Any organization that desires to remain in business has as an objective to be “customer focused.” It is an admirable objective but vision is much easier than executing on the vision.
Product companies, especially in information technology, realize that placing the product manager of an application in front of clients or prospects assists in integrating the voice of the consumer (VOC) into future products.
The product manager in front of the customer is not an automatic guarantee of success of a product. Certainly, the other “P’s” of marketing such as price, promotion, etc. enter into success of a product.
However, the core product meeting a customer’s needs is key to the value equation. The client may buy the product once but if there is limited value equation then the probably of renewal or repurchase is minimal.
Product manager’s in front a client or prospect has risks which can be managed. A group from an organization may go in front of a client and return to the office only to retrench to preconceived ideas and bias. Further, the voice of the consumer may be twisted to justify a product with which the team maybe heavily emotionally and economically invested. “We went to the clients, listened to them and are going to what we think we heard” only to pursue a path which was never stated by the client.
The Essay on Product And Service Customer Customers Value
Critical Thinking is convergent or "judgmental" thinking, where the mind discovers a common attribute, expressed as a word or phrase, which is shared by more than one idea or concept in the population of ideas being considered. These emerging attributes describe the "glue" that connects the associated ideas. Put another way, the associated ideas are "judged" to belong to a particular class or ...
The best method to prevent such a bias is to encourage tape recording and direct transcription of the voice of the customer. This has the potential if not properly positioned, of intimidating the client. Why would a client want to disclose their confidential business issues without some legal guarantee?
Positioning recordings, either audio or video with a client, involves the upfront discussion that one is attempting to capture and meet the business requirements of the client. To assure confidentiality of the information, a nondisclosure agreement may be prudent.
There are also many ways to query many clients at one regarding application enhancements in a “secure” environment without going onsite which significantly decreases the costs. Most the of the long distance carriers and many net companies offer service to have multiple clients on a call at once where the clients do not know who the other parties are and the parties are able to ask confidential business questions in a secure environment. Thus, one can have two or more competitors who are all clients on the product demo at once but not knowing who else is on the call. The other advantage is that the sessions can be recorded. Again, announce at the beginning of the call that the session is going to be recorded.
Collecting and transcribing the information is only the first component of integration of the voice of the consumer. Comments must be incorporated into the product life cycle and tracked, again to insure that what the clients requested is actually being integrated into applications. Some organizations provide direct feedback on the life cycle to key clients to assure them what was actually stated is being integrated and that the client has the opportunity to clarify objectives.
Finally, the deliverable is ready. Successful integration is an obvious marketing opportunity and fosters an ongoing business relationship: “we listened, we executed on what we heard, we delivered (on time), and now we are here to assist you operationalize the deliverable at the business unit level.”
