Adam Thomas | Product Management Expert

Tag: customer

  • What do you do when product and customer success won’t play nice?

    What do you do when product and customer success won’t play nice?

    Too often, customer success and product teams treat each other like adversaries. Here’s how to fix that.

    man in grey crew-neck t-shirt smiling to woman on counter
    Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

    What kind of relationship do you have with your company’s customer success team? I often ask product teams this question, and the answer is usually that there isn’t a relationship at all. And if there is, it’s hanging on by a thread. The product team never connects with the customer success team except when it’s time for an “enablement” session. The session is designed to allow other teams to understand a product. This meeting, though, is likely to just be a quiet presentation and Q&A.

    Meanwhile, the customer success team tends to see the product team as the product feature repository. They just drop off feature requests and then go back to their own work.

    Both forms of communication are reactive. Customer success hands off customer problems with solutions and dates to the product team. The product team uses customer success as a shield against the customers themselves. Neither team leverages what the other knows to maximize their ability to collaborate on solving big customer problems and innovating in the marketplace.

    But that dysfunction isn’t the most significant issue. The organization is building a culture of resentment. The teams will continue to resent one another until something changes. So, they’re losing in two ways. They lose the opportunity to leverage the intelligence of both teams, and, because of the resentment, the business misses out on some moonshots that could change its overall trajectory.

    Before we talk about the tactics we can use to make things better, we first need to address that resentment. Remember, it’s the product manager’s (PdM) job to increase the overall decision fitness of the organization. By decision fitness, I simply mean how well the team makes decisions. Good product management leads teams to consistently make better decisions. You won’t be able to level up in this area if there are no clear lines of communication between customer support and product.

    So, let’s talk about how you can identify some of the issues both teams have with each other, create more precise lines of communication, and tie it all to your culture so that it stands the test of time.

    Identifying Issues

    Your customer success team is likely the lowest paid and the least listened to team in the building. Their job is often a taxing one. It’s a matter of when and not if customers are going to yell at them. The customer success agent is on the front lines of frustration, listening to customers vent during their lowest moments of using the product.

    Your job as a product leader is to take the opportunity to sit down with them and listen to what they have to say. If the poor relationship between teams that I described before sounds familiar, they will likely have a lot of valuable information to tell you.

    Let’s set the stage with BobCo, where two leaders, Jill, the new director of product management, and Bob, the new director of customer success, are connecting for the first time. They plan to get the company on a better path and leverage each other’s team for better product outcomes.

    Bob and Jill both took the time to listen to their teams for the first 90 days of their tenure. They also talked to other disciplines, like engineering and sales, to get a solid overview of the organization.

    Both connected with a random distribution of people, taking advantage of their newness to the organization, and led one-on-one conversations with everyone on each team around three subjects.

    3 GOALS FOR ONE-ON-ONES

    1. Establishing competence — “Here is who I am and what I’ve done.”
    2. Laying out their vision of the future — “This is what I want to do.”
    3. Building a bridge between the other team — “How can my team help yours?”

    Replacing Resentment With Trust

    Bob and Jill both know that the secret to identifying issues is to build trust. That trust must first start with themselves, so Bob and Jill spend time listening to each other and developing a shared vision of their futures.

    They spend their first few conversations feeling each other out. Once they get to know each other a bit, they agree that a team conversation will give them a jump-start on understanding how product and customer success can work together.

    How should they frame this conversation between the two teams? I’m a big fan of the team retro process laid out by NOBL.

    A team retro gives the facilitator and the relevant team at least 60 minutes to get everything out on the table. Remember, the retro process isn’t about blame; it’s about level-setting and improving, so make sure you use your time together to get a clear lay of the land. In our example, both teams more than likely have some misconceptions about the work the other does. It’s finally time to clear them all up.

    Both Bob and Jill are coming into teams that already exist. Like most of us, they have to deal with the culture that’s already there. In this case, it’s one that is marked by the resentment that I mentioned earlier.

    Without presenting a solid foundation to both teams, one that establishes competence and tells a story that people can trust, and showing that they trust one another, they know this process can fall apart.

    A team retrospective can raise issues that plague teams and businesses. Both leaders are committed to handling the pressing problems upfront, by writing them down and following up. They present regular status updates to ensure that no one had to work to find out what was happening. They also keep each other accountable by holding routine check-ins. All of these steps can go a long way to establishing trust.

    Building Bridges

    So, you’ve done the first team retrospective. Put the next one on the calendar in about a month. Keep this meeting a consistent part of both teams’ workflow. Every time each team talks, you’ll build more trust. But you’re not done there.

    After the retro, Bob and Jill realize that just talking about the issues won’t be enough. Instead, they need to change how the teams communicate. This change means moving from a reactive approach (enablement and feature requests) to a more proactive one. Making this shift requires bringing both teams into regular contact during product development.

    So, they pick one point during a sprint for the customer success team to meet with the entire product team to talk about development and see how customers may engage with the product as it’s being constructed.

    This connection point helps the customer success team understand how to talk about the product with customers and get their insights. Because they now know how to frame these insights, the product team is more likely to receive this feedback instead of brushing it aside.

    And this new structure leads to an important point. Customer success teams have a good understanding of the emotional state of reactive customers but aren’t always clear about the problem set of proactive customers.

    Bringing the customer success team inside the process allows them to guide the product team in addressing the customers’ emotional needs as it’s building the product. For example, say you have a section of customers that are angry about your latest widget. The customer success team can take a look at the next iteration of the widget and tell you exactly what they are hearing, which will help the product development team avoid potential landmines.

    Jill knows by bringing Bob and his team around in the middle of the process, the team can make sure they solve more pain points and build a better story to present to the customer. Bob knows by bringing Jill around, his team can frame customer requests more effectively.

    Keep in mind that the PdM should under no circumstances consider this feedback qualitative research, however. The customer success team’s involvement isn’t a replacement for talking to customers. But it is a great way to make sure each team is making the most of one another’s expertise.

    Be Transparent

    Bob and Jill know that working together will lead to stronger teams, but they need to make sure they can keep it that way. After all, these are two teams that have had some contention before. Bob and Jill need to keep the newfound trust going.

    The continuing retrospectives will help to identify any trouble between the teams as it happens. This relationship isn’t going to work like before, though, and change is fragile. So, leaders will have to talk often about both successes and failures. Transparency is the bedrock upon which you build trust.

    You’ve already made some serious inroads if you’ve adopted the retros and invited customer success into the development process. The next step is to instill a culture of transparency.

    Bob and Jill set up a report designed for the business; they call it the BobCo Product to Customer Report. Inside, they highlight anecdotes from customers and how the different product development teams are each building products that meet the needs of the customer. Those anecdotes fit the story the product team is trying to tell, and speak to how those customers will be affected by the change. They also include data about research, renewals, churn and team changes.

    Are new hires coming in to shake things up? Is the team doing some tech debt initiatives that mean new features can’t happen right now? Are you holding office hours? All that information should go into the report. This report then goes to the rest of the business to build trust and allow them to keep an eye on the product strategy.

    MORE IN PRODUCT MANAGEMENTWhat to Do When Product Theory Isn’t Your Product Reality

    Get Everyone on the Same Page

    Customer success and product can work well together. What does it look like when it works?

    Important customer information gets back to the product team and influences strategy. Remember, product management’s job is to improve decision fitness. By taking in the emotional energy of the customer, we can better understand their points of view, leading to better decisions. Customers aren’t acting out. Their feelings come from somewhere. Customer success holds the key to understanding where.

    A strong relationship with your colleagues in CS will give you a much higher success rate when launching products.

    How do you build such an alliance? I put the onus on the product team to manage the relationship and bring out the best in the teams around us. Product isn’t just a translation service — it also is a diplomatic one. We’re here to build bridges to help us level up the decision fitness of the company as a whole.

    Our customer success teams are on the front lines keeping things running every day. We have an opportunity to use that expertise to make better decisions about the products we bring to market and how our product development serves customers. We get there by making sure that we stay open, bringing them along, and continuing to build trust through transparency.

    Building the right products is a team effort, and when we all work together, great things happen.

  • You need to know when to fire a customer

    You need to know when to fire a customer

    We work so hard to build a customer base that we despair at the thought of ever losing one. But sometimes, your relationship has run its course, and it’s smarter to let them go.

    red fire digital wallpaper
    Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash

    hen you build a product, you work so hard to attract those first customers. Cracking into a marketplace is difficult, and even when they have one foot in the door, it’s hard to keep them. Figuring out how to attract and retain customers consumes a huge amount of our time in the product world.

    That being said, you also need to learn how to fire them.

    I can already hear the objections: “Fire them? What about that hard work?”

    Well, for your business to accomplish its mission, learning when and how to fire customers is a key skill. The truth is that both the business and its customers change over time. Sometimes, that change means that the partnership between the two has run its course. When this happens, you have a choice. Either you recognize the time has come and help that customer get to where they need to go, or you try to hold on, kicking and screaming.

    Let’s eliminate the second option right now. Trying to keep your customers while they are kicking and screaming will leave scars. The effort, like blindly answering and accepting feature requests or requests for proposals (RFPs), to keep them is going to drain both you and your company. The cost is significant, causing companies to lose resources, headspace and may eventually move you away from your mission.

    One day, you’ll look up and be unable to recognize your own company. If you’re a mission-focused company, then that type of change is non-negotiable. Keeping customers isn’t worth giving up on your original vision.

    To avoid letting this happen, you have to be willing to fire customers. You need to do two things to fire them effectively:

    1. Identify customers that don’t fit your point of view.
       
    2. Send them on their way with some kindness and grace.

    As leaders, and especially those of us who are mission-driven, we must be able to identify and part with those customers who no longer serve us well. Not only does doing so enable us to lead with razor focus, but it also helps signal to our colleagues that we are committed to the work itself.

    In this article, I want to point out how you can identify customers who aren’t aligned with your mission. I will also address some ways to end the relationship without burning bridges permanently. Although some of these things are counterintuitive, they’re all designed to make sure that you, as a leader, are staying focused on what’s most important to your business.

    Identify Customers That Don’t Fit

    Earning that first dollar is challenging for a business, and keeping it is even harder. For founders especially, these dollars are an affirmation that your vision is viable, and every customer that you gain feels like a success.

    Once you’ve got a sizable customer base, the job turns from just acquiring any customers to acquiring the right customer. I understand that the word right is doing a lot there, so let’s break it down.

    The right customer is the one that fits your mission and vision. You solve a problem for them, so they’re willing to pay you for that solution. They’re excited to grow with you. These criteria may seem simple, but they don’t describe every customer that you have. Some are neutral, and some are actually the wrong customers.

    Neutral customers aren’t enthusiastic supporters of your brand, but they’re comfortable enough with your service. They tend to slip in and out out of your revenue stream. They may eventually turn into the right customer and discover a passion for your product. Crucially, though, their indifference means that they don’t put pressure on you to change like wrong ones will.

    Wrong customers want your company to do one of two things:

    1. Go backward. The folks who push you in this direction are most likely older customers who joined when you first started. They liked your product in its early stages but don’t like what you’re doing now or where your product is headed. You’ll notice this customer talking about the old days a lot.
       
    2. Change your mission. This group is likely to talk to you about everything except what your product is trying to do. Get ready for feature requests that overwhelm your team, tickets for your customer success operators that are far removed from your use cases and plenty of other distractions.

    These groups are not mutually exclusive either. The person who wants to go backward can also push your team to go in another new, unnecessary direction too. Either way, the result is bad for your company. Going backward is as bad as spending time trying to accommodate every single request you see, no matter how small. Both strategies will put you out of the game.

    Identifying these customers is important so that you can make your offloading process clear. Build a profile of a hypothetical problem customer so that you can identify red flag behaviors. Some things to look out for are improper or inactive feature use or a customer that complains often and contributes little to the bottom line.

    You can set up user personae and include one for the problem customer. These personae, once uncovered, should be referenced with the customer experience team (customer success, customer support, support engineers, internal product and design) often to adjust and iterate as the mission changes.

    Segmenting your customers will help you get a better handle on how to serve them all.

    Helping People Move On

    Now you have a good idea of how to identify those customers who don’t align with your vision. Once you’ve determined this, it’s critical that you transition them to someone who will provide a better fit. So, how do you help them move on?

    Let’s start with what you shouldn’t do — just dump them. These customers, whether ideal or not, have shown you the respect of paying for your services or products. They put their faith in you, and even if they’re no longer a match for your business, dumping them either explicitly (by just cutting them off) or implicitly (by ignoring them) is a bad idea. Not only is it rude to treat someone this way, but you’re also running the risk of damaging your brand’s reputation.

    So, what should you do? First, you need to understand them. Then, you shift those customers to their next place rather than unceremoniously dumping them.

    UNDERSTANDING

    Now that we know who these customers are, it’s worth understanding just how the relationship got to this place. This is counterintuitive because we’re often just focused on engaging with the customers that are the best fit for our product. Nevertheless, we can learn a lot from a disaffected customer.

    There is more than likely messaging on your platform or marketing that speaks to the customers that didn’t fit. Asking these customers questions over the phone or by survey like “What confused or frustrated you?” will give you a hint as to what made them think that your product solved their problem. You now know what to remove in order to avoid attracting this type of customer. The data you get from the customer, whether from surveys or phone calls, will also give you some insight into the next step.

    SHIFTING

    The customers have told you what they’re looking for. Now, it’s part of your job to find out where to direct them. There are competitors (yes — your competitors) that may fit their needs better. You may also be able to recommend a solution that won’t charge them. Moving those customers to other places in your niche has two effects.

    First, it strengthens your standing in the marketplace by focusing on just the customers that work for you and your business. Second, you can start to divert them before and during the onboarding process to avoid the trouble these customers can cause down the road.

    Not all customers are for you, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon them altogether. Pointing customers who no longer fit your brand to a competitor who might makes you a leader in your space and improves your influence, strengthening the overall ecosystem. Don’t downplay the long-term benefits of doing so, either. Your competitor can become your greatest partner as the seas change.

    The same goes for moving the customer off of your platform to something free. You’re building trust with that customer that may pay off big time in the future. Even as they’re leaving your service, they’re likely to remain an evangelist for your brand. Plus, getting these customers out of your pipeline frees space for the ones you need to pay attention to.

    Fire Customers With Respect

    These aren’t one-time actions. Identifying and moving those customers should be a continuous process. Every time you make space for the right customers, you are on the path to growth.

    I know it’s hard, as the customers who started with us or the ones we’ve gained along the way are important to us. They trusted us. That being said, it’s worth returning the favor by helping them continue on their journey.