Do the inefficient stuff

Following up on my last post about making tough decisions, something that I sort of glossed over was the fact that I was meeting with our customers. This is actually not all that uncommon, but it's usually just sales-facing or business development types of folks who do this. In my role, we usually get the customers through a long-ish set of people and what we hear and see is pretty filtered.

Meeting with customers isn't actually that difficult since all it takes is a few emails or phone calls to get it all setup. But more often than not, customer meetings are seen as things to get done later. Amongst the reasons I've heard for not setting up time to meet directly with customers:

• We've got people in the field who already tell us what the customer wants
• It takes a lot of time, and we're pretty busy just with our current workload
• We can get the same info by sending good surveys
• The customers are just going to complain/talk BS/tell us stuff we already know/tell us to do things we already know we can't or don't want to do

And here are my simple responses to each of these:

• Those people in the field? They're there to sell. What those sales or bizdev guys are going to tell you about is whatever helps them hit their commit. It may or not hit on things the customer actually wants
• Sure it takes a lot of time, but if your workload isn't about building something your customers actually want, then why are you working? I guarantee you can find an hour a day (or a week every quarter) to talk to your customers over the phone or in person
• Surveys are great at getting standardized metrics and track trends, but they're horrible for getting a wide array of responses. The people who respond in-depth to surveys tend to be on either end of the spectrum: They love what you've produced, or they hate it. Do you really want to build plans on the thinnest part of the bell curve or do you want to build something that a broad swatch of customers are going to love?
• When's the last time you actually heard from your customers? If it's been more than a year, than whatever they told you may be irrelevant. You may have released 2 point releases or changed some of your strategy or timelines. And if you've simply been relying on people in the field, well, then you haven't actually heard from them at all. And if they all they do is complain about your product, it's still better to hear it directly and figure out how to change your plans. And believe me, that complaining isn't just bitching. They're looking for someone to listen. And just by listening, you're going to build extra trust with your customers. They'll stick around longer, give you an extra chance, and maybe even become evangelists of your company since they see you actually listening.

So take some time and figure out how you can get in touch with your customers. It'll help you design a better product. What's more, it'll build a better relationship with your customers which will contribute to even better product roadmaps. This whole way of going about things may seem really inefficient, but in some ways, this is way more efficient than working on something for months or years only to find out at the end of your journey that nobody wants to use what you've created. Those "inefficiencies" may slow you down in the short term, but sometimes, that's really what you need to do. Listen, plan, and build. Then listen again and again.

Here's a nice article on Pando about this topic. It's more specific to small companies, but hits on many of the same reasons for getting in touch with your customers:

Dial up: Why startups should use the phone

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Saving the day with Customer Service

I came to the Infiniti dealership this morning for the first regular service on our G35. I am usually wary of taking our cars to the dealership since they always seem to overcharge for basic things and make you feel guilty for not getting every recommended bit of work done on the car.

From the beginning with our G35 though, the Infiniti dealer has made me feel a lot better about bringing the car in here.

First of all, their prices are not through the roof. That, in the end, is the biggest thing. I don't need to pay a million dollars for an oil change no matter how expert the service techs are. Secondly, they have found some ways to make life a lot simpler. They actually called me about setting up my appointment. Granted, that was just a way for them to get more business from me, but if I'm already okay with bringing in the car, having them give me a call to quickly set up an appointment (less than 5 mins from beginning to end) is that much better.

So I brought my car in and when checking in at reception, I realized that they didn't have me in their list of service appointments for today. I say "realized" because they tried their hardest to not let on about that. I'm guessing that the appointment I made via Infiniti customer service somehow didn't end up making its way into the local dealership's schedule. I'm not sure of that, but I'm guessing that's the case since the receptionist asked if my appt could be under any other name.

But upon (probably) not finding my name in the schedule, the receptionist just proceeded to get my info in and act as if everything was completely normal. And within 2 mins, the specific service agent talked me through everything they would be doing and if there was anything else I wanted checked out. He even noticed a couple of things which I was about to mention to him.

And my ETA? About an hour.

Very different from my previous experiences with luxury car dealers that always seemed to make it different. To expensive. Too much hassle. Just too much of a pain to deal with.

Granted, I brought my car in for some really simple stuff, but it's encouraging that I'm able to blog about my good experience while I'm actually at the dealer (free wi-fi!)