses primarily on existing customers, the roadmap naturally reflects what those customers have already asked for rather than what the broader market values most.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Over time this can show up as stagnant volume growth, difficulty entering new segments, or new launches that gain less traction than expected. The product improves, but the improvement does not always land where willingness to pay is highest This is typically a signal that value mapping hasn’t kept pace with the roadmap, and investment is not grounded in a full picture of where commercial opportunity sits across the market.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    1. Development isn\u2019t focused on areas of genuine differentiation<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Without a clear map of where your competitive advantage lies, it\u2019s easy to invest in features that customers mention in feedback but do not prioritise when they buy.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Meanwhile the dimensions that genuinely drive buying decisions\u00a0 often receive less attention simply because they are not requested as loudly. Low usage of features the product team thought were important is a common warning.\u00a0 It usually means the team hasn\u2019t\u00a0 mapped differentiation rigorously against what customers actually prioritise when choosing between alternatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

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      1. Perceived strengths misaligned between business and customer<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        It\u2019s common for the internal view of what makes a product valuable to differ\u00a0 somewhat from what customers are thinking. A sales teams\u2019 confidence in a product\u2019s strongest attributes is often at odds with what customers actually rely on and value most. When those views are not regularly reconciled, product and commercial decisions get made based on\u00a0 assumptions that have quietly drifted away from market reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

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        1. Pricing conversations default to price comparison<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          When a business cannot point to clear, customer-validated evidence of where it outperforms competitors, pricing conversations tend to focus on direct price comparisons. The product may not be\u00a0 weaker but\u00a0 commercial teams lack the evidence to anchor the conversation elsewhere. This leads to\u00a0 more frequent discounting and more pressure on renewals than the underlying product quality would warrant.<\/span><\/p>\n

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          1. New capabilities monetised as an afterthought, not by design<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            This pattern is particularly common in SaaS. A feature is built and shipped, and adoption is tracked. The question of how it should be monetised tends to be addressed after the fact, if at all. Features that customers would pay more for get included in standard tiers because no one made the commercial case for treating them differently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

            This is the classic consequence of commercial thinking entering product development too late. Offer design happens after the build rather than alongside it, leaving real revenue opportunity on the table.<\/span><\/p>\n

            What the strongest businesses do differently
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            The businesses that navigate these challenges well share a common approach: they treat the understanding of customer value as a commercial discipline in its own right, not a byproduct of product development or sales feedback. At PHG, we refer to this as the Create phase of monetisation; the foundation that determines how well everything downstream performs. In practice, it comes down to two shifts<\/span><\/p>\n

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            1. Build a structured picture of customer value<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              This goes beyond conventional customer research, which typically tells you what existing customers think about existing products.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

              A more commercially useful exercise asks what the full landscape of value looks like: which needs are not yet being addressed, which segments are underserved, and what matters most to customers when they choose to buy.. When approached as a regular discipline rather than a one-off project, it involves:<\/span><\/p>\n