Honeymoon Period - How to make it last?

I was reading a blog post by Kevin Kelly recently - The triumph of the default. It's a very interesting read about how Defaults are a big and important part of our everyday lives. Be it new products, the web, using a car we are always leveraging Defaults to simplify our life. Without Defaults we would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices a system presents. Defaults give us the ability to use something effectively while learning to gain the flexibility the product promises.

This thought brought me to a related concept that is a constant in this age of short attention spans, blogs and shiny gadgets - The Honeymoon Period.

I am sure everybody married knows what a Honeymoon period means. It does not refer to the actual Honeymoon which might be a trip to Paris, Switzerland, New Zealand, Beaches in Hawaii. It refers to the period when the couple explores each other(no not physically..), and are very open and honest to each other. It is a time of elevated enthusiasm, when they are forming opinions of each other - approval, disapproval, empathy etc.

So how does it matter in a technology world? Surprisingly... a lot!!

When a user explores your service or product, she is open to the various features and is constantly forming opinions. This is an important period of time in the relationship when the positives and negatives mean a lot. A good experience is critical to ensure a long lasting, productive relationship. Every new product/service and the user goes through a Honeymoon period which can make or break the relationship. And it is a big deal for the product producer to prolong this honeymoon period.

So what as product organizations should you do to achieve a long honeymoon period with your customers?

1. Make sure to, as Kevin Kelly states, have excellent defaults. The defaults are what your user experiences and forms opinions on. If your defaults are bad, the user might never reach the excellent features that are buried in your product.
2. Similar to #1. Make sure your product can work out of the box. That means the user does not have to go through the long arduous task of product setup. I have seen products which fail badly at this (My wireless router was a lesson in pain, where I had to click through pages of defaults).
3. Let the defaults be robust. It is impossible to ensure 100% test complete products in this rapid market cycles. But it is not acceptable to have defaults riddled with issues. This is very very important.
4. Do not expose too much too fast. Expecting the user to learn the core inner working of the products versus just use it, is a surefire way to end your Honeymoon prematurely. So keep it simple in the user manuals, setup instructions, standard operating procedures etc.
5. Be nice.. No really. Good help documents and troubleshooting guides help users get through their Honeymoon pains. The better the support/response, quicker these issues are forgotten.
6. Solicit Feedback. This ensures that the relationship stays productive in the long term just like a deep heart to heart talk heals relationships.

Please share your thoughts and your honeymoon experiences ;-).