Turning feature factory mindset into customer-centric solutions

Customers love shiny new features, right? Well, that’s only partly true. Customers want their problems solved, pain points addressed, and experiences to be seamless and satisfying. Sometimes new features will provide this––but not always.

You might have noticed––the emphasis on product managers churning out the next feature is a hotly debated industry topic. Take Marty Cagan, founder of Silicon Valley Product Group, who said, “It is a lot easier to deliver output than it is to deliver outcomes” and even claimed that product managers are becoming unnecessary in these so-called “feature teams”.

Meanwhile, Ben Erez, an ex-Facebook executive and now advisor to early-stage teams doesn’t agree. In his words, “I see the feature factory as the right choice for some CEOs to run their companies, especially when those CEOs have a clear and compelling product vision.”

But things get interesting when the two sides of this debate converge. Both agree that endlessly churning out the next feature––without validating assumptions and putting features through testing––can mean creating products that nobody likes. And that’s a problem for everyone.

So, regardless of which stance you take, the essential factor is in the focus––creating products with the customer at the forefront. These are some key ways to turn a feature factory mindset into endless customer-centric solutions.

Get closer to your customers

Consider any app on your phone and ask yourself why you use it. The answer is almost always because it offers you a meaningful experience. That’s no mistake. That value was backed in for you by teams deeply invested in customer closeness.

Endless users tested the products you use every day and offered their feedback to help you enjoy a refined and optimized experience.

Whether your team considers itself a feature factory or not, the key is focusing on quality experiences by bringing the customer into the process from the beginning. The closer you are to your customers, the better you understand their wants, needs, and challenges. This can happen through a commitment to research, feedback loops, usability testing, and customer-centricity to name a few.

But how do you organize endless feedback in meaningful ways to have an impact on your customers? With Channels by Dovetail, your product team can decode thousands of data points in minutes––without the months of training. Channels is the AI-powered solution for high-volume customer feedback to quickly organize, segment, and analyze data. With Dovetail, it’s simple to gain actionable insights, boost customer closeness, and release products that customers will love.

Quit assumptions, delve into the data

Your English teacher was right. It’s not about the quantity of words in your essay, it's the quality that counts. In most cases, the same goes for product development. But even the most focused PMs can be rattled by strong competition, loud voices, and the assumption that customers want you to release endless bells and whistles.

Here’s the secret. New, innovative features aren’t the problem: relying on assumptions is. Teams relying on guesswork and assumptions are doomed to throw features at a wall hoping something will stick.

Gaining feedback and analyzing the data is the only way to gain clarity, discover what customers actually want and prefer, and then develop features that will address those needs.

With Dovetail, it’s simpler to understand your customers than ever before. Turn calls, notes, and user feedback into insights you can use to validate assumptions and release products that will fly. With AI-powered features like Channels, it’s simple to turn customer feedback into real-time insights. That means promoting data-backed decisions and bringing the voice of the customer into everything you do.

Go deeper with retrospectives

If your team operates with a feature factory mindset, it can become problematic when products are churned and burned without thought to what went well and what could have been done better.

The resolution is in the retrospective––taking the time to assess success, learn from mistakes, and become significantly more targeted with your product releases.

Setting up rituals, whether it’s an agile sprint retrospective or your team’s personalized review, helps to promote listening, learning, and customer-centricity. Looking at key metrics––engagement, usage, feedback, loyalty, and churn––can all help to reveal how your products are performing and what improvements can be made in the future.

In a retrospective, some key questions to ask include:

• Did we achieve the core project goal?

• What would a successful launch look like in the future?

• Was the customer a key part of our process?

• How can we better engage with customers to meet their needs?

• What have we learned?

Make discovery continuous

Accelerating technology and the rise of AI are pushing consumer demands higher than ever before. Salesforce survey data from 14,300 consumers found that 65% of customers expect organizations to continually adapt to their changing preferences and needs.

That means if you think you know everything about your customers––you probably don’t. Customer’s needs are continually increasing and it’s essential to change and adapt to them.

That doesn’t mean the spaghetti-at-a-wall approach, but rather really diving into customer needs, values, expectations, and preferences through a continuous discovery framework.

To do this, customer feedback loops––where feedback gathering is continuous––help keep customers at the center of all you do.

But where do you house this endless data in a way that’s usable, accessible, and actionable across the business? Dovetail is your centralized customer insights hub to gain, store, and analyze feedback for continual actionable insights that will make a difference for customers. That means going from chaos to clarity in minutes, then acting on insights for data-backed decisions.

Turning the feature factory into customer focus

Rolling out new features is great if those features fit a market need and your customers want and appreciate them. But, if the feature factory means shiny new objects that don’t impress, it’s time to take a step back.

The solution isn’t necessarily in halting the factory mindset altogether, or in slowing down innovation. The resolution lies in shifting the focus away from newness for the sake of it toward customer-centricity. That means making a determined effort to bring the customer into the process from ideation to final shipment––for better, more satisfying, and seamless customer experiences.

After all, a business culture with the customer at the center can’t go far wrong.

Transform your customer data into customer-centric decisions with Dovetail. Try Dovetail free or request a demo today.