Copyright Fast Company
In a crowded market, building strong, lasting relationships is one of the biggest differentiators a business can create. And while product-market fit is table stakes, true customer loyalty comes from putting people at the center of the product experience. Overlooking that opportunity can leave growth on the table. The companies that stand out are the ones that design not just for functionality, but for connection, trust, and stickiness. These three overlooked pillars help transform software from a useful tool into an essential partner. 1. Engagement that drives daily value The most successful products give customers reasons to return again and again, not just when they need to solve a problem, but as part of their everyday workflow. Regular, meaningful touchpoints remind users of the value you deliver and strengthen the habit of coming back. Take Shopify. Your online store may run automatically, but Shopify keeps merchants engaged with real-time sales notifications, performance dashboards, and promotional insights. A “cha-ching” alert for a new order or a traffic spike becomes a small but powerful reason to log in. Over time, these touchpoints transform a back-office necessity into a daily habit, making Shopify central to how merchants run their businesses. Subscribe to the Daily newsletter.Fast Company's trending stories delivered to you every day Privacy Policy | Fast Company Newsletters When evaluating software, ask yourself: How often are customers logging in? Are they engaging deeply with features, or just skimming the surface? Are you giving them insights and reminders that matter in real time? Companies that build engagement into their product—through reports, dashboards, notifications, or personalized nudges—ensure customers not only see value but experience it consistently. Over time, those moments turn into loyalty. 2. Integration that feels effortless No matter how powerful your product is, it risks being sidelined if it doesn’t fit seamlessly into the tools and workflows customers already rely on. People want solutions that “just work,” eliminating friction rather than creating it. Consider QuickBooks. Beyond bookkeeping, it integrates seamlessly with banks, payroll systems, and payment platforms. These connections remove the manual work of reconciling accounts or entering transactions multiple times. By fitting naturally into the existing workflow, QuickBooks ensures that customers rely on it not just for accounting, but for running the financial side of their business every day. This kind of integration turns a once-in-a-while task into a central part of daily operations, boosting adoption and creating advocates inside the organization. Seamless integration ensures adoption doesn’t stall and that your champions inside the business keep their credibility. By offering native integrations, robust APIs, or automation that connects the dots, you reduce the hidden costs of manual workarounds and help your product feel like a natural part of the stack. When your software is easy to adopt, easy to use, and easy to connect, it becomes harder to replace, and more likely to spread organically across teams. advertisement 3. Embedded value that makes your product indispensable Customers stay with products that go beyond solving a single problem and become central to how they work and make decisions. The best software identifies the moments when customers would otherwise have to leave your platform—and bring those capabilities inside. Uber Eats Manager is a great example here. It’s not just an ordering platform; it provides restaurant owners with daily insights into orders, peak hours, menu performance, promotional recommendations, and even merchant financing. By surfacing actionable data directly where owners manage their business, Uber Eats gives them a reason to keep logging in every day. This embedded value reduces the need to track information elsewhere, making the platform indispensable for day-to-day operations. That doesn’t mean adding features for the sake of it. It means embedding value where it matters most. Whether it’s surfacing insights at the right time, streamlining a workflow end-to-end, or offering complementary tools like embedded finance, these touches eliminate the need for external solutions and create deeper reliance on your product. When customers see your platform as the place where multiple needs are met, it stops being optional and becomes essential. THE BOTTOM LINE Customer relationships are the real engine of software growth. Companies that invest in engagement, seamless integration, and embedded value not only reduce churn and reduce the burden of CAC, they also create advocates who expand adoption, share their success stories, and accelerate growth. By focusing on these three overlooked pillars, your software evolves from being another app in the stack to becoming a trusted partner in your customers’ success. And that’s the kind of relationship that lasts. Luke Voiles is the CEO at Pipe.
