How This Product Manager Transformed Tough Customer Feedback into a Game-Changing Cost Calculator

OK. Um, this one I think I have a better anecdote to, uh, illustrate those things. Um, so the situation was that, um, within the, the, the celebration software I was speaking about that was a peer to peer celebration software for the SMB market, um, We had an onboarding process. We were getting, um, dozens and dozens of signups. And when people were interviewed at a later stage, um, I got the, the exposure I got in this particular role was, um, just the recordings of these interviews and Some of the people were asked, um, the, uh, the question about the finance and the costing of the product and are you happy with it and etc. just some generic questions. But the feedback on that was very telling. And they, um, Without holding back, were unhappy about this, and they just were confused. So you could really empathize with them why they couldn't understand it, and they couldn't get it from the website, they couldn't get it from using the product and trialing the product. They, they still had confusion, but they, they, they were quite vocal about it. So that kind of stuck with me, um. I'm sorry,

they couldn't understand the, the, the business model and the overall cost of the product. So between various feet at different stages during your use of the product and how much would you put through this product, they couldn't understand the whole financials. Um, so what I decided to do was, um, think, what is the quickest way we can learn that people in the S&P market, um, We need a clearer understanding of this. So we changed some of the, uh, they need a clearer understanding of, of how the costs will come up. And so we did two things. Um, we implemented something that was kind of like a cost calculator inside the product so they could forecast the expenditure that they could expect over a period, which is very important and very sensitive to price sensitive SMB markets. And we also introduced lower costings, so, um, more transactions could happen. With a smaller cost, so you'd actually Depending on how much you use the software, you'd need a bigger budget. So if we gave them smaller blocks of, um, these transactions, and, so basically smaller ticket prices on these transactions, they could do more of them, creating more activity in their, in their suite and um essentially using it more but spending less. So that's, that's the idea. Um, So a combination of these two things and left into the market for a while and then tracked with analytics to see how often the pages were gotten to and how much these lower $10 awards went for compared to 20 $50 500 dollars, and showed a dramatic difference. Um, where traditionally we may have expected users to spend, um, substantial amounts of money under, uh, peer to peer, um, Uh, peer to peer celebrations, they really, um, drove into the smaller amounts and it was, there was quite an uptake. So, um, the, this combined with the, the cost calculator made it a lot clearer for users. So once the people got into the, the rhythm of using such a, a, a lower cost, which they are more comfortable with using higher amounts. So that the troop would increased. So, Regardless, again, being generic about the, the, the, the feature set, you could spend a lot if you wanted or you could spend a little, but by offering a smaller value, and they got more familiar with the whole life cycle of the product and it really helped. And that combined with showing a clear cost calculation seemed to keep the user for longer and it got them to repeat top up their accounts and with finance.

Yeah, um, there's, uh, not a saying, but there's a thing that I practice that I like to use that helps me, uh, prioritize. So when, when, when it comes to, um, all of the problems that are presented via, you know, an interview or a recording of an interview and you jot them all down. And you have to give them a weighting. And, um, most of the time you're going to try and learn as fast as possible, whether that is a common problem, uh, what part of the demographic of your users it affects, and what is the cost of rectifying it and what's the minimum cost to see if it's worth rectifying. So there's a couple of elements there, that the, the way to, to the shortest trial to see if you're on to fixing it, and it's going to be fixed by more users. Seeing what that takes for each of these problems, but then also taking each of the problems, right, what is, what is in your control, and you can change something today and what isn't in your control. So the things that are outside, there's engineering things, there's other backlogs. I can't get on with it. I can't fix that problem without a new advertising round. I can't do, you know, there's certain things that are going to be outside of my, um, Control, and that'll help build into the priority of seeing, I can get things running now and while I'm chasing up other problems. So it's, it's what's, what can be, what, where we can learn the fastest, what is the cheapest way to learn, what is the long term, full blooded solution to whatever that problem may be, and, and also how, uh, from like a suite of interviews. How many times did it come up? Can you validate it with more interviews? And can you build in analytics to compare your, your, your tangible, uh, you know, empathy-driven decisions and back them up with analytical-based, um, confirmations. So those things combined really. Then giving the the the stakeholders the ability to take my opinion and my recommendation, and also give it to them, where if they say, I only care about development costs on this, I can give it to them through that lens, or if they want to say, what about, you know, our growth goals, I can give it to them through that lens. So weighing up a matrix of um weightings for each problem set and then being able to deliver it to each of the stakeholders in a way that will answer their problems and also give them an alternative perspective.

Um, I think the main thing that was taken away was to simplify the um The long-term cost calculation for prospects. Um, when it came to a solution, like any SAS solution, you have to be able to see your next 18 to 36 months of using it, of using it. If it has long-term use cases that really tie into annual activities, that also, uh, will, will, will drive how long-term the information that you provide to the user is. So a price tag versus a hypothetical bill, you know, is, is, is, It is more useful, so really establishing the um the best way to describe your Your full cost model to a prospect and not giving them less information because in the long run, it won't help them make their decision, because often it'll be a decision by committee involving a CFO and other users, sorry, not other users, other personnel in the company.