The relationship between Product Managers and Customer Success teams is a vital yet often overlooked aspect of product management. Customer Success and Customer Support (CS) Teams are typically an afterthought in the product development process. A product change is made and CS is left to field many requests at the last minute or worse, learns about it from a customer. This; amongst others, leads to tensions and frustrations between both teams, thereby impacting the customer experience.
Product Managers and Customer Success teams are actually more alike than not. Both roles require product knowledge, proper communication skills, patience, and empathy to be effective. With the CS team being the closest to the customer, there’s a lot to be gained for the PM who stays in frequent communication with them.
While a PM’s relationship with CS may not be as closely coupled as a PM’s relationship with the engineering team, alignment throughout product development is still necessary. Here are some ways that PMs can effectively engage with their CS teams:
- Sit on customer calls
- Leverage insights from CS captured data
- Set up periodic check-ins
- Hold training sessions & provide appropriate documentation well ahead of launch
- Align on success metrics
Sit on Customer Calls
This should be a requirement for every PM. New PMs should be required to sit on calls weekly during the first 60 days of a job. All other PMs should sit in on calls, at a minimum, monthly. Sitting in on calls adds a different and unique perspective to the customer experience. I’ve learned so much from agents as they navigate and troubleshoot issues with customers; I’ve also seen agents misinform customers and brought that up for correction across the board. These are insights I would have missed had I not made it a priority to sit in on calls at least once a month.
Even if it’s not possible to frequently sit in on live calls, calls are often recorded. While this doesn’t allow for interactions with the agents, listening to these recorded calls will still provide invaluable insights.
In addition to calls, there should be a system that captures feedback and shares it with the product teams. I’ve seen this done via dedicated slack channels, weekly email reports, or a combination. It doesn’t matter the system as long as it provides value to both teams.
Leverage insights from CS data
While PMs are often thought of as the voice of the customer, I believe Customer Success teams actually lay claim to that title. There is a lot of data that CS has captured that is often dismissed in favor of market research, surveys, product metrics etc. There are actionable user insights that PMs can readily incorporate into prioritization and roadmapping activities.
Set up periodic check-ins
In addition to sitting in on calls, PMs should schedule check-ins with CS teams to share updates on new product initiatives, product roadmap, and overall product health.
These check-ins should be done at least monthly – the more frequent, the better.
Hold training sessions & provide appropriate documentation ahead of time
PMs hate it when there is miscommunication to customers. CS teams hate it when they have to fly blind during interactions with customers. The onus is on the product manager to ensure that the CS team is equipped with the proper information. The PM should provide clear documentation as well as host training sessions weeks prior to launch.
Align on success metrics
It is important for both teams to understand on who the ideal customer is, what success means for the customer as well as align on the right metrics to be captured throughout the customer journey. This provides a shared touch point and clarifies ambiguity around product goals.
The above points aren’t bulletproof. Miscommunication, misalignments, and other issues will still occur. However; with an established communication cadence, these issues can be resolved swiftly and amicably. The key aspects PMs should focus on with customer-facing teams involve adequate communication and clarity of information.
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