When I was 16 years old I used to babysit my neighbors’ kids. They usually went out on Thursdays and always booked with me a few weeks in advance. One time, a friend of mine invited me to a party that was about to happen the next day. I was so excited! It was about to be an awesome party. The problem was that it was a Wednesday, and the party was at the exact same time that I promised my neighbors to be at their house the following day. I really, really wanted to go to that party. The way only a 16-year old can. I mean, really. You get the idea.

I told my mother about the party and about the conflict with the babysitting schedule. I was so frustrated. She just looked at me as I was figuring out what to do. Babysitting was great money, and I needed it. But the party was a one-time opportunity and I didn’t want to miss it either. All of my friends were going. I just couldn’t say no. I told my mother that I will tell the neighbors that I actually can’t come as something else came up. My mother looked at me unbelievingly, and then start yelling at me that I simply can’t do it. 

She explained that the neighbors counted on me and made plans accordingly, and it’s not fair that they would need to change their plans just so that I can have mine. She said that I gave my word, and I can’t take it back for a party, as awesome as it was going to be. That’s simply not something you can do to another person that relies on you. I argued wholeheartedly, but deep down inside I knew she was right. I had to say no to the party, and keep my commitment to my neighbors. 

I have recently been thinking about a variety of childhood experiences with my parents that made me the product leader that I am. This is one of them. There are many things to take from it, but I mainly took the fact that you need to think about the customers from their point of view. When my mother pointed out to me the experience my neighbors would have if I told them I can’t come, it was clear that I can’t let them down this way. I never thought about it like that before.

This example, though, isn’t just about the customer experience a vendor gives its customers. It is about the customer experience that I gave the people I worked with and met in the elevator every now and then regardless. 

Today’s article is about this special type of customer experience – the one you give personally, but not to your customers: to your manager, to your colleagues, and the people you manage. Here are common pitfalls to avoid and a quick guide to improving the customer experience you provide.

Let Them Know You Are on It

This is a very simple tip that will dramatically improve the customer experience you give as a product leader. As product leaders, we get so many requests from everyone in the company. Naturally, we can’t attend to them all immediately. And we also shouldn’t, since not all of them are as important as the other things you are currently working on.

But there is one thing that you should be able to do fairly quickly: respond and say that you got it and you will get back to them about it. Without it, they have no clue if you even saw their request, or are you ignoring it because you think it’s not important, or are you working on it furiously as a top priority. The only thing they can do without your response is to sit and wait and refresh their email to see if you responded. Or call you and chase you in other channels, which is good neither for them nor for you.

Instead, send them a quick response that says at the minimum that you got it and will get back to them by a certain time. Think about the last support ticket you opened. You got an automatic response that the team got it and will get back to you soon, right? If it was a weekend, maybe it said that they will get back to you within the working hours of the following week. Although it was an automatic response and there was nothing you could do to speed up the handling time of your ticket, it was still helpful. You now know that the ticket has got there, and assuming they have decent processes, they will indeed get to it. You know that the ball is in their hands now. 

In your case, on top of just knowing that you got their request, the other side actually has an opportunity to speed it up if needed. So if the time you can get to the request is too far, say you can’t get to it this week at all, it’s a great opportunity to share it with them and understand if it works for them as well. If it doesn’t, it gives them an opportunity to know the limitations of your availability and plan accordingly, or – especially with your manager – change your priorities to work on it still, ideally instead of something else. It is good for you as well, because it opens the discussion on the right priorities before you start working and not when you have already completed it and simply can’t get to other things that you were supposed to deliver this week.

Give Them the Information They Want

One of the most common pitfalls I see with product leaders’ personal customer experience is related to information. People ask us for information all the time. Status reports, ETAs, metrics, roadmap, questions on functionality, and the list goes on and on. It can be heavy to handle, so I see many product leaders investing a lot of time in creating a unified repository of information: everything is in Trello/Monday/Jira/Name-your-favorite-tool. It’s in the documentation.

Having such a unified repository is great. But except for specific cases, this tool is more for you to be able to answer quickly than for others to look at and get the data themselves. For example, when your manager asks you for an ETA of something, you can send them to the list you created to see for themselves, but that would be similar to you opening a support ticket and getting back an RTFM response. Not cool.

If you see many requests that are repeating themselves and indeed want to build a tool for other people to look things up themselves, build the tool with their point of view in mind. First, make sure that the tool makes it easy for them to find what they really want (and is not, for example, a generic repository of everything there is to know on a certain topic). Then, when you send them to the tool, explain where they can find exactly what they need. It’s the difference between “all the information is here <link>” and “everything we are currently supporting is listed on the table on page 6 of this document. If what you are looking for is not on the list we might already be working on it, as you can see here <link>. If you can’t find it ping me again and I’ll make sure to help”.

Make It Easy for Them to Help You

In the CPO Bootcamp, the participants submit every week a piece of their product strategy for feedback. There is a common google doc for everyone to share and learn from each other, but every now and then people are concerned with sharing sensitive information and prefer to submit theirs separately. Occasionally, there are participants who keep sending me MS-Word files instead of google docs. I’m a big fan of MS-Word, but for this specific task, it is much easier for me to work with google docs. In fact, it’s not really for me, it’s actually for the participants themselves: when I have comments on their strategy, and they reply to the comment, I get it nicely into my inbox with google docs and can answer directly from there. It allows me to review and respond quickly, even when I’m not around my laptop. With MS-Word, however, they need to send me another version, and I need to open it on my laptop, look for the comment, respond, and send it back. I do it, but it means that it takes so much longer for me to respond, and often it means they cannot address it when they are working on the following week’s assignment.

The last time it happened I explained it to the participant time and again, but she kept sending me MS-Word files for some reason. This makes it even worse because it should have been more important to her to get quick feedback than it is to me. 

What about you? Are you helping the people you work with help you and give you what you want? Or do you make them work harder just because you don’t want to? If you see examples of people not responding to your requests, see what you can do to make it easier for them to answer. Add an executive summary to your email, or explain in a few words what exactly you want them to do out of everything that is listed below. Build a form for them to easily give you the information you need, or anything else that would make it easier for them to give you what you want.

Awareness Is Everything

All the examples I gave above are just the beginning. There are many more. As you know, a great customer experience is made of many little things. I can’t list them all for you, and honestly, you don’t need me to. 

Instead of trying to adhere to a list of specific examples, make sure you are minded at all times to give a great customer experience to the people you work with. If you go with that mindset, I’m sure you will know what to do.

The Jewish new year is just around the corner. Are you ready to make this your new year’s resolution?

Happy new year!