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[00:00:09] Sean: Hi, my name's Sean. I'm the strategy lead here at Distinction, and I'm joined by Lee, who's our head of engineering. And today we're going to talk about aligning marketing and technology to ensure a seamless customer journey. So to get started, it's seen that there's often a disconnect between marketing and technology.
[00:00:28] How do you see that gap being bridged?
[00:00:30] Lee: Mainly by communication. It's so important that when your marketers are marketing your product's features, that they're actually the real features or that they are able to do what your marketers say they can do. And likewise, the development team, the people building the product, need to be on that same page as well.
[00:00:51] So I see it not as two separate teams. I think you've got to bring them much closer together, put a marketer in with the product team basically, and just break down those silos, break down those walls, get that communication flowing. And that gives the marketer then access to play around with the product to try it out, try out new features before they go off to market them, and that can only help the marketing message.
[00:01:18] Sean: So do you think there's a benefit to mapping out that customer journey and both teams having visibility on that in terms of each step?
[00:01:26] Lee: Yeah, absolutely. I think more than just having visibility of it, though, both teams need to be involved in that process. Because if you've got let's say, an external third party that does your service map, then they've got to present that into the two different groups of people.
[00:01:44] You marketers and you developers and those two groups of people think in very different ways. So What they take away from that presentation may be very different So having them involved in the process of that discovering of the of what the service map is of how your customers journey progresses from initial contact right the way through to off boarding And understanding how your customers are going to interact with your features, I think, is really important for everybody in the product team to fully and deeply understand.
[00:02:17] Sean: Yeah, I completely agree. Also, as well, do you think, because you talked about the team working together, do you think there's benefit of having a bridge, like a product owner, between those two teams?
[00:02:28] Lee: There can be, and again, I 'd err towards the side of not wanting two teams in reality, I'd want, like I say, to have that marketing presence within the product team.
[00:02:42] But if you can't do that and in bigger organizations, it can be difficult to break down those silos. Then definitely having a product owner and a good project manager who can get the right people in the room when when these things are being planned and discussed is essential really.It's all about facilitating that conversation and that joined up thinking.
[00:03:04] Sean: we've mentioned a couple of things there, like having a product owner, how teams could be on the same page with a customer journey. how can businesses ensure that teams are working together successfully?
[00:03:14] Lee: Again, I think it all comes down to communication at its core. having a product owner that's got a clear vision for the product and can articulate that well. To everybody involved in the product is really important But also having a project manager who can bring the right people into the room, get the marketing and the developers and the product owner talking get the creative juices flowing if you like and sometimes a developer might come up with a great idea for a way a feature could be used and the marketers might pick up on that and be able to go with the marketing message of that effect.
[00:03:52] it could be good overall for the project. I think the more conversation and the more communication you have around the features and around how they're going to actually work, it can only benefit the marketing message going out.
[00:04:05] Sean: Yeah. One thing I see happening is usually those teams really speak when there's a problem on either side.
[00:04:12] So for example, a marketing person may look at the user journey and think, Oh, we've got a problem here where. People aren't going any further in the journey or we're having a problem where people aren't staying with us and we're not retaining customers. Do you think that's one way of doing it or do you think it needs to be more holistic and people need to be talking more regularly rather than waiting for something like a problem to start those conversations?
[00:04:35] Lee: let me address that example problem you gave there. And I think that's a really good example that happens a lot in the real industry. And I think the main. Issues I see around that Are that the marketer that's found that problem. They don't go to the Product team with the problem. They often go to the either go to the product team With what they think is a good solution Or that or it ends up going up the chain and back down again and through several different people before it gets to the product team by which time the message could have changed, and it's You It's really difficult in that scenario to know for the product team to know exactly what it is they've got to solve.
[00:05:18] the product team are the people who are good at solving problems, right? tell them what the problem is. show them the data, give them the problem and let them do what they do best and solve it.
[00:05:28] Sean: Yeah, because we've had sessions with clients where they come to us with a problem and a great way to start those conversations is how might we, And then everyone has an open line to come up with a solution.
[00:05:38] And no solution is dismissed straight away. And because I work in marketing and that is a thing where people can say, here's the problem. This is how we want to fix it. And they've not really, I suppose there needs to be a little bit of. Testing and that side of it to make sure that a solution is the right one.
[00:05:57] Lee: Yeah. And people get emotionally invested in their own solution. If you like, it's their idea. They've come up with the fix. And to be asked then, actually no, tell us what the problem is, that can be a little bit jarring for them. It can almost put them in a bad mood sometimes. Going in from the start and understanding and it's almost a training piece for your teams of don't bring us solutions, bring us the problems and we'll help you find the solutions.
[00:06:28] Sean: Yeah, because another thing I've noticed as well is that sometimes the problem isn't the problem. Like when you actually look at a problem a bit closer, like for example. a retention problem can be a technology issue and vice versa. yeah, problems can be more complicated and they probably need a bit more in terms of diagnosis sometimes.
[00:06:48] Lee: Yeah. And quite, it's like, treating the symptom rather than the disease. Yeah, definitely. You've got to look at what the symptoms are, but also dig a little deeper and try and find what's the root cause. And again, the initial solutions people often come up with a very rarely the right solution, you know they're often treating that symptom rather than getting to the root of what the problem is.
[00:07:12] Sean: And just to touch on so obviously we mentioned a few little techniques there in terms of a how might we and that problem solving Being collaborative.
[00:07:20] Could you think of ways that teams could do that particularly with working from home
[00:07:25] Lee: Yeah, I mean in this day and age we have video conferencing tools, we have collaboration tools, we ourselves use Miro quite a lot to do this like virtual whiteboard to just get ideas out and try and figure things out that way.
[00:07:39] I use Miro quite a lot myself for flow charting and process flows and all that kind of thing. I think just having really good documentation of what your product is, the service map, the customer journeys, and the user experience map of kind of where are the high and low spots and being able to go into a meeting virtual or in person and point to the kind of step in that process where the problem lies, where the symptom has been discovered and going, okay, so this is the symptom.
[00:08:13] This is what's happening. How can we now trace that back to a root cause? What's, what might be happening around that area that's causing that friction. And ultimately it's about getting to the point of it being an entirely frictionless process for the end user. Because the less friction, the more likely they are to engage, the more likely they are to stay with you.
[00:08:38] And equally, even at the end of the customer journey where they're offboarding, making that a frictionless process as well, increases the odds that they will come back at a later date. Maybe the product wasn't right for what they're doing right now, but if they've had a good experience overall, they may come back later.
[00:08:55] So it keeps them engaged in that way as well. And when they talk about your product, you know that if you, if they've had an overall good experience, they're going to be positive overall, even if it wasn't the right product for their problem.
[00:09:09] Sean: Yeah. One thing I wanted to touch on as well cause we've talked through sort of some techniques. and communication, type things you can do. We've spoke about the problem in itself and recognizing there's a problem, taking it back a little bit. Do you think that there's ways that, companies can probably be more proactive in terms of gaining that information, gaining that feedback.
[00:09:30] So they're being proactive rather than being reactive to when a problem is a lot bigger.
[00:09:37] Lee: Yeah, absolutely. And that starts from very early days of a product. You do a beta period. You get feedback from your end users. Either closed groups, you can do things like feature flagging, which will let you, It's like the Windows Insider program, for example.
[00:09:56] You can have users that opt in to get, access to new features earlier. And in doing so you can get valuable feedback from those early adopters of those new features and that can guide the direction of those features a little bit before they become mainstream.
[00:10:15] Sean: Yeah, definitely.
[00:10:16] Because I've wrote articles for the site about customer loyalty and really involving, especially in an early stage, involving your customers to almost be. not beta testers is the wrong word, but in terms of having them involved on the journey can actually really help customer loyalty and make people feel part of something.
[00:10:32] Lee: Certainly. if you've been involved in a closed beta group, for example, to gain early access to features, or if you've got that ability to get early access to features and it's your choice. You're far more invested in giving feedback on those new features than what you would be if they were just released and it didn't really work the way you wanted it to.
[00:10:52] Sean: Yeah. And because we've covered quite a lot of different elements there, what would you say the ultimate goal is when aligning technology with marketing?
[00:11:01] Lee: Ultimately, reducing that friction for customers. if they see features advertised, then those features have to exist in your product.
[00:11:08] And a lot of the time you will see features on a website will be almost, exaggerated a little, on, on how they can help or what they can do. And, I get that there's, you've got to put the marketing spin on things and get people in the door. But ultimately, if the first thing they try to do when they come in the door doesn't work the way they expected it to, that's a bad experience.
[00:11:35] And that's going to immediately leave a bad taste in people's mouths and stick with them throughout the journey. making that Transition from prospect to customer as seamless as frictionless as possible and just meeting those expectations and aligning those expectations between what marketing is saying your product can do and what it actually does and how it actually does it, I think, is just super important and that Yeah, it sounds very one sided here because I'm coming at it from the developers perspective a little bit, but it's, it goes both ways.
[00:12:12] the market has got to market what's actually there. The developers have actually got to build what's been agreed to be there, so it's both sides have got a responsibility for that alignment.
[00:12:23] Sean: Yeah, no, I completely agree. thank you very much for joining me, Lee, and thank you everyone for watching.
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