The Problem

Jeanne joined SquadLocker only a few months ago but knew immediately that one of her priorities in joining the team would be to align the company around its customers.

Jeanne believes strongly that, too often, marketing is focused on prospects rather than customers, and that this approach leaves money on the table.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned that marketers don’t necessarily talk to their customers. They spend an inordinate amount of time and budget going after prospects, but they’re not talking to customers or prioritizing a Land and Expand model. – Jeanne Hopkins, CRO, SquadLocker

This is where Jeanne places her bets as a marketer. Rather than focusing the majority of her budget on bringing in prospects, she’s focused on how she’ll grow their existing business with their existing customers. To do this, she wants to first understand how they can help their customers use the product better — and she needs a comprehensive view of customer feedback.

When she joined SquadLocker, she took inventory quickly and knew that they needed a better way to both manage customer feedback and to use this feedback to fuel collaboration across the team.

The Solution

Jeanne had used Loop at her previous company, Lola, so the solution was immediately clear to her. Rather than digging into large volumes of customer feedback data to figure out customer needs and priorities, she turned to a tool that could surface these insights for her quickly.

It was so easy to get started with Loop. And it was something that everybody saw value in immediately. Why not make it easier on ourselves to identify customer opportunities? You cut some things that aren’t worth the money, but add things [like Loop] that are definitely worth the money. – Jeanne Hopkins, CRO, SquadLocker

Bringing Teams Together with Voice of Customer Meetings

The product team wasn’t getting consistent feedback from Sales or Marketing. Jeanne saw this as an opportunity to institute SquadLocker’s first VOC meeting.

The connective tissue was not being met. We have direct and indirect feedback channels — and a quarter of a million customers — but this feedback wasn’t being shared out in a consistent way. We had our first Voice of Customer meeting a couple of weeks ago. With this meeting and LoopVOC software, I feel like we’re going to get places. – Jeanne Hopkins, CRO, SquadLocker

Now, they can get everyone in the same room and on the same page about what should be prioritized. In the first VOC meeting, it became clear that one of their customers’ biggest priorities is the speed of product delivery, but their team had not made this a focus. Instead, resources had been dedicated to shipping a new feature without a real understanding of whether this was a feature that their customers really cared about.

Now, they can use Loop and the VOC meetings to ensure that where they’re focusing resources aligns with where their customers have the greatest need.

Refining Direction with a Focus on Top Customer Priorities

Jeanne is focused on using Loop to identify what she calls “the top three” — the top three reasons that people choose SquadLocker and the top three reasons that people don’t choose SquadLocker.

By understanding the top priorities for the market and how they’re delivering on these priorities, their team can stay focused on addressing issues and opportunities quickly.

If you start with a massive list, who feels like they can bite off something of that size? You need to be able to knock these things off and identify what’s easily fixable. And if the same issues show up in the top three for three months in a row, we know we’re leaving money on the table. – Jeanne Hopkins, CRO, SquadLocker

Using Loop to ensure that their approach is focused makes it easier for product teams to align roadmap plans to high-impact features. When everyone is on the same page, the direction becomes clear and teams can agree quickly on what needs to get done quickly.

Using Direct and Indirect Feedback to Understand Sentiment

SquadLocker is trying to solve for the customer and generate revenue that sticks. This requires them to have a deep understanding of how they’re perceived by customers.

For Jeanne, this isn’t about sending out surveys at random. It’s about identifying direct and indirect feedback channels across the company and using Loop to give teams a comprehensive view of customer sentiment. 

We’re figuring out how we can be the most effective. I think many leaders spend too much time hiding behind data, and not enough time dealing with real people. We have to understand the real concerns — of our customers and our teams supporting customers — and then allow this context to fuel what we do and how we communicate. – Jeanne Hopkins, CRO, SquadLocker

Key reasons Loop’s VOC software has been powerful for SquadLocker:

• They can see direct and indirect feedback comprehensively
• They can use customer feedback to inform roadmap planning
• They can bring teams together and align around customer feedback
• They can quickly identify customer needs and priorities rather than digging into large volumes of data

[Watch the full interview for more on Jeanne’s approach to VOC and how she’s using Loop to drive sustainable growth.]