There
have been epics written on ways businesses should be:
1. Identifying customers
2. Acquiring new customers
from competition
3. Retaining customers
4. Cross selling and up
selling into existing customers
5. Leveraging Customers for
expanding business
For
a Product Manager, who has to deal with many internal and external entities,
Customer is by far one of the most business critical entities that he has to
deal with. And rightly so, since it's the customers who not only pay for your
product but help in innovation, evangelizing product and most importantly give
you the credibility to make the right product / business decision and
the confidence to stand by it.
Every
organization has different dynamics around customer management. Hence
as a Product Manager, once you get into a new organization you have
to feel your way into the customer management dynamics. Let’s focus on some of
the common trends and techniques used for successfully getting a handle on
building successful Customer relationships.
1. Identifying Customers: One
of the first and the foremost tasks is to identify the customer.
There are two types of customer:
o Internal Customer: These
can be folks within in your organization who use your product or service to
assist your external customer or use the product / service on behalf of your
external customer. As a Product Manager you should give their voice a
significant ear, since they can not only share their experience but also be a
voice for external customer. Another benefit is that since they are part of your
organization you can leverage them for beta testing, brain storming ideas, hand
holding external customer and even for evangelizing products
o External Customer: These
are your paying customer. As a company you have made a promise to them for delivering
a product / service and that must be kept. You should categorize the customers
in terms of their value to the organization:
§ Revenue (current and
potential)
§ Brand value
§ New market beach head
§ New geo beach head
2.
Initial
Customer Contact: Initial customer contact is a crucial point in your
relationship with the customer. Hence it is critical that you do all the
necessary research on the customer account prior to the meeting whether it’s in
person meeting or on the phone. The per-call prep can help you gain insights
into customers:
o Business
o Current issues
o Temperament
As part of this initial introduction to the Customer, you
must establish credibility by highlighting your relevant past experiences and
listen intently by being the fly on the wall. One the key things to remember is
that as a Product Manager you must align and fit well into the Sales team
dynamics, since they are typically the owner of the customer relationships.
3.
Basic
Ground Rules for Ongoing Customer Engagement: Once your initial introduction is
done, managing the ongoing customer contact is delicate balancing act. A
customer managed properly can help take your product to the next level along
with its revenue.
o
You
must establish basic ground rules:
§ Reviewing meeting agenda
with the sales team
§ Sending meeting agenda in
advance to the customer
§ Follow through plan after
the meeting
§ Set up meeting success criteria
o
You
have to be careful not to overwhelm the Customer with long and frequent meetings
since it can cause confusion and delay in reaching your goal. This is especially
true when you and your Customers are geographically apart. Crisp, succinct and
to the point conversation is critical for ongoing communication with any
Customer.
o
Remember
the Buddha story about teaching Nirvana to a starving disciple? As long as the
disciple was starving, there was no way he would have been interested in learning
about Nirvana. Similarly, focus on the immediate needs of your Customer before
offering him advance solutions. Once you solve Customer’s immediate business
problems, he will be interested in working with you since trust in the relationship
is built.
o
It’s
critical to set expectations when you have conversation with Customers.
Typically, if you ask customers to share their pain points, they will open the
floodgates and expect those pain points to be fixed immediately. Hence before asking
the Customer to open the floodgates, you should make sure that you set the
right Customer expectations so that Customer doesn’t loose interest and let
down. No one wants to tell the same story again and again, especially if your organization
is expected to fix at some point. This same principle goes for sharing product
and services roadmap. You should help Customers understand that documents like
these are for confidential and for directional purposes only.
These
basic principles for managing customer interaction will vary based on geography,
industry vertical, business model, company size, number of products, product
life cycle, etc. But, if followed consistently will take your business to the next level by forging long lasting relationships with your loyal Customers...
