January 28, 2024 | Read Online
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There’s something startups do that established companies struggle with
Solving customer problems as a team.
Every Friday at Churnkey, our CTO leads a meeting where our engineers show off their latest and greatest work to the company.
On the surface, one could mistake this for an engineering meeting. But it’s so much more.
After reviewing product updates, we discuss existing customer challenges, onboarding customer questions, and new sales pursuits.
Everyone, no matter their role, listens and offers knowledge, recommendations, and hands-on help to solve customer problems.
I guess you'd say it's more of a customer success meeting than an engineering meeting.
Departments aren't really a thing for us yet.
We have no silos. No fiefdoms. No boundaries.
Startups have a competitive advantage in this regard.
More established and better-capitalized competitors often don't have the agility to solve problems and innovate for customers at the same pace.
But imagine the possibilities for a company that did.
A company that could maintain the mindset and agility of a startup as it grew into a mature business.
Companies like Amazon and Hubspot pulled it off. As a result, they've become titans of e-commerce, marketing, and so much more.
But it didn't happen by accident.
These companies kept customers at the center long after they were small enough to gather their entire team into a conference room.
Maintaining a culture focused on the customer and transcending traditional departmental structures is a primary source of competitive advantage for SaaS CEOs and executives.
To harness that advantage, SaaS leaders must constantly reinforce their teams that the company orbits the market and its customers, not the other way around.
The best companies don't just talk about it. They act.
More specifically, they act programmatically to connect their employees with customers, listen to feedback, and leverage insights to drive new product innovation.
As individuals, our daily habits, activities, and choices reveal our level of commitment to our stated intentions. They define the legacy we leave behind.
The same can be said of an organization—the routines, traditions, and behaviors it practices define its culture and character.
These practices are usually codified in programs aimed at bringing executives, employees, and customers closer together.
Here are a few examples...
Executive listening sessions - I recently had the opportunity to share my insights with the entire executive team of a large B2B software company.
They asked me and their other participants dozens of questions about the challenges we face in B2B tech.
Seeing how these world-class leaders focused on learning from outside perspectives was both humbling and a fantastic example of top-down customer-centricity.
When I was SVP of Customer Success of a Series D startup, I ran a program called the “Listening Matters Tour.”
Every year, our CEO required each exec team member to meet with 5-6 customers in person, document their findings, and share them publicly with the company.
Advisory councils - The same company that interviewed me also brings customer panels in front of their executive teams each quarter.
In addition to executive customer panels, product and marketing teams can lead advisory councils for specific products and market segments in addition to executive customer panels. Customer advisory boards are a fantastic way to map industry trends, gather insights, and inform product vision.
Support shadowing programs - Shadowing programs pair executives, engineers, and other non-support personnel with support reps.
They typically spend one to two days per year listening to live support calls and working side-by-side with support reps on customer issues.
There's no better way to build customer empathy than to hear how they describe their problems in real time.
These sessions also remind us that users have other work to do, most of which doesn't involve our products. And that they want to get their jobs done with as little friction as possible.
Public sprint demos - Regular, open forum development team demos are a fantastic opportunity to gather feedback during the product development lifecycle.
Customer-driven product design - As a product manager, I never saw an engineer more energized than when they visited customers and joined discovery calls.
Getting a person who can solve a problem close to the person with the problem is a powerful way to unlock innovation.
The best product development teams get their product managers, user experience designers, and engineers outside of the proverbial building to create products that customers love.
What other examples of companywide customer-centric programs have you seen? Hit "Reply" to share your favorite example with me.
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Here's the ultimate test of customer-centricity:
When an individual teammate in any department decides how to build a product, design a process, or deliver an experience, will they instinctively optimize for the customer? Or will they optimize for a departmental KPI?
Their choices will depend heavily on how well they understand the customer.
As leaders, we have to delegate these choices to scale. But we are directly responsible for laying the groundwork for those decisions.
That's called culture.
🤘
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