The Testimonial Pipeline

Salesforce.com has hundreds of customer testimonials. How did they accomplish that?

Transcript

1. The Testimonial Pipeline Ross Belmont
2. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Contents • Overview of the high-level process for generating testimonials • Examples from the success of Salesforce.com
3. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
4. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
5. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Interviewing prospective or current end users • Understand how the product concept fits within their overall job and other responsibilities • How can we innovate in a way that fits with their job function? What do they do 5 minutes before and 5 minutes after using the product? • Understand constraints typical of organizations like theirs (e.g. other teams and processes outside their control) • What should we avoid building because they can’t make progress in that area, even if they’d like to? • Get ahead of items that would inevitably become feedback filtered through customer support
6. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. A Brief Aside on Roles • Interaction Designer • Developer • Developer • Developer • Developer • QA • Product Manager • Doc Writer • User Researcher(s) • Visual Designer(s) Embedded in the scrum team Shared across many teams
7. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. A Brief Aside on Roles • Interaction Designer • Developer • Developer • Developer • Developer • QA • Product Manager • Doc Writer • User Researcher(s) • Visual Designer(s) Embedded in the scrum team Shared across many teams
8. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Quick validation
9. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Quick validation
10. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean
11. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean Customer A Customer B Customer C
12. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean Customer A Customer B Customer C
13. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean Customer A Customer B Customer C
14. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean Customer A Customer B Customer C
15. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean Customer A Customer B Customer C Updated data
16. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean Customer A Customer B Customer C Updated data
17. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean
18. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Data.com Clean
19. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
20. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
21. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Usability testing: letting someone “test drive” • Scheduling around 30 minutes for a representative user to test one flow through the system • The product team observes how well (or if) the person makes it through successfully • The person also gives feedback of their own as to how they felt it went • 80% of the issues found during these sessions are cosmetic¹ 1. Source: Salesforce.com, Dreamforce 2011
22. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Article on R.I.T.E. • Rapid • Iterative • Testing and • Evaluation Source: “Getting Software RITE” by Jeff Patton published in IEEE Software magazine May/June 2008 (http://bit.ly/2WC4ZD)
23. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Article on R.I.T.E. Source: “Getting Software RITE” by Jeff Patton published in IEEE Software magazine May/June 2008 (http://bit.ly/2WC4ZD)
24. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Article on R.I.T.E. Source: “Getting Software RITE” by Jeff Patton published in IEEE Software magazine May/June 2008 (http://bit.ly/2WC4ZD)
25. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Article on R.I.T.E. Source: “Getting Software RITE” by Jeff Patton published in IEEE Software magazine May/June 2008 (http://bit.ly/2WC4ZD)
26. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Article on R.I.T.E. Source: “Getting Software RITE” by Jeff Patton published in IEEE Software magazine May/June 2008 (http://bit.ly/2WC4ZD)
27. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Article on R.I.T.E. Source: “Getting Software RITE” by Jeff Patton published in IEEE Software magazine May/June 2008 (http://bit.ly/2WC4ZD)
28. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: “Watching the screen” Source: Salesforce.com, Dreamforce 2011
29. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
30. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
31. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Beta programs: the product meets the trenches • Betas in the enterprise are closely managed to maintain the customer relationship and gauge success • Include a customer if you know they’ll invest in usage and also give specific feedback • Avoid incentives other than a seat on an advisory board
32. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Chatter beta
33. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
34. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. The Testimonial Pipeline Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers
35. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Reference Customers: The best sales tool • Testimonials and references shorten sales cycles and reduce the cost of sales while avoiding downward price pressure • Also avoids “Hail Mary” sales tactics, selling to firms that are a poor fit, overpromising and excessive comparison to competition • Six references in each major vertical is a good target for enterprise products • 10-15 is a good target for consumer products, though those will require less management Source: “The Power of Reference Customers” by Marty Cagan (http://bit.ly/1cpgAhU)
36. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Customer Stories
37. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Customer Stories
38. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: Testimonial video
39. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Example from Salesforce: AppExchange ratings
40. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved. Start Filling Your Testimonial Pipeline Up Front Interview Subjects Usability Testers Beta Participants Reference Customers