From start to finish: Building a customer roadmap

Customers who invest in your product are also investing in their future, and your goal should be to retain customers for life.

A customer-facing roadmap helps them understand how well their investment is paying off and may prevent them from switching to a competitor to get a feature you may already have in the works.

Customers and other external stakeholders have a vested interest in the direction of a company they give their money to. A customer-facing roadmap provides those customers with information about the direction of the company.

These roadmaps differ from internal roadmaps. They provide a higher-level view, focusing on value propositions and general time frames.

Typically, a customer-facing roadmap highlights upcoming features, improvements, and initiatives that customers will benefit from. They're detailed enough to provide this information without being so detailed that they limit the flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions and business priorities.

With information available in an instant, entire generations have grown up expecting a high level of transparency.

Customer-facing roadmaps provide you with an opportunity to meet those expectations. They ensure:

• Transparency

• Alignment of expectations

• Meaningful discussions with customers

Let's take a deeper look at the benefits of these roadmaps.

Building anticipation in the market

Customers can't be excited about a new feature if they don't know it's on the way. Roadmaps put those features on the customer's radar, building anticipation. Creating a customer-facing roadmap provides several benefits to your business:

• Market positioning: It demonstrates the company has a clear vision for the future and forward-thinking leadership.

• Competitive advantage: It can help retain customers who may be tempted by similar features from competitors.

• Investment justification: It helps customers justify investing in your product by showing how their investment will be rewarded.

• Brand building: It reinforces the company's commitment to continuous improvement and customer success.

Deepening relationships with customers

The best way to prevent churn is to foster a deep relationship with customers. A customer-facing roadmap helps with this in several ways:

• Trust building: Showing transparency about the future builds trust with customers and shows respect for their future plans. 

• Strategic partnership: Informed customers can better align their strategic planning with your product evolution.

• Proactive communication: Regular roadmap updates provide natural touchpoints for ongoing customer engagement.

• Customer success: Customers who can prepare for and maximize the value of new features will be more successful with the product.

Gaining valuable market feedback

The company that best meets the needs and desires of its customers will be the one that wins their long-term loyalty.

Customer-facing roadmaps provide an excellent opportunity for this by gaining:

• Early validation: It's easy to validate planned features when customer feedback is available as early as possible.

• Requirements refinement: Customer feedback helps refine feature requirements to ensure they're as robust as users need them to be.

• Priority adjustment: Responses from customers can help the company decide which features to prioritize.

• Innovation sources: Discussions with customers regarding the roadmap often reveal new opportunities and use cases.

A customer-facing roadmap has a different purpose than an internal one. Creating this type of roadmap requires an awareness of these differences. It must strike the right balance between transparency and flexibility. This guide will help you find that balance.

1. Define your audience for the roadmap

Every communication you have with your customers should be tailored to them. Your customer-facing roadmap is no exception.

Identify key stakeholders

Evaluate who will be looking at the roadmap. This approach can be broader than any customer personas you may have created.

Consider factors such as:

• Enterprise customers vs small-business users

• Technical users vs business users

• Existing customers vs prospects

• Industry analysts and investors

Adapt content and format

Once you know who will be looking at the roadmap, tailor what you showcase in it to their needs. For example, technical audiences may appreciate more detailed feature specifications. Business users may prefer data about business outcomes and ROI.

The exact information customers require may also vary by industry. Knowing your customers will help you provide a roadmap that gives them what they want from it.

2. Assume your competitors will see it

A customer-facing roadmap, by definition, has to be public-facing to some level. Even if you limit it to paying customers, your competitors could have easy access to it. This places constraints on what you include in it.

Protect strategic information

Your internal roadmaps may be filled with proprietary technology details or the specifics of certain implementations. This information should not make it into something your competitors may see. Instead, focus on customer benefits and high-level details.

Competitive positioning

Focus on your unique value propositions without directly referencing competitors. There's no need to make it easier for competitors to identify their weaknesses.

Emphasize your long-term vision and strategic direction while maintaining realistic expectations. Competitors can capitalize on your failure to deliver on promises.

3. Don't overpromise

Because of the competitive disadvantage of overpromising, let's take a more detailed look at how to ensure your promises always align with what's delivered. 

Set realistic expectations

• Use conservative time estimates

• Include buffer time for unexpected challenges

• Be clear about what's confirmed and what’s under consideration

Communication guidelines

• Use clear disclaimer language about potential changes

• Avoid specific release dates unless they’re certain

• Focus on themes and capabilities rather than detailed features

4. Generate goal(s) for a specific, narrow period

The structure of the roadmap is where the balance of transparency and flexibility really comes into play. If you promise something that changes due to market conditions, customers will be upset.

Timeline definition

Your roadmap should include a reasonable time frame, typically 12–18 months ahead.

Not all segments of this time frame should be treated equally. Be more specific about near-term items you're certain you can deliver on and more general for long-term goals that may change.

Goal setting

As with every aspect of your business, the goals outlined in your roadmap should align with your company strategy.

The customer-facing nature of these roadmaps makes them an ideal tool for aligning your company goals with market needs. Whenever you put a goal on the roadmap, make sure it's achievable in the chosen time frame.

5. Identify the problems that can be solved

The biggest reason customers will be interested in your roadmap is to see how your plans align with their needs. The data it presents should reflect that.

Problem analysis

There are many ways to understand customers’ problems customers. Customer interviews and surveys, support tickets and feature requests, and market trends are all ways to understand what challenges your users face.

Tools like the Dovetail platform make collecting and analyzing this data easy.

Solution mapping

Since the items on your customer-facing roadmaps should all relate to a customer problem, it's easy to tie each item back to that problem. Let the users know how the feature will benefit them.

Prioritize the features you implement based on the impact and frequency of those problems.

6. Define metrics of success and KPIs for initiatives

Data rules every decision a company makes. This applies to the roadmap as well.

Measuring how well your roadmap, and the initiatives detailed within it, are serving your customers is easier when you track some important metrics.

Metrics to track

• Customer satisfaction scores

• Adoption rates for new features

• Time-to-value for implementations

• Customer retention rates

• Market share growth

Tracking metrics

For each of your KPIs, set baseline measurements so you know where you're starting from. Then define some targets for improvement and begin tracking changes.

Review your data at regular intervals to determine how well you're staying on track to meet goals and make adjustments as necessary.

Once you've decided what information to include in your customer roadmap and developed a plan for tracking its success, you're ready to start fleshing it out. As you do, keep in mind the following tips for various aspects of the process.

Regular updates

• Schedule periodic reviews of roadmap progress

• Communicate changes promptly and transparently

• Maintain ongoing dialogue with key stakeholders

Feedback integration

• Create formal channels for customer feedback

• Document and track customer reactions

• Adjust plans based on market response

Visual presentation

• Use clear, professional visuals

• Maintain consistent branding

• Make it easy to understand at a glance

The most important thing to remember is that your customer-facing roadmap, like your internal one, is a living document. It needs to be updated frequently and evolve as business and market conditions require.

Regular reviews of its impact and KPIs will help you ensure the information it contains is relevant to your audience and accurate to your goals and capabilities.

For an example of a proven customer-facing roadmap, you can visit the one for Dovetail. This roadmap avoids giving specific time frames to prevent the possibility of over-promising. However, it still provides Dovetail customers with information about what they can expect in the near future and what features are under consideration for possible longer-term inclusion in the product.

Notice how each item in the list can be clicked on so the customer can get more information about the feature. There are also tags under each item to help the customer understand how the item applies to them and their needs.

Now you've seen an example of a successful roadmap and learned how to create your own, let's take a deeper look at how to present your roadmap to customers.

Make it high-level

You don't want your customer-facing roadmap to get too bogged down by granular details. By keeping it high-level, you will avoid a few common pitfalls and realize the following benefits:

• Maintain flexibility: High-level information allows your team to adjust implementation details without undermining customer expectations.

• Communicate vision: Broader details are enough to help customers understand the overall direction and strategic objectives driving product development.

• Reduce complexity: Your internal roadmap may be easy for technical teams to understand but can become overwhelming for customers. Sticking to broader details can help avoid that.

This broader approach should apply to your time frames as well. Notice the Dovetail roadmap didn't give specific times. You can go more granular if you'd like, but stick to labels like near-term, mid-term, and long-term. Specific times are a recipe for accidental broken promises.

Hide irrelevant information

In keeping with the theme of maintaining a broader set of revealed data, carefully consider what information you present. Customers don't need access to every bit of information you have, nor do most care to see that.

Consider excluding:

• Internal development metrics: Story points, development complexity, and resource allocation

• Technical dependencies: Backend infrastructure changes and technical-debt initiatives

• Competitive intelligence: Features specifically designed to counter competitor moves

• Uncertain items: Features or improvements still in the early exploration phase

Customize the data you show

Different customers may require different information. We've discussed tailoring your customer-facing roadmap to those who will read it, but that doesn't mean you have to limit yourself to one version of the roadmap.

Different views of your roadmap can be created from the same underlying data that target specific customer groups:

• Enterprise customers: May require more detailed strategic alignment information

• Small business users: Might focus more on immediate feature improvements

• Industry verticals: Could need specific views relevant to their sector

• Geographic regions: May need customized views based on regional availability

Focus on product value

Your customers don't care about the minutiae of your implementations. What they care about is how your product will benefit them in the future. The roadmap you present to them should reflect this. 

• Problem-solution mapping: Show how upcoming features solve specific customer challenges

• Business impact: Highlight expected improvements in efficiency, productivity, or revenue

• Use cases: Provide real-world examples of how new features will enhance customer operations

• Success metrics: Share relevant benchmarks and expected outcomes

Keep customers in the loop

Customers like predictability. A predictable schedule can also help build anticipation as customers make checking your roadmap a part of their routine.

Consider the following when planning communications regarding your roadmap:

• Quarterly updates: Regularly scheduled reviews of roadmap progress

• Major announcements: Special communications for significant changes or additions

• Feedback channels: Clear processes for customers to provide input and suggestions

• Change notifications: Proactive communication about roadmap adjustments

The next step is to determine where you'll communicate changes to the customer. You want every customer who would like the information to have access to it. Consider multiple touchpoints:

• Customer advisory board meetings

• Product webinars and virtual events

• Newsletter updates and blog posts

• Direct account manager communications

• Online product portal updates

Your customers are what makes your business thrive. Keeping them in the loop will foster a strong relationship with them that builds loyalty. A customer-facing roadmap is a great way to provide that information.

By paying careful attention to the differences between a customer-facing roadmap and an internal roadmap, you can create one that helps drive business goals and keeps your customers engaged and loyal.