I've written a few posts now that recommend talking and listening to your customers, and also have a guide on how to listen to them. In the last decade, despite promiment (and any product manager that's earned their stripes) emphasisng this need, I still see business managers, executives, consultants, and a whole bunch of others ignore this, and plan and build products and features using whiteboard strategies, competitor analysis, growth plans, PRDs, product frameworks, scribbled notes straight out of Marty Cagan's book, and ChatGPT.
Take a step back, take a deep breath, and go listen to some customers. Now.
Before we go further, I often get questioned about customers and users. Yes there is a clear distinction especially in the B2B world, but you as a product manager shouldn't differentiate - talk to them both, talk to them all, please for the love of product, talk and listen to anyone that offers you their time. Customers are the ones that pay you for the goods or service you provide. Users are the ones that use your product. Sure, the two may be the same, or may be different, but have no doubt that users influence the buyer / customer, so you really should listen to them both. If they're the same, listen double.
What do you mean "listen"?
There are many ways to listen, here's some suggestions:
- Build a relationship directly with the buyer/customer and users.
- Inform them you want to make their lives easier with your product, and you'd like to spend some quality time with them when it suits.
- Go-onsite and shadow them for a day.
- Get a tour of their offices and what they do.
- Organise ad-hoc virtual meetings and catch-up on what's happening.
- Buy them a drink in the evening and have a conversation about the industry.
What happens if you don't listen?
I say no more except to provide the case study that is Splitwise.
Who should "listen"?
Product Managers. I once had an organisation say they do get in-front of customers all the time and listen - through sales and customer enablement. They were perplexed and borderline offended that product management didn't accept the feedback coming from sales as gospel. While I appreciate this, the people directly involved in making decisions on a product, i.e. product managers, need to get an unfiltered, unbiased, and direct view from customers to make the best judgement call. Sales and customer success naturally (and rightfully) have other agendas - including meeting their own personal and department OKRs / goals. In summary, get your product managers in front of customers to listen.
How often do you "listen"?
On-site atleast once a quarter, and remotely as often as practical is my guidane. The best way to listen is to go on-site. In fact it's one of the first things I ask in job interviews. At companies that do this well, you'll see people across the company visit customers physically atleast once a quarter for a week. Spending a week with a customer with minimal distractions every quarter keeps you grounded and helps you understand the market, customer sentiment, and user feedback with clarity. This isn't a one and done however, product should be constantly listening to customers through other channels as well - reading feedback comments, online threads about their product (e.g. on Reddit), and Zoom or Teams calls with customers ad-hoc to understand how things are going.
An example of listening excellence
I provide the case of Takeflite - an airline SaaS provider based in New Zealand. They're more successful than ever by listening to their customers closely, building solutions that matter, and enabling their airlines to succeed. While there, I observed almost half of the company spend half of their time directly in-front of, and in many cases, alongside their customers. This led to a very intimate understanding of the pain-points across the customer's organisation, especially for the users directly interacting with the software. The company once had me stand in the -20C freezing Alaskan winter, frostbite saved only by jetblast heat from a 737 Combi in Nome, trying to understand a cargo problem with one of our cargo customers. It directly led to solving a 2+ year problem in a matter of days. It's this sort of interaction - and continuously, that will really help your company solve the problems your customers collectively face.
Finishing with Ford
I finish by Henry Ford's infamous comment (which may not even be from him) -
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
While I understand the gist and concede, the lens here is around innovation, not iteration. The greater point is you shouldn't be relying on your customers to help solve market problems. Listen to them to understand the problem, then be a true product person and solve the problem with your team.