What all product managers want their customers to know…
Dear Customer,
As product managers, it’s our job to bring products to the market that you will use and, if we’ve really nailed it, maybe even love.
And yet, even though the product manager’s role is primarily about serving you, we don’t get to speak directly to you as much as we’d like. So we’re using this platform to give you some insight into our thinking, and to offer you some suggestions on how you can help us make your products even better for you. (And yes, we view them as your products, not ours.)
We’re successful only if you’re successful. There are no exceptions to this rule.
The first thing we want you to understand is that a product manager is a fierce advocate within her company for your interests — and is often your biggest supporter.
Which isn’t to say the rest of our organizations aren’t focused on making a great product for you. They are. But other departments within a company oftentimes have other competing agendas: revenue, market share, keeping costs down, developing an impressive story for Wall Street, etc.
As a result, we regularly have to fight battles to get your products built in the way we believe will most benefit you. We have to wrangle enough budget. We have to coax our technical teams to develop features in a way that we think will support you better, when they’d prefer a different approach. We have to withstand tremendous pressure from impatient executives or investors, and to convince them to give us a little more time when they’d rather sacrifice functionality to get something out there earning revenue now.
Tweet This:
“Dear customer, we’re successful only if you’re successful. There are no exceptions to this rule.”
In fact, even if we deliver a product that our internal stakeholders love, that receives glowing reviews from the industry press, and that is well-received by analysts, if that product doesn’t ultimately win you over — if it can’t find a customer-base — then it has completely failed, and so have we.
All of which is to say that product management has no other motive than to do everything in our power to ensure that our products resonate with you, our customers.
So we hope you will learn to view us as a team — product manager and user, allies, two groups with the shared goal of delivering you the best possible products to solve your most important problems. And with that in mind, we also hope you’ll take to heart the following ideas for how you can guide us in the right direction.
1. Help us understand not simply which products you will use, but which products you’ll actually be willing to buy.
In some industries, particularly software, you often find great products that you can use for free. And that’s great. But the companies that bring you these products can do so only as long as they’re able to operate — and that requires bringing products to market that they can sell.
If we’re going to be a true team here, product manager and customer, we really need you to tell us which problems you would be willing to pay to solve — in other words, not which products you’d be willing to use, but to buy.
Focusing on developing these types of products will best serve both our interests. Obviously, you’ll be willing to pay for products only if they deliver you significant value — either by making some area of your life more convenient or fun, or by minimizing or removing some difficult or painful task in your daily life or your job.
From our perspective, focusing our resources on the products that our customers will pay for gives us the best chances of continuing to operate and grow as a business — and that might even also allow us to continue developing products or services that we can deliver to you for free.
2. Tell us what problems you’d like to solve, not what features you want.
As product managers, we’re here to build products that solve problems for our customers. Features are merely a means to that end.
When we hear from you, what will be most helpful to us — and ultimately to you, in the form of better products — is any information you can give us about the problem you want solved. Maybe you need to streamline a tedious but necessary function of your company, and you believe our software application can help.
Tweet This:
“Dear customer, tell us what problems you’d like to solve — not what features you want.”
Whatever your case, talk to your product manager about problems and what it will take to solve them, not about specific features. When we fall into the feature trap, we product managers often become so focused on nailing that feature that we lose sight of why we’re actually building it for you. Worse, we might also miss the chance to find another way to solve that problem that could be even better, faster and easier for you.
3. If you have problems with our product, please tell us directly — not merely your colleagues at your company.
Remember, the entire relationship between you and your product manager is about solving problems you’d like solved, about using the products we develop for you to improve some area of your life or your job.
So if you have a problem with your product, or would like something added to it or streamlined within it, the people to tell are the product managers — because we can make your wishes a reality.
Think of it this way. If you were out to dinner and found your waiter’s service to be lacking, whom would you want to tell?
If you said nothing to the waiter but then left and told your friends not to go to that restaurant, you wouldn’t be helping to solve the problem. The person who most needs to hear your concerns in that scenario is the waiter himself.
When you find something frustrating or unsatisfying in a product you’ve paid for, it can be tempting to shout it as loud as you can. We completely understand; we use products too. And we’re not suggesting that you shouldn’t complain on Yelp about a lousy restaurant experience, or even complain on some comparable forum about one of our products.
We’re asking only that you also come directly to us, your product manager allies, and let us know what upset you and what you’d like to see changed. That’s the only way we can improve your products and help you get more value from them.
We’d like to leave you with one final thought: Thank you. In the end, we do this for you, because without a customer, there is no product manager. And we love what we do. So here’s to continuing a great partnership.
