Does your hot-line support team complain that the same problems show up repeatedly with new products? Can they answer the customers’ calls during the first few months after a new product launch? Does your implementation services team gather needs for custom versions of your product, tailored to meet each client’s needs? Ask operations or IT if they have a special meeting each Tuesday to decide how to support any new products launched in the last week.

If you answered “yes”, your business may be suffering. You may be wasting huge amounts of money in poor sales performance. You may have larger than expected service and support costs. Your operations or information technology infrastructure may seem to be out of control. You may be annoyed at each of these groups for these issues without knowing where the troubles began.

Let us say you planned to open a new department store, attached to a large shopping mall. Your architect and construction company successfully put a building in the right place. When the doors opened on the first day, visitors entered the nice wide double doors. Nobody was there to greet them. After finding the department for the items they needed, nobody was at the customer service desk or cash registers. The escalator to the next floor was in the back of the building down a narrow hallway passed the rest rooms. Escalators do take up floor space. There was no store directory.

An artistic sign that displayed your logo up in lights masked the entrance from the mall on the second floor. Not one person in the store had been trained on how do deal with returns, or in-store financing. Nobody helped customers to find their way through the wide array of products in all the departments. The women’s shoe department was on the second floor right next to the men’s shoe department. The cosmetics department was in a corner next to the coffee stand. Where was everyone? They were attending an emergency meeting to decide what to do with the scuba gear that arrived for the men’s department - in the middle of winter in Minnesota.

What kind of experience would shoppers have in this store? How do your customers experience your product and your company? Your engineering team may be very good, smart, and creative. However, they must include every function that will sell service and support the product planning process. This includes planning, justifying investment, and developing new products from concept to launch.

If they do not, you will more than likely be creating a long-term costly mess. Then, while you spend precious time and money to correct the mess, your reputation suffers making it still harder to sell. Your top line will suffer from difficulty in selling. Your bottom line will suffer from both poor sales and inefficient operations and service. This wasted time and resources on corrections are completely avoidable.

When designing your products or services, do you include the customer facing groups in your company in that process? Is there a well-defined process for them to contribute to new product developments? These customer-facing groups support the products and interact with the customer in sales, implementation, hot-line support, day to day.

Their experience at servicing your customers plus their system requirements should have a major influence on the design for any new product. You may have a phased process for managing the development of new products. The process may include overt executive decisions after each phase to open the gate to proceed with the next phase. For example:

Phase 1: New idea evaluation
           - Is this idea really worth pursuing? Does it fit with your strategy? Will it pass the financial
             hurdles for your business?
Phase 2: Business Case development
           - an assessment of the market opportunity, competitive landscape, market functional
             requirements, resources and time frames required, and detailed financial analysis
Phase 3: Design and develop specifications
           - detailed specifications and engineering resources and schedules to validate the business
             case
Phase 4: Development
           - writing the code, quality assurance and customer testing, implementation and support
             service documentation and training
Phase 5: Launch
           - organization readiness including sales kits, promotional plans, pricing, final updated
             business case, sales plans
Phase 6: Life cycle maintenance and support
           - customer service, support, software updates, service and satisfaction reports

Many companies delegate this process to product managers, business development managers, or even engineering managers. These managers take on the task of driving a new product from concept to market. Make sure that they are not the only people – aside from executive review – involved in the development of the requirements and of the product itself.

Engage sales, service and support, and operations in new product plans in Phase 2, the business case phase. They should provide requirements to validate market assumptions, functional needs of the products to improve serviceability. They should provide cost estimates to develop, launch and support the product once it is developed. They need to sign-off on the business case at this phase to assure their requirements are addressed.

They should fully engage during the design, development and launch phases to ensure the product itself meets their needs. Further, they need to develop the tools, training, systems, and plans necessary to launch and support the product. Their sign-off on Phase 5, the launch, indicates they are satisfied that the product is ready. That means their organizations are ready to sell, service, and support the product.

Engaging these teams in this way will go a long way to assuring that your products meet the needs and live up to your customers’ expectations when launched. This will maximize your ability to sell and support them at the same time – thereby reducing time to profit. So, cancel the weekly emergency support services meetings to try to handle the new product surprises. Invite those teams to join in the planning process and you will all arrive at the same place together at the same time – with your customers!


Patrick Smyth is a leadership navigator and advisor to leaders of high growth and emerging businesses. He creates compelling visions and comprehensive strategic plans, and coaches on effective leadership and management practices. He is a recognized speaker, trainer, coach, and international business strategist and author of the book Elephant Walk: Balancing Business Performance and Brand Strategy for the Long Haul.
http://www.innovationhabitude.com