Care deeply about your customer

Care deeply about your customer.

Why? Because your customer is not a company, it is another human being. A human being who needs your help and you have the privilege to make a difference in their lives.

If caring for your customers is the North Star that drives you, then no one needs to tell you how to best do your job. You already know.

Obviously for successful products, it is not enough for just one person or one team to do their jobs right, it requires a coordinated effort from the entire company.

Caring for your customers should be the #1 priority for everyone, not just the customer support team. It should define everything you do from building the product to how you sell, market and support it.

After spending over a decade launching new products, here is what I learnt about making products successful.

1. Listen carefully to customers and understand what they are saying and not saying.
2. Define a product/solution, unlike any other, that makes a real difference in their lives.
3. Ensure customers know about it, use it and love it.
4. Adapt the product strategy to your customer's evolving needs (and market trends).
5. Rinse. Repeat.

This sounds simple and intuitive, but it is really hard to do in practice and very few companies are successful at it.

But, don’t worry about the whole company yet.

Be the change you want to see.

And your company will follow.