Most companies rely on sales charts, marketing briefs, and satisfaction surveys to understand their customers. But this data isn't enough—it often leads to mis-allocated resources, stalled innovation, and openings for competitors.
The solution? Get out of the building and observe individuals using your product in their natural environment. Go to where your customer is and observe. This seemingly simple practice provides insights and innovations that have giant, measurable impact.
Watched people make breakfast in their homes to design a private-label toaster that became a bestseller for three years.
Observed shoppers at home improvement stores to redesign web navigation. The store now sells $20B online annually.
Visited gyms and running clubs to add workout features to a music app, gaining millions of paid users.
You've done the deep anthropological work and built a product strategy around your customer's needs. But your most critical job isn't over when you hand off to development—it's just beginning.
As the product executive, you hold the deepest understanding of the customer. Your responsibility is to translate that knowledge on a day-to-day basis, always advocating for the customer's experience while the product is being developed.
Your customer must be a presence in every meeting. Be so consistent that your team knows you as the unwavering voice of the user.
Update personas with new insights, print them, and hand them to everyone. Use pictures and first names so they sit on everyone's desk.
Never assume knowledge about user experience is universal. Document core user expectations to prevent costly mistakes.
Send engineers and designers to the customer service desk. Direct exposure creates profound empathy that leads to better, more intuitive products.
Being your customers' advocate isn't a phase in the product lifecycle—it's the constant, driving force. When the customer drives everything you do and say, that loyalty is rewarded with sales and fewer trouble tickets down the road.
Every product executive will encounter internal voices who insist on features or approaches that are counter-productive to good customer experience. Part of being great is being prepared to counter these challenges with objective customer data.
"I just know the customer wants this" or "Our competition is adding this feature." This is a reactive stance based on opinion or fear, not user need.
"That would take too much time" or "Everyone knows how to use that." This is an assumption about user priorities based on an expert's biased perspective.
"Our two biggest clients want that feature." This confuses the needs of a few powerful customers with the needs of the entire market.
- For public-facing apps: Go to a coffee shop, offer to buy coffee in exchange for five minutes of feedback. Get raw, unbiased feedback from a dozen people in an afternoon.
- For place-dependent products: Build a small on-call panel of users. Offer a $20 gift card for 10 minutes on a recorded webcam call. Validate features in under 48 hours.
When you're challenged, use the data you have. And if you don't have good data for a particular question, use your rapid validation process to go get it. Let your customer's voice, backed by sound research, be the loudest and most respected voice in the room.
There are five over-arching tenets that define great product executives. It doesn't matter if your role is an entry-level Product Manager or CEO, these five tenets of product are your guide to success.