“Knowledge is listening, wisdom is understanding.” I saw this quote once on the window of a small business in my neighborhood during one of my early morning runs. I was struck by the truth in this statement and how it can apply to both the individual and the organization. I will leave the application to the individual for another venue and for those more qualified, but the application of this to an organization providing services to customers has had me thinking about the value of communicating with customers often.
PayCycle provides payroll service to small businesses via its Software as a Service (SaaS) architecture. Otherwise known as cloud computing, the basic concept is that you don’t purchase PayCycle from a retail store in a box. It is not a software program that is static and requires additional purchases to get the newest features or updates. With PayCycle, you pay a monthly fee to access a software program hosted with industry leading security. Each month, the software is updated and for no additional fee, a customer gets all the benefits of the new features and updates. This benefit coupled with the anytime, anywhere access, lower cost, improved security, and better customer service are features that are widely published on the web and touted by leaders in the SaaS category.
However, one feature that I don’t hear discussed often is the dialogue a SaaS company can have with their customers to improve their product, marketing and support. When I joined PayCycle over three years ago after a long career in consumer packaged products (Coca-Cola, E&J Gallo, Diageo), I was immediately struck by the conversation PayCycle was having with its customers every day. At Coca-Cola we spent millions of dollars trying to glean consumer insights. We were constantly looking for new insights into why consumers chose Coca-Cola, fielding price sensitivity studies, trying to understand how consumers shopped their local grocery store or convenience store, who influenced their decisions, how brand perceptions and consumption habits changed over time and with the age of the consumer. Hours and millions of dollars were spent with focus groups, in stores using the latest in GPS technology to track grocery carts traffic patterns, on syndicated data from a wide variety of demographic and psychographic sources. But in the end, all these research methods paled vs. having random but frequent conversations with consumers and customers. It was not because Coca-Cola did not try to have conversations with consumers and customers often, it was because the nature of their distribution model did not make it easy. To speak to your consumers, you either paid them to participate in a focus group or tried to interrupt them in the aisles of their local market while they were attempting to complete their shopping and get home. Both methods were flawed; focus groups required good recruiting and incentives and interrupting customers during shopping trips at the market was just that, an interruption that the consumer did not always appreciate. At Coca-Cola we did a lot of listening to our customers to gain knowledge.
Our SaaS model enables PayCycle to have informed and contextually relevant conversation as opposed to random, uninformed listening sessions. Before we have a conversation with our customers, we have the ability to review their actions within the product; a benefit that simply doesn’t exist with retail or non SaaS products. Therefore, we come to the conversation not as a stranger trying to learn about our customer, but more like a friend who already understands where you have been and can focus on helping you get to where you want to go. It is not unlike the difference between a conversation with a stranger vs. a conversation with a friend. Your friend knows your history and uses that to help you with your problems and questions. A stranger has to gather a lot of information before they can ever provide the same value as a friend. A stranger may not be able to gather their information effectively through questions. But a friend who knows your experience is more likely to be able to help. PayCycle is like that friend you never had in payroll. We know where you have been and we can help you get to where you want to be. PayCycle is able to understand a customer and therefore provide wisdom.
At PayCycle, customer conversations and stories are at the heart of our culture, product, support and marketing. The daily conversations PayCycle’s customer support team has with our customers are funneled into our design meetings to ensure we have a good understanding of the customer need. If a particular customer responds to a customer satisfaction survey indicating they are really dissatisfied, we call them. The customer appreciates the call because they genuinely have a problem and appreciate the sincere effort of PayCycle to help them. Imagine the look on a customer’s face when the CEO or CFO of PayCycle calls them to discuss PayCycle’s pricing with the customer. We may not be able to solve the customer’s desire for a lower price, but the sincerity and honesty of our executive’s attention to this customers pain point creates an impression that cannot be measured. I am sure that at the conclusion of the call, the customer at least feels like he or she was heard and that the company appreciates their time and attention to their needs. Moreover, our executive team has gained valuable insight into our customer’s needs that will influence their decisions. This is more wisdom we can impart on our product, our support and our marketing.
As a marketer, these customer conversations are invaluable. During our busiest time of year, January, our marketing team spends time on the sales lines answering questions from prospective customers. The number of insights gleaned from this experience are too numerous to count. From these conversations we have learned how our customers talk about our product, where they go for information about payroll services, where our website falls short or creates confusion about our product, how our competitors describe our service or are trying to compete with us, what problems they have and are trying to solve, and what benefits they are looking for in their payroll provider. Since PayCycle does not have a direct sales force, the wisdom gleaned from these customer interactions are invaluable for our marketing team. More importantly, the conversation is direct with customers and not through the lenses or bias of a sales person.
I am in awe of the wisdom at PayCycle at all levels. I know it is because we have smart team mates, but I think it is more a result of the conversations we have with our customers – often.
