#Norocketships Feb 18th
Curious & Needy, but Lazy too š
Apologies in advance, Having re-read this issue weāve given the vendor community a bit of a kicking. Not intentional, but the more brand-side leaders I speak to in my day job, the more they tell me to keep on speaking the truthā¦ so here goes nothing!
Jamie
Vile Rumour & Gossip
No CSMās worth hiring - A high growth vendor asked me recently if I knew any really strong Customer Success Managers who they might hire. Disappointingly the response from our Commerce Futures Collective was derisory, Sadly, at every point the group pointed out that none of those they knew fulfilled a role that was about the success of the customer.
Service works both ways - A few weeks ago we talked about some vendors shutting down slightly and ākeeping the lights onā. These same companies claim to be focused on ākeeping what they haveā, and yet having fired their CSM team have ignored most customers for a few critical months as they year starts. Having lectured brands for years about personalisation and loyalty, they need to wake up and realise this service thing works both ways š.
The Myth of CRO - Quite often we have a full on group rant in the collective about CRO in general. The ālineā goes up, more salesā¦ better efficiencyā¦ but the fancy attribution tactics rarely pay off, and the CFO isnāt impressed. Starting to think CRO is actually just a ābait & switchā myth.
The roadmap - itās a myth (see below). We have instances where clients have bought enterprise s/w on the promise of a specific set of features, only to find themselves in conflict with the product team about the priority of said features. And now? Well theyāre funding the roadmap.
AI - Donāt make me feel stupid
Weāre entering an era where once again, customers know much much less than vendors.
And once again, Iām reminded of something an eCommerce leader said to me years ago when discussing the technology buying process. āDonāt make me feel stupidā, because whilst my day job is running an eCommerce business, this is our budget and weāll spend it with people we both trust and want to work with.
Of course, weāve come a long way since then. Customers know more, vendors are no longer lecturing, and the reality is that nobody knows ANYTHING about AI.
āDonāt worry, weāll get through this togetherā is the message weād recommend sending - if you can bear the humanity of it š.
Warning - If you DO make the customer feel stupid, the contract phase will be brutal.
Roadmap webinars - Where is the value?
Iāve started sitting in on vendor roadmap calls & demosā¦ it feels important in an era where investors seem to think Claude will replace everyone.
So far Constructor, Optimizely (Opal), Shopify, Salesforce, Fulfil, Sanity, Contentful and SCALYE. Iāll keep it up I promise :)
These are generally an hour long, and pre-baked. My takeaways:
1 - Thereās often a slide at the start that basically says āWe might never do any of thisā.
2 - The next 13 mins are where the useful stuff is, generally presented by a grownup. But - theyāre very insular... no customer references or use cases that really resonate. I feel customers are left to join the dots to their own business.
3 - The remaining 40 minutes are wasteful and vacuous... where technical staff give 5 minute answers that other technical staff ask them. Itās showing off basically.
The reason I a doing this is because Iām on a bit of a crusade about the Roadmap. AI tells us that it should be accelerating, and that customers will see huge strides. I am beginning to suspect that many vendors are really worried about their roadmap and the ability to create one that is meaningful - and deliver it.
If you get your roadmap pitch right, and fix engagement - you will win I promise you!
Use Cases - Think harder
A follow-on from the section above is āUse casesā. My experience is in helping technology vendors and services companies market and sell bleeding edge technology. From Agile 20 yrs ago to AI now.
Effective marketing is never about the technology, but about which problems it solves for customers. Often with new tech the customer isnāt cognisant of the problem they have until it is pointed out - hence my point above about ālecturingā.
With AI adoption, the nature of the technology means that use cases are the key. Thinking harder about the ones that might be relevant for your target client (or indeed yourself if you are a customer) is the key.
Make them niche, make them specific, make them real, and work harder on them than you do on anything else. Build a āUse case for the dayā program that educates your staff to consider their own and their clients.
I have made a matrix of 300 use cases which Iām happy to share if you reply to this email and ask - a snip of it above (Yes I used perplexity to help, Sue me)
More in 3 weeks - and yes loads of new podcast episodes have been launched so check them out here
Jamie
P.S. We now have over 12,000 active readers and some fantastic feedback. We're open to supportive sponsorship and contributions - Just reply and we'll respond... eventually.
Marty, where we are going, we don't need roads ... roadmaps..