Least Favorite Product
I am taking my own advice. I just had a HORRIBLE experience with LastPass. When I tried reporting the bug, their system was so bad, I gave up. I am counting the days until I can switch to Apple's solution. But in the meantime, let’s assume I am going to answer:
What is your least favorite product?
What is a product that doesn’t work as expected?
Tell me about a horrible user experience and how would you fix it?
Background
I used to say my least favorite product was WageWorks, a absolutely abysmal product that you have not choice but to use IF your current employer has a contract with them. But that is an enterprise product. Now, I want to write about my least favorite consumer product. It is similar to WageWorks because it has a very specific use and pivoting vendors is expensive, it take a lot of time and effort to transition, and so I never leave. And so the company has little incentive to make changes.
My Approach
Below, you will see I identified the core problem is failing on their most fundamental promise, not just a horrible user experience. I map out the problems and why they are so painful. I dive into what I would do if I worked for the company as well as what I would do as a competitor to tackle the moat.
Thank you for that great question. Today I am going to tell you about a product that has a terrible user experience for its core features. They are failing on parts key to its mission of making password saving safe and simple.
The Product
LastPass is a password saving product. It fails customers by making it difficult to login safely, making it impossible to change passwords that have been tagged as dangerous and they make it impossible to quickly report the flaws in their product that have existed for months, if not longer. In short, it is failing at its core promise over and over again, it is not making saving passwords safe or easy.
LastPass is a digital vault, if you will, for your passwords and sensitive text you need to refer to in the future. It should be a product I trust. But, recent enhancements have been well intentioned but horribly executed.
Caveat: Even if there is a workaround solution for what I am about to explain, a good product should be intuitive and simple to use. I shouldn’t need Customer Support to have a good experience.
What is LastPass a HORRIBLE product?
In short, they have released a number of features but they do not work as expected. They throw errors or just keep showing the same screen without accepting the interaction.
Authenticator Login NEVER actually works, the screen just seems to freeze, does nothing or rejects my input when I enter the code given to me by the Authenticator app.
There is at least a semi-acceptable workaround
Can’t change passwords that have been marked as repeated.
The workaround is to completely delete the account record and recreate it
When I try to report the bugs or issues, they send me to a blog that sends me to a Customer Support waitlist.
I just want to email the right person and tell them to fix it. But I can’t.
Password Generator never works as I need it when I need it.
There is a plugin for Chrome but I don’t remember the last time it worked
When in the full app, I have to go outside to Google to search for Random password generator to make it work.
Sumarize
I have listed three problems with crucial experiences within the app that are problematic:
Authenticator Login never actually works.
Can’t change password without deleting entry
Bug entry is nearly impossible to find when I need it
Password generator isn’t where I need it when i need it.
The first three are real problems, the last one might be the fact that I don’t think to use the plugin when I can.
Why this is a Horrible User Experience
Regardless of any human error on my part, the fact that these problems keep happening without a nudge to a better behavior is a terrible experience. I hypothesize that they want me to either upgrade my service or change my password in a different order, but nothing about the experience tells me that I need to take an action to a have access to a basic service.
The denial of my ability to change my password after flagging it as something that needs changing is insanely HORRIBLE user experience. They attempted to solve a real problem but created a new one in the process. They teased by providing the first step to solving the problem but effectively slapped me in the face with a failed execution to solve a problem that is core to what their mission is: to keep my passwords safe: People reuse their passwords and it is very dangerous LastPass’s efforts to solve this problem have been hampered by unacceptable execution.
If I was on the team, what would I do?
Look at behavioral data
‘# of people not logging in after requesting password with Authenticator
‘# of account records (as I call them) deleted and a new one created within seconds or minutes of the deletion
‘# of abandoned CS waitlist entries
‘# of queries for changing passwords on the knowledge base
Dogfood the Product
use the product and try to replicate the experience
Notes: on Worst Product/Least Favorite Product Delivery
Because I have pointed out really annoying features that need to be fixed immediately because they are so core to the experience, there is not chance to ‘Think Big’ about a new solution, these basic features need to be fixed.
Conclusion
LassPast is my least favorite product, one of the worst I use regularly because it has released product improvements that fail every time I try to interact with them and leverage them. If this is about getting me to pay more, then I should be prompted to upgrade with the product fails. If the password upgrade service prefers I follow a particular step-by-step, the error message should tell me that.
The product is unique because the switching costs are so very high for the user. The issue of moving is compounded by the fact that I run into these things when I am in a hurry so taking the time to switch to a new product is forgotten, or I live with the workaround.
LastPass (and other password saving programs) have a natural moat that protects them from quick switches but it doesn’t make it a great product. It just prolongs the inevitable and a competitor that can make switching easy will likely win soon. I suspect Apple is on its way.
If I was brought on the team, I would likely start with a deep dive into the data on the experience that bothers me. I would then follow it up with customer interviews based on those contacting Customer Support or doing searches of the knowledge base.
Solutions (from Competitor POV)
If I was a competitor, the feature I would need (beyond copying the core features above in a way that actually works) to focus on how to reduce friction to move. The following are three features I would consider building:
API connector to get your passwords from competitor
EU rules of sharing data I ultimately own might make this possible, but it is a long shot
Give me Two Weeks to get 80%
An easy to install plugin that would capture passwords AND tell you if they were safe.
If not safe, I would automatically generate a suggested password without you having to click anything.
Robot Concierge Service to get password history
Create a chat robot that would walk you step by step through downloading your data from LastPass and uploading it into my service.
Some companies have tried this but didn’t have a solution for non-standard computers (think those on Chromebooks) so when I last tried it, I gave up because it was too difficult. So the game changer here would be finding a web-based solution
If I had to prioritize, I would look at the feature most likely to win over the most people first. If regulators considered it part of being able to get my personal data when I needed it, I would push for the API connector which would be as simple as connecting my accounting software or Venmo to my bank. If that wasn’t possible, I have to say the robot is more important than the learn me in two weeks. To win, as a competitor, we need to make moving data easy, that is the moat that allows LastPass to create such a horrible experience and keep holding on to customers.
Your POV?
What is your least favorite product? How would you answer the prompt?
