Bill and Mercer are joined by Jeff Vincent of Appcues to talk about everybody’s favorite topic: how to improve dialogues between support and product teams.
Hosts: Bill Bounds (billbounds.com) and Mercer Smith (mercenator, everywhere)
Guest Exert: Jeff Vincent (@jeffvincent) jerf.space
Music by Flavio Mangione
Recap Notes:
- Osmosis: get on the level of product, speak the same language and ask them to speak your language.
- Something we’re always trying to do better at: everyone has to work in support of a really great customer experience. It’s not something that you can check off.
- Product teams and support teams need to be talking about “little niggles” as well as the really big stuff. Find balance in what you are building, and once you have that understanding, then you’re able to have a deeper conversation
- Going fast versus going right—you have to have the right people in the room.
- How do we balance using the customer’s language versus making a digestible message for product? PM seeks out individual support people’s perspectives—what’s the problem driving the issue? LEGIT.
- Support should feel comfortable and heard in bringing up those issues. Just ignoring them forces you to swallow your frustrations. Any form works to send the data to product just send it.
- How can support send the information to make story telling better and easier for product: direct response to the existing roadmap. If you’re making a case for something, say what business metrics it’s going to take away from, and what it’s going to add to.
- Bill would automatically generate a report that shows stories to the product team. After there’s a product release, do a support retro (this is what it generated, this is what it looks like, no judgement).
- Working one-on-one with customers, you can lose perspective of the larger product impact. For every one that gets in touch with you, there will be plenty that don’t, but it’s still important to understand contextually how TRULY important it is.
- Report: here are the critical areas, and the problem workflows that customrs use everyday. Here are some of the issues that come up ALL The time. Here are a few links to recent conversations about that area.
- Don’t be afraid to ask why something is the way that it is or if something is hard to do. Don’t be afraid to ask for something just for the sake of asking.