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Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

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Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#41

Post by cpursley »

withinboredom wrote: post #23

I have brought up talking, like picking up the phone and saying hi, at every workplace I have ever been. The response has always been hilarious, after they also think it is “such a great idea.” - we have sales for that - we should see if we can get a special team for this - let’s just email everyone a survey From my personal Azure account, Microsoft has called me a handful of times, with a product manager and enginee…

Did they (Azure) schedule the call or randomly dial you up? I'm trying to figure out how to do this with our customers without disrupting them (their workflow, day). And for busy customers, it seems like maybe these types of calls are not high priority enough (vs "app is down" situations) to get them to schedule.

I will say, customer development (prospects) are helpful. I've learned so much about what to and not to spend time building. I'd like to get the same milage out if existing customers.

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#42

Post by withinboredom »

cpursley wrote: post #41
withinboredom wrote: post #23

I have brought up talking, like picking up the phone and saying hi, at every workplace I have ever been. The response has always been hilarious, after they also think it is “such a great idea.” - we have sales for that - we should see if we can get a special team for this - let’s just email everyone a survey From my personal Azure account, Microsoft has called me a handful of times, with a product manager and enginee…

Did they (Azure) schedule the call or randomly dial you up? I'm trying to figure out how to do this with our customers without disrupting them (their workflow, day). And for busy customers, it seems like maybe these types of calls are not high priority enough (vs "app is down" situations) to get them to schedule. I will say, customer development (prospects) are helpful. I've learned so much about what to and not to s…

I just picked up the phone and they were there (they always introduced themselves and asked if it was a good time to discuss X -- I assume they'd just reschedule a time if it wasn't a good time). There was no notice that they were going to call. I was usually bored and driving, which is about the only time I pick up a call from an unknown number. Azure is b2b, so I think there's a reasonable expectation that someone will pick up the phone.

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#43

Post by kqr »

withinboredom wrote: post #23

I have brought up talking, like picking up the phone and saying hi, at every workplace I have ever been. The response has always been hilarious, after they also think it is “such a great idea.” - we have sales for that - we should see if we can get a special team for this - let’s just email everyone a survey From my personal Azure account, Microsoft has called me a handful of times, with a product manager and enginee…

One of the concerns I have about calling customers come from my previous experience with it: once they get contact details to a technical person, they will contact that person for every single problem they have. Do this with enough customers, and you will barely get any real work done. Not to mention that I'm not great at juggling lots of threads of conversation – that's part of the reason why I'm not in customer-facing roles, so I'm bound to drop some.

What has your experience with that been like? Or do you know how to avoid it?

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#44

Post by rfrey »

withinboredom wrote: post #42
cpursley wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they (Azure) schedule the call or randomly dial you up? I'm trying to figure out how to do this with our customers without disrupting them (their workflow, day). And for busy customers, it seems like maybe these types of calls are not high priority enough (vs "app is down" situations) to get them to schedule. I will say, customer development (prospects) are helpful. I've learned so much about what to and not to s…

I just picked up the phone and they were there (they always introduced themselves and asked if it was a good time to discuss X -- I assume they'd just reschedule a time if it wasn't a good time). There was no notice that they were going to call. I was usually bored and driving, which is about the only time I pick up a call from an unknown number. Azure is b2b, so I think there's a reasonable expectation that someone…

"I'm calling you unsolicited from Microsoft"... bold, I'd immediately assume a scam, say no thank you, and hang up.

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#45

Post by pc86 »

kqr wrote: post #43
withinboredom wrote: post #23

I have brought up talking, like picking up the phone and saying hi, at every workplace I have ever been. The response has always been hilarious, after they also think it is “such a great idea.” - we have sales for that - we should see if we can get a special team for this - let’s just email everyone a survey From my personal Azure account, Microsoft has called me a handful of times, with a product manager and enginee…

One of the concerns I have about calling customers come from my previous experience with it: once they get contact details to a technical person, they will contact that person for every single problem they have. Do this with enough customers, and you will barely get any real work done. Not to mention that I'm not great at juggling lots of threads of conversation – that's part of the reason why I'm not in customer-fac…

If you're calling from a business line, the outgoing number should be the main line, not your direct line. If you're doing this on a cell phone, just block the number. Yes, your answer rate will go down, and you'll have to leave voicemails, but eventually when they see a blocked number they'll think "oh it's probably kqr" which won't be any worse than an unknown number anyway. If they ask for your contact details, give them an email or whatever your preferred method is.

You can't be tricked into giving out your cell phone. If you don't want to give it out - don't.

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#46

Post by withinboredom »

rfrey wrote: post #44
withinboredom wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just picked up the phone and they were there (they always introduced themselves and asked if it was a good time to discuss X -- I assume they'd just reschedule a time if it wasn't a good time). There was no notice that they were going to call. I was usually bored and driving, which is about the only time I pick up a call from an unknown number. Azure is b2b, so I think there's a reasonable expectation that someone…

"I'm calling you unsolicited from Microsoft"... bold, I'd immediately assume a scam, say no thank you, and hang up.

Um. It was more like “Hello, is this (name)? Hi, this is (name), the product manager from (team) at Azure. I’ve also got (name) on the line, one of our devs. We were wondering if you have a few minutes to tell us about your experience with (thing team works on), and answer a few questions.”

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#47

Post by pc86 »

rfrey wrote: post #44
withinboredom wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just picked up the phone and they were there (they always introduced themselves and asked if it was a good time to discuss X -- I assume they'd just reschedule a time if it wasn't a good time). There was no notice that they were going to call. I was usually bored and driving, which is about the only time I pick up a call from an unknown number. Azure is b2b, so I think there's a reasonable expectation that someone…

"I'm calling you unsolicited from Microsoft"... bold, I'd immediately assume a scam, say no thank you, and hang up.

I'm sure they get a lot of hang ups, but there is a clear difference between someone who can barely speak English calling you from a call center "to discuss the account" or whatever, and a native speaker calling from (presumably) their home or a quiet office, using your name, and who already knows what products within Azure you're using. It's pretty obvious from the get go it's not a scam.

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#48

Post by mitchitized »

TickleSteve wrote: post #22
teucris wrote: post #13

I’ve been whining about the constant agile-bashing for a while…I understand that implementing agile often leads to the MSDM model (many small death marches) but I never quite got the loathing agile gets from the tech community. I think this gives me a glimpse. To me, agile is about adjusting your planning so you can get customer feedback and adjust your project accordingly. Without that, much of what I value from agi…

The reality is that as soon as one of your customers has a date as a deadline, everything crystalises behind that into a series of deadlines and hence into waterfall. No real engineering team exists in a vacuum, so more often than not, all Agile processes degrade into waterfall. If you're lucky and you live in a pure software world with no 3rd parties imposing deadline dates on you, great. In my experience, those wor…

Amen, but forget about external influence - if you work in a business that is profitable, you're certain to bump into coworkers outside of technologies that live in a pure deadline-driven world. That's business, and it is not negotiable.

There will always be major events that are locked to fixed dates, like conferences, launches and many things that are impacted by launches (like hiring new teams to be using the new systems that we were supposed to be building). This does not mean this company sucks, or working at this company sucks, it usually means this company is profitable.

"Waterfall" is starting to get twisted into some sort of virtue signaling for folks that like to complain about deadlines.

Managing this tension is what we all need to be good at - there's definitely no silver bullet or perfect methodology to manage this, because it is always evolving.

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#49

Post by doctor_eval »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #38
doctor_eval wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The agile manifesto is great. So-called capital-A “Agile” - including the thing that people call Scrum, SaFE, all the other hard coded nonsense - are just turnkey processes, churned out by authors who got lucky, that tend to be implemented as silver bullets, with almost no regard for the actual principles and value of the manifesto from which they draw their name.

Ken Schwaber on SAFE - unsafe at any speed: https://kenschwaber.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/unsafe-at-any-s... > Keep the values, keep the principles, think for yourself. A core premise of agile is that the people doing the work are the people who can best figure out how to do it.

> Values and principles scale, but practices are context sensitive.

Brilliant.

Re: Talking to your customers: a disruptive Agile framework

#50

Post by marcus_holmes »

kqr wrote: post #43
withinboredom wrote: post #23

I have brought up talking, like picking up the phone and saying hi, at every workplace I have ever been. The response has always been hilarious, after they also think it is “such a great idea.” - we have sales for that - we should see if we can get a special team for this - let’s just email everyone a survey From my personal Azure account, Microsoft has called me a handful of times, with a product manager and enginee…

One of the concerns I have about calling customers come from my previous experience with it: once they get contact details to a technical person, they will contact that person for every single problem they have. Do this with enough customers, and you will barely get any real work done. Not to mention that I'm not great at juggling lots of threads of conversation – that's part of the reason why I'm not in customer-fac…

Maybe train technical staff in how to set boundaries and deal with customer calls in a manner that doesn't lose customers and doesn't eat all their time?
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