It sounds simple — but it’s not easy: talking with your customers through every stage of the customer lifecycle. There’s been a lot said about the value of talking to your customers before you build the product to ensure market fit, but very little said about continuing the conversation past marketing and past the sale. […]
How Product Experts Use Qualitative Data for Roadmap Planning
Wouldn’t it be great to get customer feedback before there are even customers so you know what new features and products to prioritize? Yes, we’re talking about gathering feedback from customers who don’t yet exist, for a product that doesn’t yet exist, to create a product that will perform better, sell better, and get rave […]
5 Ways to Break Down the Data Silos that Hurt Customer Experience
Do you have a data silo problem? Do customers complain of having to explain everything about their business to sales, and then to customer success, and then again to customer support? Is customer support hearing about the same issues, over and over again, that aren’t being addressed by product? Those are just two of the […]
9 Empathy Exercises that Help Product Teams Improve CX
What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. For Product Managers looking to improve customer experience (CX), that definition translates to doing more than understanding the user’s pain points, but also looking at the emotional landscape of what it’s like to use the product – when it is […]
5 Sneaky Biases That May Affect Your Customer Insight Analysis
Data is the beating pulse of business, but customer data is more like DNA. Customer data, if we’re using it right, directs how we grow and what we develop. But what happens if that customer data becomes corrupted by our own bias? We can’t grow or develop in the ways we need to. But what […]
Customer Success Analyst: When to Hire Someone Dedicated to the Data
The Customer Success Analyst has evolved to be the go-to person for all the data – or as Marketo put it in their Linkedin job ad, “the primary deliverable of the Customer Success Decision Analyst is to convert our Customer Success operation at Marketo into a highly data-driven business where we can measure, analyze and […]
Customer Success Operations Manager: Does Your Team Need One?
Customer Success teams are expanding – not just in size, but in scope. New roles are emerging as CS is maturing as a specialty, specifically roles like Customer Success Operations (CS Ops). At early-stage startups, Customer Success Managers will find themselves covering this function, but as the company grows, it can be extremely valuable to […]
Soft Skills are Real Skills – In CX, You Need These 10
“Soft skills” have traditionally been undervalued, and that’s slow to change. But more companies are realizing their worth. And even if the skills themselves are difficult to quantify (how much more likeable is Job Applicant A than Job Applicant B?), their effects aren’t. The soft skills CX professionals possess directly affect metrics like: Net promoter […]
Blended AI will Improve Customer Experience (CX), But Keep It Human
“We believe that in 2018, the use of blended AI will help improve sales outcomes and reduce customer servicing costs. But, there are implications.” – Forrester When it comes to delivering prompt, effective service to customers, human customer support agents have their limitations. For example, for all but the biggest multinational companies, customer service isn’t […]
CMOs: Don’t Get Replaced by a Growth Marketer in 2018 – Become One
What is “Growth Marketing” and why should CMOs be gunning for a job title change in 2018? It’s not just a shift in nomenclature, it’s filling an important success gap for both companies and consumers. In short – growth marketing is the future. Those who adapt fastest will be poised to succeed, while those who […]
