Customer Support and Product partnership (Part I)
The bloodline of any business
My first close working relationship with the CS team was during my stint at Uber (circa 2017-2021) leading the Global Risk function @UberEats. During that time I grew a lot of empathy for what they go through when risk rules add friction to users or block them from using the app and the importance of communicating these ahead of time/helping troubleshoot the problem.
I am co-authoring this two parter series detailing Customer Experience | Product collaboration & ways of working with my ex-colleague & good friend Debbie Knowlan. I have never seen anyone as dedicated and passionate in delivering THE BEST experience to customers as Debbie1. If you are looking for a customer champion, hire her. Debbie and I have launched a few payment and risk products together. In this article, we have tried to illustrate that experience & made a playbook for you to embody this attitude & ways of working. Let's dive in👇
Balancing the demands of meeting key results (KRs) and driving revenue can make it challenging to manage shifting priorities. Product Managers (PMs) already know the importance of customer experience, but to pull this off they need to recognize the value of collaboration with the customer support team. This partnership is essential for driving product adoption, increasing conversions, and enhancing customer retention. By integrating customer insights, PMs can create products that truly resonate with users, ultimately leading to greater success for the business.
TL;DR
Build products with empathy (intra-company): Oftentimes PMs will do the domain research, focus group, user research & have empathy for customers (end users) but inadvertently leave out frontline CS staff from the loop. As a PM, have empathy for intra-company teams as well - CS, Risk etc. & own the end-to-end operational burden.
Communication: Have an open line of communication with the Customer Success team. Involve them from the beginning of the product development lifecycle & keep iterating with their feedback. Engaging with the CS Team early, throughout the product development lifecycle & checking in with them post launch assures success.
Robust KRs: If KRs are only focused on launching fast & topline - growth, net new users & not focused on bottomline - churn, experience, # CS tickets then those KRs are not holistic. Make sure to select CX (Customer Experience) pertaining KRs to measure 360 success of the product.
Org structure: An organization with a CX-focused structure ensures that the customer is at the heart of every decision and action. By prioritizing CX across all levels and departments, the company aligns its goals with the needs and expectations of its customers. This focus fosters collaboration, drives innovation, and enables the business to proactively address customer pain points. Ultimately, a CX-focused structure leads to higher customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and sustainable growth, making it a critical strategy for long-term success in today's competitive market.
The Playbook
Payments Product launch story (PM | CS collaboration)
Some background on Payment products and CS(Customer Service):
In a B2B company, Sales / AE is customer facing while for B2C your customer service team that is dealing with inbound tickets, calls etc. know the best about FAQs, customer pain points etc.
Oftentimes in B2B businesses Sales/AEs are upstream of product & are very involved in product development, but in B2C business CS is downstream from product & could get left out of product development.
What I (FinTech product) did as part of building my product roadmap at B2C startup:
Gathered data from the Customer Service team on inbound tickets related to payment issues. Categorized them as:
Lack of payment methods,
Friction in the funnel,
Chargebacks /Refund/Double charge,
Update/Changes to order, overcharge (pricing math issues),
Other payment issues
Did many interviews with CS team
Helped them with quick fixes like a query or quick code change to help them troubleshoot or resolve issues faster
This data driven approach & keeping CS in loop helped prioritize the roadmap with their collaboration & cooperation.
Debbie and I worked together as PM & CX/CS lead rolling our financial products - consumer payment acceptance, chargebacks management, collection strategy etc.
Customer & Business Financial Objective: Add payment acceptance (Affirm, Klarna, Paypal etc. for high AOV product) to increase conversion, build trust, reach more users ultimately driving revenue.
Approach: Research the market, current offerings, timing & define strategy. Implement longer-term payment options, prioritize which one should be implemented first & justify engineering and ops resources. Get buy-in from leadership & rest of stakeholders.
Implementation:
The PM looked at conversion %, drop offs points, competitor landscape.
CS reported common issues with card payments. Customers requesting Affirm & asking for it.
PM doing research with competitors, similar offerings. Brand elevation. partnering with a players like Affirm, Klarna, Paypal etc. Vs building inhouse.
CS understanding the new support channels to resolve customer inquiries.
PM & CS to holding training with team to understand the why behind the new offering, how to resolve pain points and how the new payment method works within the T&Cs.
Before & After
The Strategic Importance and Competitive Advantage of a CX-Focused Product Management Approach
In an ideal world, as PMs we would have endless resources & limitless time to iterate & ship the best product that meets every customer expectation & beyond. However, we don’t live in an ideal world, oftentimes we are being scrappy to get the best MVP (minimum viable product) out of the door & make our customers happy while keeping competition at bay. This makes the CS team extra crucial in product lifecycle because MVP, by definition, means you haven’t built for every use case & edge case scenario. You expect inbound tickets to be solved by your jack-of-all CS team.
Why it gets overlooked:
There are two kinds of PMs - engineer turned PM (tech first - everything can be built in the product) or the Ops → Prod Ops turned PM (we will handle edge cases from ops flow). If you are the former, like me, it’s important to have empathy for the Ops team- CS being one of them.
Some PMs might also think that involving CS will add more work to their plate which delays launch. This incentivizes them to loop the seemingly ‘team adding friction’ later in the process. But the right strategy is to gain their trust & empower them to help them so they can in turn help you.
On the flip side, CS Leadership needs to not come across as always blocking & vetoing creative product ideas. Yes that might mean more work, more Ops ‘hacks’ to get the product through the door or even some manual flows but that needs to be voiced differently.
Happy collaborating! 😄
Continue reading Part II here
Debbie Knowlan is available for consulting services, specializing in business operations and customer experience. With over 20 years of proven expertise, Debbie can help your organization achieve its goals and elevate customer satisfaction. For more information or to discuss how she can support your business, please email Debbie at dknowlan@516businesssolutions.com or visit 516BusinessSolutions.