The document discusses using customer relationship management (CRM) data to inform product development. It emphasizes focusing on customer usage data and actual customer needs rather than features. Developing the right value proposition and aligning product features to target customers and their core problems is more important than chasing competitors. Integrating CRM systems with other data sources can provide hidden insights into how customers actually use products and what issues they face.

1. What’s In the Next Release? Ask The CRM
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

2. Ask The CRM – Agenda
• The Product Management Challenge
• Feature Futures
• Customer Usage
• What’s Getting in the Way?
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

3. Today’s Haiku
The Big Marketing
Problems are not Marketing
Problems: Look Elsewhere
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

4. Who is David Taber?
• 25 years in Information Technology
• Virtually all experience in Software
 Finance, Telecom, Manufacturing, & Defense industries
• MBA, BA from University of California
 Lecturer, UC Berkeley graduate school of business
• Now a CRM Management consultant
 Startups through $5B firms in six countries
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

5. The Newtonian Model of Product Development
• Product design is an inbound process
• Product Marketing influences engineers
 Engages prospective buyers
 Makes mid-course corrections
 Tweaks messages to fit product reality
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

6. Problems with the Newtonian Model
• Engineers design for themselves
 “Stupid customers”
• Sales overly focused on the last lost deal
• Marketers write requirements tomes
 Nobody follows most of the Great Ideas
• Customers don’t know what they need
 Often follow ideas put in their heads by your competitor
 Suffering from future shock (undigested shifts)
 They don’t care the way you do…
• Defendable, objective data?????
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

7. Infinite Loop / Simultaneous Equation
Customer Segments
Response
Channel Needs
Pitch
Features
Press
Story
Market Size
Value Prop
& Messaging
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

8. Resolving the Infinite Loop
Value Proposition Target Market
Business
Thesis
Product Features Target User
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

9. What’s a CRM?
• Customer Relationship Management =
 Sales Force Automation
 Call Center Automation?
 Customer Support?
Leads Sales Cycles
Contacts Forecasts
Call History Accounts
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

10. Where does a CRM Fit?
Marketing Automation
Web Site Accounting
Call Center
Web Analytics Distribution
Surveying
CRM Licensing &
Fulfillment
eCommerce
Customer Portal Customer Support
Bug Tracking
Partner Portal
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

11. Watch Out!
• If you’re a small company
 The CRM hasn’t been integrated with anything else
 There isn’t a good way to correlate the data
 Probably…it’s an Access/MySQL party!
• If you’re a BIG company
 There will be multiple CRMs, ERPs, CCAs, etc.
 The integrations will be fragmentary, partitioned
 Probably…it’s off to the Data Warehouse!
• Either way: get good at data reduction &
analysis!
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

12. Booby Traps
• Politically-gamed Sales input
• Blurred semantics
• Self-selection bias
• Narrow populations
• Social networks  Insta-mobs
“The Wisdom of Crowds” does not apply
to most internet communities
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

13. CRM Data You Can Often Ignore
• Lead Source
• Purchase intention scores/qualifiers
• Competitors
• Win/Loss Reasons
• Contact Roles (political map)
• Customer Configurations
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

14. CRM Hidden Gems for Feature Input
• Customer Service
 Cases & RMAs
 CS auto-surveys
 Professional Services RFI/RFP/SOW/commentary
• Sales
 Pre-Sales engineer commentary
 Approval forms (e.g., loaners, POCs, etc.)
• Email threads
• Forum / Discussion Board threads
• Marketing automation cookie crumbs
• Assets / License Mgt / Fulfillment
• “Ideas” and feature votes
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

15. The CRM Maturity Model™
• All “meaningful” calls/contacts in the system ½
• Every sale and renewal is in the system ½
• Every sale has product line items
• # of Internal Systems Integrated (e.g., email) 3
• # of External Systems Integrated (e.g., Marketo) 1
• “All” bookings forecasts based only on CRM data ½
• A Deduping Tool/Service is in use
• Reps and SEs see CRM as their key info resource 
• Customer support logs Cases in system
• ProSvcs puts every project in the system
A good score is 8 or above
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

16. “But Dave…”
• Why doesn’t all this just get done in a
data warehouse?
 In some organizations, that’s exactly where all this data
should be living
 But the data isn’t likely to be properly organized,
summarized, or meaningful for your purposes
 So get a budget of $XX,000 and wait in line
• If you don’t have a data warehouse yet
 Get a budget of $XXX,000 and wait in line
 In the immortal words of Dr. Phil…
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

17. Nirvana
• Link the CRM system to the product
• Collect extracts from real usage data
• Eliminate survey (and surveyor) biases
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

18. Customer-Centered Product Design
• Develop and engage users as early and often as possible
 Wikis and forums and portals and blogs: community input
• Customer interaction should be part of the UI
 Anonymous “call home” usage stats
 Auto-update driven announcements and invitations to portal, voting, etc.
 Explicit “conversation” via IM
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

19. Customer Engagement in “Enterprise Software”
• “Call home” model
 Appliances
• Update + Security notices
 Emails inviting follow-up
 Customer self service portal = opportunity!
• Support and Consulting are your best touch
points
 Get these groups actively using your SFA / CRM system
 Integrate marketing survey questions into their normal way of
doing business
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

20. SaaS = Warp Drive for User Interaction
• Who needs user surveys?
• You know the names and emails of every single user
• You can measure everything that current and
prospective users do, at every session
• You know how every “demo” and “POC” is going in
real time
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

21. What if it’s not a “feature deficit?”
• Is it product quality /
reliability?
• Is it the message?
• Are we going after the
right verticals?
• Is it the sales team?
• Are we targeting the
right customers?
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

22. Before you design your product,
design your customer.
– Somebody Brilliant™
™ SalesLogistix Corporation, all lefts reserved
Graphics courtesy PC Week
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

23. Remember our Haiku?
• Your “product problem” may not really
be a product problem
 Positioning (messaging)
 Pricing (including pricing model)
 Place (channel)
 Performance (including quality and reliability)
• First, look at OOBE
 You can never make a product too easy to use
• Then, look at EOP
 You can never make a product too easy to buy
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

24. The Classic B2B Pipeline …
“Names” 25,000 Demand Discovery
or “Attendees” Target Marketing
Market 12%
or “Audience”
3000
Responses
“Leads” 20%
600 Demand Refinement
Qualified Telemarketing/Inside Sales
Leads 33%
“Qualified Leads” 200
ID Requirements
20%
Demand Development
Sales
40
“Contacts” Appointments
Value 33%
Demonstration
12
Scope&
“Opportunities” Proposal 30% - 50%
4-6
New Customer
“References”
Source: Research work from Sirius Decisions and DOTnet Consulting SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

25. Analyzing Conversion Failures
• Use CRM data to develop a model for
the real pipeline
 Conversion percentages
 Time in stage
 Separate by product, vertical, and channel
• Examine CRM data for diagnostics
about the failures
 Forget about Sales’ win/loss reasons
 Look for correlations, serial patterns
 Survey customers immediately upon failure
 Make sure the surveyor isn’t biasing the answers
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

26. Sometimes it’s the simplest stuff…
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Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

27. Make it Really Easy for Customers
to Connect the Dots
• Remove customer speed-bumps
 Unnecessary steps
 Things that could be automated, streamlined
 Anything that engenders purchase delay
• Change the rules!
 Contractual complexity
 Weird / paranoid business rules
• Make purchasing pleasant
 Conversations, not adversarial negotiations
 Be that much easier than your competitor
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

28. Your Take-Aways
• The way to win in product planning is to have
solid, objective data
• The most defensible, attractive data is from
real customers
 Existing customers are more profitable than new ones
 (But you can never ignore new customer wins)
 The CRM system can be your private gold mine
• The problem: integration and validity of data
 Get good at statistical methods and analysis
• In this case, the sizzle is the steak
 Customers begging for new features should trump everything else
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

29. Thank You!
dTaber@SalesLogistix.com
www.taberconsulting.com/download/archives.htm
650-326-2626
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

30. Product Features
Focus on this LAST
Develop Iteratively
 Think Agile Development / eXtreme Programming
 Talk with prospects, but don’t take them literally
Do not focus on feature lists / competitive parity
 If you chase the bad guys on their own terms,
you will always be behind
Do not focus on the “how”
 Better to focus on the “what”
 Even better to focus on the “who, when…”
 Best to focus on the “why”
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

31. Product Features
Instead, develop a coherent thesis
 The core: your theory about what the customer
values most
• “Our product is best in the world at doing X for users who
need to do Y inside customer Z.”
 Use your thesis to keep scope focused
 Do a few things exquisitely well
Version 1.0 will inevitably be incomplete, but it
must not be fragmentary
 Does enough of the job to show value
 It can never be too easy to use
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

32. Look Beyond Product Features
Product boundary
 Will the customer think of your 5 line-items as one product?
 Will they think of your one product as 3 things bundled?
 Will customers need other stuff to make your product usable?
 Product boundary determines the scope of competitors &
substitutes
Pricing and licensing
 Pricing (and licensing) model
 Price points
 Discounts, bundles, and allowances
Packaging and OOBE
 How is the product delivered and installed?
 What is the initial user experience?
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011

33. The Best MRD…
• Write a 2-page press release for the
product before the team begins
 What’s the opening gambit?
 Who gets quoted and what do they say?
 Who is the channel selling to?
 What are the visible benefits, and for whom?
 What’s the pricing, packaging, and distribution?
• And have a Wiki for a dynamic view of
the product details
SalesLogistix
Intro CRM Data for Features Usage Data Beyond Features ©2011