WHY should you engage commercial teams in product discovery?
Whenever you are building a new product or enhancing an existing product with a new feature, partnerships with your commercial teams is important. In many companies, they are referred to as marketing, sales, client-representative and so on. But basically, there are folks who are assigned to customers so that they can build meaningful relationships with them.
Let customers know who you are!
Customers need to know who you are and WHAT you stand for. Otherwise why will they use your service? As an example, think of YouTube content creators. They create lots of free videos for you to let you know who they are. Once the customer knows who you are, they will consider buying your paid content.
What will customers pay for?
Getting closer to your customers means understanding their pain points and needs. We also need to understand what is the most important thing for the users and why. This will help the commercial teams understand the willingness to pay. This will help the product team build the right product.
Navigate the difficult times
We always been there when our products have malfunctioned. But when you are closer to customers and have their trust, it makes it easier for us to help them.
“When one of us shines, all of us shine!”
Moira Rose
Suggestions on HOW to participate with the commercial teams
Now that you understand the WHY you should collaborate with the commercial teams, here are some suggestions on the HOW. These are few things I have done in the past.
Meet with different customers frequently
Depending on your company and protocols, you can work with your commercial teams to be included in their meetings. Even listening in initially can help you understanding who they are and what interests them. Depending on the customers, it might not be possible for you to have separate meetings with them. Instead, ask for say 5 minutes in the same meeting. If email works for the issue then get your answers that way. Understanding WHAT the most important thing for the customer is, will practically impact the decisions you make on product, developers, type of marketing you need. The commercial teams can decide their marketing and sales strategy. They can plan the pricing of the product/feature too because now they understand the product.
If you gather all this feedback from many customers initially, then you might not have a hard time selling your new product/feature. After all, you asked them feedback earlier!
Relationships with customers
When you present your company as a team (product team and commercial team), it reflects well on your company. You can get a lot of analytics from different tools about the way the users are using the product but you need to verify if it is solving the problem. It could be the case that the problem that they told you and the solution you finally build don’t match. That’s why product BETAs are important (Topic for another time)
Today there are tools like Pendo that help customers send feedback digitally so that they don’t have to wait for a meeting. Even if you go the conventional route, it is fine i.e. setup a monthly meeting to understand if the product is working.
Regardless of industry, users develop inefficient workflows if the product doesn’t satisfy their need. It is difficult on the system and on the customer too!
Navigating difficult times
If you have times wherein the product has malfunctioned, it might hurt the company’s reputation or perhaps cause losses to the customers. In the past, our commercial teams have put out press releases. When you have a frequent connection with customers, they begin to trust you and at the time, it is important for the commercial teams to know the product. Sometimes, you ’ll have no time to also explain the product.
Final Thoughts
Partnering with your commercial teams is very important as a product manager because ultimately, your product team would have spent time and money to build that product. Your commercial team needs to build a strategy and determine the ROI. That is why it is important for them to have ALL the information on the product. Remember to include them in your design sprint because you their input for your product. Regardless of how your company is organized, these functions need to work together!