The Conversation Is Happening With or Without You
You know how it works. Something is happening in one part of your life and suddenly you become attuned to it everywhere — a new sensitivity. It may be that you just discovered gardening, and you notice your city has flowers in tiny and uniqiue places. Maybe a loved one is about to have surgery, and it seems every movie is about doctors and hospitals.
I had it happen in a more subtle, but similar fashion. An enlightening moment with one client showed itself to be true for all of them.
The Communication Breakdown
I was talking to a client about their communication breakdown between the in-house product folks and the folks in the field working with customers. You may find it familiar. The two groups look with suspicion at their counterparts’ willingness to learn how the world really works. My client can’t find a venue or person to bridge this gap in their product-to-market structure, and so they are left with
- folks in the building who know product, but can’t close a sale
- folks in the field who know customers, but not product detail
- folks who only meet customers as experts, because that’s the only time they’re invited
- folks who rarely offer perspective on product, because their expertise is discounted
- customers voices get left behind, because of the gap in communication
- customers talk to each other about their experience with the company and the product, but the company rarely hears them
The communication breakdown is a significant problem. Folks are trying to sell without product knowledge and their counterparts are talking to customers products without an ability to close the deal. Sadly, each group doesn’t respect the strengths of the other. So teamwork is attempted, but not driven by passion.
They’re Having the Conversation Without You
After my dialogue with the client above, I returned to my work on a fall seminar that I’m putting together. It’s a day for product and marketing folks on how to tap into the vibrant and rich resource of customer intimacy that is the Internet.
I found myself doing a quick search on that client. What I got back was page after page of blog entries about the client’s product. Customers were talking about how they used it and how they felt about the product and the client. About half of the blog posts I came across in ten minutes were positive. I collected the links and passed them on to my client. Then I called him with this basic message:
Your customers are having the conversation with or without you. Wouldn’t you like to be part of it? Not only would the whole company know more about your products, but this could be the bridge that would level the playing field between product and sales. Neither one could feel quite so . . . if they both have the same information.
That client will be blogging quite soon. The links I sent were very powerful evidence of the conversation he was missing out on. Now he doesn’t just want to listen, he wants a part in directing it.
Suddenly that new sensitivity I talked about earlier seemed to take over. I realized that many companies I know have the same exact problem.
–Liz Strauss