How Challenging Customer Feedback Transformed This Business Development Strategy

Um, there was a telehealth, uh, company I was working with, and, um, that customer already had in their head what their MVP looks like. Um, and We, we disagreed in terms of when you

So, um, yeah, my day to day is basically working on all the engagements, um, and you know, taking them to you know, digital transformation program anyway, so, um. So I, I disagree with the customer in terms of what that MVP should look like, and, you know, gave them some additional, you know, opportunities. They want to go all in, um, from measuring success, I felt like it was one of those projects that um it's going to be hard to show what the value was. Um, and, you know, from my perspective, you know, possibility for failure. So I got a lot of pushback from the customer. Um, kept on getting pushed back, try to negotiate, you know, streamline that uh MVP process. Um, You know, finally, you know, they said, well, this is what we're looking for, you know, I want you to accomplish this, you know, the the way we're telling you what the scope is. So, you know, we gave in, you know, I, I said, OK, we, we could create a program around this, um. But if We, we don't get the results you're looking for right away. Can we look at this again and, you know, basically push out a use case that will show more value from, from this. And they say yes, and yeah, I think they were kind of pla, you know, placating me, but uh a couple weeks happened down the road, um. The sponsors, my client's sponsors, uh, didn't find a true value. Of, uh, you know, what the MVP had. Um, so, you know, again, I started negotiating, you know, the, the what the that MVP should look like and what the use case should look like. So I actually, you know, told them to bring in some additional executive sponsors and play where, you know, before there was a push back, uh, to bring everyone in the same room, finally they agreed when, you know, we did a readout on the existing MVP that we did. And I said, you know, listen, um, I know this is not the results that you were looking for. However, if we could show you something that will provide back more value and, and we could push this out in the next two weeks, are you willing to put in a small amount of investment and see what those results look like? So finally they agreed, and you know, I, I basically brought my entire team back and I make tweets to that how that architecture looked like, and I said, listen, you know, we, we have to make changes here and here. So I'm gonna, you know, spend, we're not gonna spend too much time in creating this, but we have to provide, show, you know, what the true value was and and the the product was uh creating a digital assistant. So they, they did a lot around speech to text 6 speech, um, where, you know, the little aha moment was to solve like 80% of the questions that they're omnichannel or human agents were, were taking in. So I said we already have the back end technology, let's just create the use case for those questions that you're trying to solve right away. And uh you know, once we were successful, we we got additional projects from from that client.

so they, they, they actually handed us, so they, um, so I was dealing with the head of engineering and handed me a scope of the project that they want to do for the MVP. Um, Excuse me, and that project entailed, you know, leveraging some uh AI technologies, uh natural language understanding, basically feeding in their entire data corpus and pushing it through the microservice and then providing results back, you know, via JSON output, um. But you know, from the beginning, I didn't really get a sense that they're trying to solve uh their client's needs. So I, I kept on, you know, poking holes on it and then, you know, I finally said, you know, we, we should define this, create a smaller low hanging fruit project where you could show immediate value, not do it because, you know, we, we spent, you know, roughly around 2 months with that project, you know, we could have done this in under, you know, 3 to 4 weeks. Um, So yeah, that that was the pushback I was getting. They're just so set on, you know, delivering on their requirements.

Yeah, they, they, they were saying, um, so the, the director of engineering was like, uh, um, I appreciate your input, but at the same token, we, we need to get this done, um, you know, my management is looking to, you know, get solutions in place to take care of, you know, these, uh, these additional programs that we're, we're handling today, um, and, you know, I need a, you know, a timeline, scope and budget to get this done. So, you know, I, I really wanted to, you know, set the tone in terms of, you know, what's the value that you're getting from this and um Yeah, do you have, you know, measures in here to provide back to you to your leadership? And I, I was also getting pushed back to bring in some more executive sponsors into the meeting. Um, you know, the, the meeting started off with, you know, a bunch of uh technologists and, you know, the most senior guy there was the head of uh engineer.

I mean, um, the, the biggest thing with them was they just wanted to, uh, yeah, I mean, um, that, that, that's exactly it. I mean, they, they want us to to create this, this scope that, uh, we understand, you know, what they were looking for, but in the same token, you know, we didn't see, we're just basically creating technology to create technology. So, um, You know, was it a, you know, a push, um, I mean, uh, yeah, I mean, I could probably find uh another couple of scenarios where, um, You know, we, we have issues from a, you know, proposal perspective where, you know, they want us to do more with less, um, where we, you know, basically tweak, you know, the proposal to figure out what we're gonna provide them in the shortest amount of time. Um, I get, you know, a lot of pushback on that.

Uh, from my perspective, uh, yes. Because, um, Yeah,

Well, I, so what we try to do, and I would say 50% of the time, uh, we get pushed back on it, is that we, we try to get the clients to engage in these uh workshops, uh, immediately. So we, and you could think of it as like a, uh, a discovery or assessment just to understand, um, you know, the pain points of, uh, you know, the client. Um, because in the same token, we, we never want to push out a bad project. We also, we always wanna, you know, provide as much value as possible. Um, and majority of the time when we see that they don't go through these discovery or assessment engagements, um, Yeah, I would say, you know, maybe 6 out of 10 times it was like, well, um, you didn't provide us a solution that, you know, gives back any value, you know, it's great that we're leveraging these technologies, but we're not getting any real value from it. Um, so, you know, from my perspective, that that's the biggest challenge is just getting customers to, you know, really understand that, uh, you know, we're we're providing, creating these solutions on behalf of your firm, but in the same token, we want to provide you as much value as possible. OK.