Several years ago, I worked for an HR tech SaaS company born amid the 2008 financial crisis.
We offered a recruiting platform to help restaurant, retail, and hospitality employers sift through thousands of inbound job applications.
As time progressed, the job market improved.
Employment rates were high, and there were fewer applicants to fill the open roles available.
Customers no longer needed a tool to sort through a glut of applicants. They now needed a platform to help them market to and attract suitable candidates for their open positions.
I thought we were customer-centric.
But the sad truth was that the market shifted. And we didn’t catch it.
By the time we took action and adjusted our product strategy, we had already lost the battle.
Too little, too late.
Even though our customers had been giving us signals for months.
Our competitors released products that focused on the new market need.
Meanwhile, we were still working to align with our product team on the right roadmap direction.
The lesson here?
Markets move at light speed, and listening to our customers is not enough.
We must act.
Customer success teams must engage product management and the executive team in listening and acting corporately on what they hear.
Together they should look for cues that the market is changing and make the necessary roadmap adjustments to take advantage of new opportunities and defend against risks.
“We innovate by starting with the customer and working backward. That becomes the touchstone for how we invent.”
– Jeff Bezos
I’m sure you’re listening to your customers, but are you acting?
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Weekly Favorites
Here are a few of my favorite podcasts, blogs, or videos from the week:
Article by our good friend Brian Oblinger, customer community consultant extraordinaire. Doing More With Less: Community is Good Business. You’ve been hearing the buzz about community, this will help you understand the ROI so you can make the case to get started. Five interesting learnings from Paycom at $1.2B in ARR on SaaStr.
See you next week
