Solving problems, improving performance and driving growth
Our products are real game changers for the industry, helping to improve safety, compliance, performance and drive efficiencies. However, none of this can be achieved without successfully embedding the product and enabling transformational change to help our users realise their objectives and solve their problems. Still in our infancy, the Product Deployment and Change team aims to create this transformational change and ensure our products deliver the outcomes our clients need. To do this, I think there are 5 principles we should always remember:
Focus on the problem, not the product. Whilst our products are great, it’s not their shiny newness that makes our clients want them and procure them. They each have a problem to solve, an outcome to achieve, whether it is improving Customer Satisfaction through ConnectMe, reducing leakage through Novus, or reducing unnecessary costs through Opus. It must always be the guiding principle for all of us that we remember what those outcomes are and consistently aim all of our efforts towards delivering them. That means when we are collecting requirements, prioritising product configuration, delivering training, anything at all stages of the project, we should always prioritise and focus on the problem being solved. We are outcome focussed at Skewb and our products must always be one of our vehicles to delivering those outcomes.
Keep it simple. The last thing anyone wants is another, over-complicated product. The brilliance of Skewb’s products is that they are intuitive and easy to use and interpret. So why would we over-complicate the deployment? Our clients and product users are busy, they don’t have time for over-complicated workshops or training. Throughout the process we should always keep it simple, use the client’s language and ensure we reduce the strain of deployment at all turns.
Make the ‘Users’, ‘Believers’. If we can keep our processes simple, be clear and evidence how our products solve the individual’s problems and be consistent in our deployment methods, we will make all users believers in in the products. That is the most powerful tool we have in deploying a product. If we can start with a small pocket of believers and advocates of the product, this will permeate through the teams and business, increasing buy in and usage, and delivering the change needed. We must invest time early on in all deployments in being clear on how users can achieve the outcomes they need, what the product means for them and the benefits it provides for each individual themselves. Moreover, if we can create a community of believers, the reputation and knowledge of our products will spread across the industry and drive our continued growth.
Collaborate and innovate. Our clients are experts, just like us. We should always be looking for opportunities to collaborate to create better solutions, deliver better outcomes and forge stronger relationships. They know the industry’s problems, so why not work together to create a better product used in a more efficient way? Our relationship with Cadent is a perfect example of this as we collaborate to create new, market leading solutions, such as the Waste Classification Protocol module for Opus which we will develop this year and will be the first of its kind in the UK, solving an industry-wide problem.
The job is never done, keep listening. A theme throughout the previous 4 principles has been engaging and working closely with our clients during delivery, but it should not stop once hypercare is over. We must remain responsive to our clients needs and be proactive in our communication and updates. Through the Customer Success Team and the Product Deployment and Change Team we will deliver customer service that is second to none. We will keep collaborating, innovating, informing and listening to our clients to make sure they feel valued and heard. This is absolutely key to how we retain customers for the long term. We must always show how much we value them.
These 5 principles are not everything. There will be many more consideration we can all think of that will help us to embed our products and deliver change, however through these 5 we can maintain focus, put our customers first, drive change and deliver growth.
By Jack England
Jack England is Director of Product Deployment and Change at Skewb. To speak with him about this topic in more detail, you can connect with him on LinkedIn.
