How to stop failing your customers: Reduce ambiguity

On the podcast, sat down with Micah Peterson , Chief Product Evangelist at ProcedureFlow . Micah shares with us his simple, but actionable, tips for reducing ambiguity for customers, what it takes to make consumable and democratized knowledge repositories, as well as how to look at customer obsession in a whole new way.

Let’s get into our takeaways.

Listen to the full episode here

Kyle’s takeaways: Streamlining processes for greater customer success

My first takeaway from Micah is that we need to be vigilant in identifying where our processes might break down. Recognizing these weak links is the foundation for continuous improvement. Otherwise, our employees are upset, our customers are upset and we don’t end up fixing the root of the issue or establishing solid ground with our customers at the most crucial points in their journey with us.

“The core values for us that we've established from the beginning and just tried to stay true to all the way along is making it simple, because what we're doing is taking complexity that's in a written format…and that translates through our product and the way we design the features and the building, the capturing of the information to the using it, to the reporting…are the people using it? Are they able to provide feedback? Can they own it and be a part of it versus having the process pushed down on them?”

Micah also shared with us the importance of tapping into internal subject matter experts. Employees who directly interface with users day in and day out are some of our best sources of information about our customers and how they’re using our products. That direct feedback plays an integral part in helping us iterate and make our products more effective.

“We believe in subject matter experts, so there are these people that stick around and they have the best quality and average handle time and the best customer satisfaction scores. And so we take those people and we ask them explicitly, some of our customers term it ‘prove you're a pro’, and they'll have them go in and either find breakage points in the flows and correct them, or put in their best practices…And so you're really enticing or encouraging these best people to put in the way that they do it. What else could a business ask for?”

When it comes to customer obsession, it's not always about saying "yes." Micah encouraged us to consider the 99%. Saying "no" to updates that don't serve the broader customer base or the product's future. Because if we focus on the easiest, smallest solutions around every corner, we end up spending more money and time we don’t always have on fixes that don’t help with longevity.?

“We may make a decision that doesn't seem right for one customer, but it's actually 99% correct for the rest of the customers. And so, customer obsessed doesn't always mean just dance around and build whatever people want. It means you make hard decisions that affect everybody and move everyone towards a vision that you have for keeping things simple and democratization of knowledge.”

Lukasz’s takeaways: Enhancing customer clarity and focus

Right out of the gate, my first takeaway from our conversation with Micah is that it’s important to not be the source of confusion for customers. When we standardize our processes and remove ambiguity from conversations, especially challenging ones, we compel our customers to focus on the flow, procedures, and the overarching business instead of what’s going wrong with our products.

“The ability to deliver confidence in your answer because it's black and white and it's logical versus reading through paragraphs of text and not really feeling confident and then putting them on hold, calling internally, annoying the special auth group, and all the problems that flow from that.”

Secondly, Micah encouraged us to always challenge ourselves with the question, "Is this the right thing?" This helps ensure that our priorities align with meaningful objectives, rather than succumbing to easy distractions that don't enhance the product, and, as Kyle mentioned, usually end up more expensive and less efficient.?

“If we build this feature, does it unblock something as a new market? Does it open up a new opportunity, new monies?...I have a friend that instead of saying, kill multiple birds with one stone, he says, ‘can we feed multiple birds with one scone?’”

Finally, we need to consider multiple market perspectives when prioritizing requests. We can do this when we rationalize scoring and harmonize priorities to ease tensions between managers in different markets. This approach leads to strategic, well-informed decisions for product employees and leaders across the board and more openness for continued conversations down the line.

“As the team started to grow, we started having a lot more influences. There's channel and partner integrations….it's stuff that you sort of internally know in your gut because you're talking to customers and all of that, but you have to be able to communicate it back out…And so it gives you a sanity check to say, ‘Am I factoring everything in?’ And then being able to filter it across different markets that you're trying to open up.”

Be sure to listen to the full episode of our conversation with Micah Peterson here

About the authors:?

Kyle Kolich

Kyle Kolich is the VP & GM of Product at Zuora. Kyle has a demonstrated history of working in the software industry, and leads the team of product managers and engineers to work towards products that focus on the customer experience and designing and building.

Lukasz Weber

Lukasz Weber is the Director of Product Management at Zuora. In all that he does, Lukasz’s mission is to strike the balance between customer demands for features, available technology, and strategic impact. He’s always looking to explore new avenues for delivering the right products to the right people.