Christine Itwaru, Head of Product at Vitally, shares the blueprint for building strong partnerships with Product Teams by teaching Customer Success leaders how to speak the language of Product and ask the right questions.
When Customer Success aligns with their Product team, it’s near-perfect harmony. The product improves, customer satisfaction is enhanced, and ultimately, revenue increases.
Christine Itwaru, Head of Product at Vitally, understands the importance of creating this seamless feedback loop with Customer Success. In this episode, Christine shares the blueprint for building strong partnerships. She teaches CS Leaders how to speak the language of Product and ask the right questions, and reveals her top 3 insights that every CS leader should know.
About Christine:
Christine has been in product management for 13+ years, starting her career as an IC Product Manager and has held various leadership roles in product during her time in finance, fintech, and SaaS. She’s focused on not only delivering product experiences and outcomes to customers, but also strengthening product teams while doing so. Christine believes that great relationships with customers start with a frictionless product experience that helps them build trust with the company, ultimately creating a partnership vs. a transactional relationship.
Her passion for connecting product people to their partners and customers helped guide her throughout her career, and has been foundational to her role as a pioneer in Product Operations, and a thought leader in the broader product space. Focusing on data-driven product management, she’s led and coached hundreds of teams through product-led transformation and building product strategy.
Guest Quote:
“There's the saying, ‘Only the fool tries to please everyone.’ Product people, especially earlier in their career, want to please every customer and it ends up hurting everyone. We have to be intentional about what we're going after so that we can solve the pain for a massive amount of customers, not just one or two, but we truly do want to solve pain for everybody.”
Timestamps:
*(00:34) - Bridging Customer and Product Teams
*(03:03) - Three Insights Every CS Leader Should Know
*(06:06) - How To Build A Strong Customer Voice Program Together
*(16:44) - Navigating Challenges And Aligning On Customer Needs
*(26:09) - Quick Hits
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[00:00:00] Taylor: Welcome to Success/ful, where we break down the essential elements of leading customer success strategies. This podcast is all about uncovering blind spots, pushing beyond typical best practices and tackling those out of bounds topics for CS leaders that are key to our success. So if you're a CS professional seeking to innovate and adapt in an ever changing landscape, join us on this journey to be more successful. I'm your host, Taylor Johnston, VP of Customer Success at Vitally. Today, we're joined by Christine Itwaru, Head of Product at Vitally, for a deep dive into the dynamics between customer and product teams. We talk about how to work together towards a common mission and amplify the customer's voice. Let's dive in.
Taylor: Well, thank you so much for being here, Christine. We are excited to bring in folks to this podcast from different departments to talk about their relationship with [00:01:00] customer success. And today we're hearing a product leader's perspective. So I get the honor to get to work with you every single day. But for our listeners here, tell us a little bit about what you do at Vitaly.
Christine: Sure, and I get the honor of working with you every day. Fun fact is Taylor and I started around the same time. So it's been awesome onboarding together and learning all things vitally and customers together. So I'm really happy to do this. What do I do it vitally every day? Oh man, Head of Product at a company that is under 100 employees can mean many different things. And it does mean quite a few things here. So one is making sure that my team has what they need in order to succeed. And my team means product and design. So I've got two awesome product managers, and two incredible product designers, making sure that I provide clarity for them, priorities are straight, and that they feel supported.
And with that, everything needs to ladder up to our strategy, which then ladders up to our vision. So there's a lot of going on right now is our team is still a bit new and forming [00:02:00] to make sure that we've we're driving forward on a solid strategy that we're completely aligned that everything that we're choosing to pick up and everything that we're choosing to build out feels like it is a part of the entire Vitaly story and that it will ultimately serve our customer as well. In addition to that, there's operational elements as well, which I'm sure we'll talk about today because operational elements always are a bit more cross-functional. So getting in here, one of the classic problems a product leader has at many companies, I don't even want to say smaller companies, but lots of companies is just a problem of alignment, making sure that people understand what's going on, on both sides of the coin, making sure everybody has what they need from product.
I feel like product's always this watering hole where people take things and then they go and often they do what they need to as well. Part of their jobs. So that was the first problem that I worked on solving and hopefully, it's getting better.
Taylor: Absolutely. You bring so much focus and rigor to your team. It's awesome to watch. And you mentioned, you know, alignment, alignment across departments. [00:03:00] It's hard and it's a constant work in progress. So, big picture question here, before we dive into some of the nitty gritty, what are three things you wish all customer leaders knew about their product leader colleagues?
Christine: Hmm. Number one is we actually do want to solve customer pain. I think a lot of CSMs, a lot of CS teams, anybody on that side of the business feels like, what's product doing? And like, this is something that I've asked for so many times, and my customers really need it. And man, do we want to solve it? Like, we totally want to solve it. And I think there's that saying, only the fool tries to please everyone. Product people, especially earlier in their career. Want to please every customer and then it ends up hurting everyone. And so we have to be really intentional about what we're going after so that we can solve the pain for a massive amount of customers, not just one or two.
But we truly do want to solve pain for everybody. We [00:04:00] also don't wait to build off of what customers ask for. So that's the second thing I would say. There's always lots of research and data that we're pulling in at any given point of any day, not any week, just to help us understand what's happening Both in our customer base and in the market. So we don't want to build off of what customers are saying that they want. We are trying to really understand what customers need. So I'd say that's number two. So while we do want to solve pain for everyone, we also know that we can't solve it for everyone, but we also know that we need to solve pain.
And, the third thing that I think people should know about product people, and product teams, is that we, too, are responsible for revenue. There was a world in which product success was tied to the number of features that you put out. Today, that's not the world. That's not the world we operate in. Product teams are Just as responsible for driving business bottom line numbers and driving revenue [00:05:00] up and keeping retention high and turned down as the rest of the company is because we are looking at how do we attract new people into our space, into our, our, our team, not our team, our product, and making sure that they're purchasing us, our product and services.
And then we're also looking at making sure we're not turning. We want to make sure that the experience that we created. continues to drive delight or that we can make it more delightful. And so all of that translates into real business metrics, not the number of features that we put out there. So I think those are the top three things that I wish CS leaders knew about product leader colleagues.
Taylor: Well, I love hearing that, you know, that shift, which I think mirrors so closely the customer success profession as well. Historically, it was surprise and delight customers and go, you know, Over the top, do everything to make them happy. And we've also felt that shift towards the end of the day, we, we have to be really smart about how we run the business and be closer to revenue. So there you go, [00:06:00] folks, commonality right there. We're all working towards the same metrics and it's important for everyone. So as a part of that.
There's the voice of the customer and a key way that we work to align with each other. So it's a thread across both of our departments. Let's talk about how customer success and Product can build that customer voice program from the ground up together. Why does that alignment matter so much?
Christine: I think you and I wouldn't be friends if it didn't matter. It'd be tough. It'd be so tough. It'd be so tough. And early in my product career, I remember a senior level executive at, I think the second company I worked for, I remember saying, no, like, we can't do that. Just like a no right away. Again, really earlier in my product career, and she sat me down and she's like, I need you to understand that, like, we get that you can't do everything, but you, you got to help us understand why something can't be done. Right. So that stuck with me as one of the best [00:07:00] pieces of advice that she gave me.
So it matters because both. I think both, there needs to be transparency both from the CS side into what's happening in Product and then Product side what's happening in the world of CS and that often translates into the customer pain. So that also means that we have to have a bit of empathy across the board. And that was one of the things that came out of what she said to me, which was like, man, wait, I actually don't know what these folks are up against in that space every day. Like, but I'm here, I am trying to defend my team and my engineering resources and saying no. And so I think it matters because, at the end of the day, your customer's voice is ultimately what's going to drive your roadmap, not in direct features, but in the problems that you're going to solve.
And so what I think is really critical is like finding that balance between people who are bringing in or not people, the amount of data that's coming in from the customer success team around the one-off requests that kind of ladder up to some sort of [00:08:00] strategic theme, and then giving them. some sort of visibility into what's happening on the product side that either refutes or supports some of that data that they're coming in with. And I think that alignment is really critical. So it matters because it creates a better working opportunity for both parties and it actually shows the customer that you're driving success. together when the two of you are on the same page.
Taylor: Yep. And so important. What a great piece of insight to, to, you know, as a customer facing professional, those of you out there who are on the phone with customers all day long, when you know the why, when you can speak to the why behind it, what a better conversation to have with customers than just passing along a no. So that alignment is, is so critical. How should product leaders create space for customer engagement? You mentioned, you know, going both ways and building that empathy. How do you create space for spending time with customers? What does that look like?
Christine: Well, for us here, we have, what do we have? We have this like biweekly, awesome biweekly meeting where you've taken [00:09:00] Customer feedback to a whole other level, which I love using our own product and theming it out and sharing that with me and my team and really sitting down and going through it and saying, like, this is a something that we're sensing. This is something that may come up a little bit later on. So I think one of the one of the things that we want to set up front end. In order to create the spaces, being as proactive as possible and making sure that you're organized. And so it can come from either the CS space or the CS team, or it can come from the products team, right?
I think, again, the data piece is what's really critical and what you're bringing to the table. So if you're bringing me, Bits and bobs of information. Just remember there's so much going on on this side of the products, the product development engineering process, that like it's, it's going to come in piecemeal.
Christine: We're probably going to end up dropping it. So I think there needs to be a shared understanding of how the information is best processed by the product team. So I tend to work with my CS leader partner like you, and that's what we did, right? We sat down and we said, How? Do you want [00:10:00] to see this information brought to you and your team and what's going to actually resonate and what cadence, what frequency should we be sitting down and reviewing this? Because we all know it, you know, Slack is Slack and, you know, emails are People look at it maybe here and there at this point because they've got Slack or they've got another chat tool and so you have to sit down. This is one of those things you really need to operationalize. So first it's like really understanding how the product team works and how they take in this information.
And then operationalize it so that it feels really good and easy across both parties. Like your CS team knows, you know, At what point Product will be considering these things and in what fashion they want to see it. And then your product team knows, Hey, CS is getting ready to come to the table here. Let's make sure that we are also prepared to answer things from the last time that we spoke to them.
Taylor: Yep. I love that. Operationalizing it, having a, a safe space, if you will, to have those conversations, I feel like is important. One of the things that I think you do exceptionally well [00:11:00] is you put time aside to make sure that you are getting on the phone with customers and that we are finding time to hear directly from the customer's voice in their own words what they are trying to solve. How do you find time in the day, given everything that you're balancing, to spend time with customers? Why is that important to you? Customer time comes first.
Christine: We can't do our jobs without speaking to customers. So right away, you know, we just onboarded these two new PMs and they dove right into customer conversations. When I started, I was like, okay, which customers do I need to speak with first right now? Who are the ones that have been with us for X amount of time so that I can understand where, where they love us, where they hate us, where we can do better. So, I mean, I don't know if it's a matter of making time, it's just making sure that they're always priority number one.
And if a customer just wants to talk about, hey, I'm super frustrated, I've tried this, this, this, this, and this, this network, your team knows that they could just [00:12:00] Come right at us and say, like, this customer really needs to just have a conversation and understand directionally what's happening here so that they can feel confident about, you know, us, this partnership that we have with them. So I don't know, again, it's not making time. I think it's just, if, if they're not a priority as a, and you are a product person, you probably need to switch your profession, like me being very controversial. No, it's truth. You got to speak to your customers. So you asked, like, what does the process look like?
I think one is you have that space. You're like, okay, I'm always going to be speaking to customers. And there's the other piece of when you do need to apply process when you're working with customers. And I think of that in the research realm, right? And so again, I go back to what's driving the roadmap, but it's data. And with customers, it's going to be a mix of quant and qualitative data. And so, you know, in research, we've got generative research and we have evaluative research. And so for us, it's You know, we have an incredible design team and research team who, they go out there and they just get general customer feedback.
They [00:13:00] start to understand more of what's happening in the customer space and that helps us generate some potential new ideas around how we want to take the product forward. Those are generally structured where we have them, I think we have like two or three a week of those going on. And then our research team takes it in.
Christine: So, we put our notes in, we kind of consume it, we add it into our pile of research and data that we look at every quarter. Then you've got evaluative research. So, anything new that we're exploring, this is when we work really closely with your team. So, I know my PMs are putting feelers out for this new thing that we're building because they're in the phase of, okay, we know we want to invest or potentially invest in this. We know there's some customer pain around this from these customers because we're getting that insight directly. And finally, can we work with your CSMs to reach out and get this information? fuels our research into something that we potentially want to do for Q3. So yeah, so I think that if you think about the process part and how we put some rigor around it, that's when we tend to see a bit more of a repeat, repeatable process from the product team into customer engagement.[00:14:00]
Taylor: I love it. Such a critical part of it too. Can you share some examples of successful customer moments that you've engineered?
Christine: I'll say that what comes to mind for me here is when my team and I have focused on, on both sides of the coin. So one is focusing on driving delight in very small ways, where there's been the ability to sort something that people didn't even realize that they could do, and they were craving that. We just were like, oh, wait a second, why doesn't this exist? Or there's more consistency in the application across table structures and the way we're presenting data. Now things feel more familiar and there's less of a learning curve for people, right? Again, driving delight, driving up usage and engagement.
That's one way that I feel like we've, we've tried to, to drive, drive some of these like successful customer moments. And then the other one, is always being able to focus on and go back to what the first question you asked around, not just building for what the customer says that they want, but really building for what they need.
I've [00:15:00] had so many times where a customer comes to us with, I really think this is the thing that I'm going to need. And this is going to make me look like a star with my team and blah, blah, blah. And if you just change it this way, I would sit down and we'd just talk to them and we'd So we're going to dive into these problems that these kind of questions that are centered around problems versus the solution. And we talked a lot about that with our team. How do we get customer success to also speak that language, which is really fun. And what has happened more often than not is we've not built the thing that they thought that they really needed, and we've built something even better. So that always translates into this, like, successful customer moment, because then the customer ends up feeling like, whoa, wait a second, like, they've got my back. Not only did they solve for the outcome that I really wanted, but they delivered this really valuable thing overall that's, that's going to make me look like a complete star.
Taylor: Bouncing, surprise, and delight with the big stuff. It's always good to have a balance. [00:16:00] And if you are a CS leader out there and you have not had a session yet where you invite your product team to come teach your folks how to ask great root cause questions, do it tomorrow. It is an absolute game changer. One thing that, um, I think is so valuable about the profession of product leadership and product management is that line of questioning how to get deeper, how to go further. And I think in, in CS we've, you know, just been taught to listen, take it down and follow up, but we have an opportunity to ask deeper questions. We should be pushing more there and your product colleagues are a great place to start. They are experts in this, so lean on them.
So let's talk about the other side of it when things go sideways. Things aren't always peachy keen between departments. For example, maybe there's a time where a risky customer is screaming at the top of their lungs and a CS [00:17:00] teammate comes banging on the door of their product team. Maybe not the best way to build a bridge. So what's a more mature way to go about making an ask around risk or something really urgent that might disrupt the roadmap?
Christine: I'm going to go back to what you just said about engaging with the product team and understanding the right questions to ask here. In every company I've been at, been in, there's this moment when you realize that the risk has gone too far and there wasn't enough of a signal that something may have, you know, make, something could have been done better. And that's not anyone's fault. I think that, I don't know. It's not anyone's fault for the most part. It ends up being like a, you know, I've got all this stuff going on as a CSM or I've got all this stuff going on as anybody on an account team and, oh my goodness, they were saying something, the customer saying something, but I'm also managing this other customer. And how did it get to this point? So there's that.
So I think Number one is understanding [00:18:00] what to listen for that's going to signal risk, right? From, from a CSM's ears or an account manager or account team's ears. And just bringing that to the product team and saying, Hey, I don't know if this is going to be of any concern here, but this is a large customer or this customer is really strategic for us for these reasons. And here's a bunch of others that are kind of saying very similar things. It might be one of something, but It might be something that you want to dig into. This goes back to that cross functional sync that we talked about where we're raising kind of themes. I guess the key word here is like proactive.
And so the more your product team and your CSMs can sit together and understand or the product team can sit down with CSMs and help them understand how they take in, I call them inputs into the product development life cycle process that are either going to be like planned or we're baking in time for risk that has gone really, really. Crazy. It helps the CSMs understand how to bring that information to product in it in a very structured way. So early and often in a [00:19:00] structured way with your team, that's going to bring specific themes and then raise those needs for specific customers to the product team. So that doesn't come as a surprise.
You're right. Like you don't want to, you don't want to burn bridges. I have definitely seen times where Sam has turned around and said, like, I've raised this to product. And then it's like, well, when did you raise it to product? And it was like, two days ago. And products knee deep in trying to finish up the quarter and trying to get this new thing out the door. That's going to be now. So like, we're going to sell something new, right? It doesn't end up very well. I think another thing is the transparency piece. CSMs and other teams, not just CSMs, to be honest with you, everyone across the organization doesn't have visibility into the inner workings of the product design and engineering team.
And when they understand the disruption something can cause, it helps them really put a little bit more process and rigor around getting that information over to the product team. I, you know, and again, I don't think it's anyone's fault. I think it's really You and I sitting [00:20:00] down, CSM to PM sitting down and understanding how does your team work? How often do you sit down and review risk? How often do you, product team, sit down and review data centered around risk? How can we make sure that we create this partnership where we are more proactive in reducing that risk than reactive to serving the need of that one customer that is now risky?
Taylor: We've got to learn how to ask the right questions so we can get you that information. We're now all centered around the same metrics. So now we've got data that's meaningful to both teams, tying it to those bottom line metrics at the revenue level. Oftentimes as CS leaders, we are a part of that equation. So for those folks out there who are on the post sales side, remember. We're only part of it. There's also the new business and growth side of the equation as well. We have to take into account. So now that, you know, we have some, some common ways to talk to each other, to your point, it's the consistency and driving that message home.
Christine: For sure. [00:21:00]
Taylor: All right. Well, we talked a lot about working together towards a common mission, and I just mentioned, too, you know, there's, there's, There's two sides of it. There's the current customer growth and the future and where we're trying to go, but there's also new customers and that's a big part of it as well. So how do you balance addressing pain from both current and new customers.
Christine: Very similar to what I just mentioned there. Strategic themes or just themes in general that are coming from either prospects as potential new customers or current customers or risk just feed right in as an input to the product development life cycle process. And one is the product team really understanding what an average deal cycle, average deal like just to close looks like for your, the company that you're working for. If we're closing deals within two or three weeks. And there are specific asks that are coming in. Is there a theme? Is there an area that we need to invest in to help us get [00:22:00] ahead of those asks going forward?
And how do you get that data for us? You know, we sit down with our sales leadership team and we say, what are you learning this month? What are you learning this month? What have you learned as of last quarter? Where is the product not doing well as it relates to this segment that you're talking to? Are we, are we missing the mark because of specific features?
Is there something that we are not able to do and drive as a potential outcome for these customers? And again, it's just really understanding what is happening in the space that you're serving versus what is happening with that potential customer. If it is a large deal, those things Lift the covers up around a couple more things than you intend, right?
Like, I say this because you do get very specific asks coming in from your current ideal customer profile, right? Where you currently are serving very well. And if you're looking to expand into strategic or enterprise markets, those, that's not going to generally be around feature requests. Things that are coming in are going to [00:23:00] be more themed towards how you serve their business versus how you serve them solve the pain of the CSM or the CS team that's immediately speaking to you, or that I'm speaking obviously from Vitaly's perspective, CSMs for whom we serve, but it really does take again, a bit of process and rigor and sitting down with the sales team and understanding where this pain is. So for us I think one of the things that I've seen work well, actually not for us, I've seen it work well across my career, is not just sitting down and understanding what's happening today, it's sitting down today and understanding what's going to happen tomorrow.
So if we're closing quarter right now, what does the pipeline look like for the next quarter? And do we know what the profiles of these customers are, what business, what markets they serve, what potential needs they're going to have? from a more from just kind of like a broader view versus just the individual features that these people might ask us for so that we do have a talk track for them as well as a business.
And then as the deals start to progress, what are you learning [00:24:00] from these? Are these people constantly asking about the same, let's say, I don't know, something around integrations, or are they asking for something around this one area of the product? And you take that in and now you feed it into the product development life cycle. So. Being very proactive, staying on top of things as they're progressing is another thing. It all goes back to setting up operations within your business so that you can get that data and really, and really lean on it as you're building your product roadmap.
Taylor: Amazing. And I think there's a great lesson, many great lessons to take there as well. As a CS leader, you mentioned ICP and yes, most of the time customers coming in the door are inside that. But as companies grow, we've got to look outside of that ideal profile and might start to get pulled into new directions, new segments, new, you know, audiences. And as a product team and as a CS team. We've got to be thinking ahead of the curve, got to start listening [00:25:00] farther upstream than just when the customers arrive. If we've waited that long, we've waited, we've waited too long. So I love that, like getting upstream, listening earlier in the pathway if we're trying to move into new segments.
Christine: That's the thing. And I said the words current ICP, and sometimes that sounds very risky to product people. And I think I'm speaking from my seat where if you're looking to expand into new markets or sell to a new persona at some point, and it. In your time, wherever, whatever company you're at, that word current needs to be in there, right? If you're looking to expand and grow your business and really help drive revenue, there's always potential or not always, there's generally potential to grow and think outside the box and think about who you're going to need to serve later.
Taylor: So there you go, folks. Another Way to build a bridge. We all have those moments of the businesses deciding, oh, we're going to move a little bit outside of our ICP or try to address a new market. We feel it in, in CS. There's that moment of, oh goodness, how are we going to serve [00:26:00] a totally different customer and a totally different persona? You're not alone. Work with your product leaders too. They're trying to figure it out as well. Awesome.
Well, Christine, before we let you go, we're going to have some fun. We're going to do some quick hit questions for you and learn a little bit more about the human behind the product leader title. So you ready to rock and roll? Yeah,
Christine: Let’s go.
Taylor: What do you wish you could spend more time on in life or in work?
Christine: Um, I in life always want to give more time to my children, like that is number one. So that's the answer to that one. In work, I would say I'm, I'm always as a manager, I'm just super centered on my team or as a leader. I'm super centered on my team. So I would also say. My, my team and just making sure that I get as [00:27:00] much time with them as possible. It's, it's a delicate balance that you have to strike as somebody who's like a head of product and then working one on one with your PMs and your designers. And so I really, it's, it's, I think it's a nice balance between understanding customers and really getting time with them and then figuring out the right bits to bring back to the team when they're also not spending the time with customers so that.
There's just this alignment and there's this clarity on how we're going to be moving forward. So that's where I wish I could spend more time on. That's all centered around humans, right? I think one of the things that I learned about myself is I thrive off of human connection. And so both with my children and then also with my team at work, it's just making sure that you're aligned and making sure that you're leaving no stone unturned and just creates this healthier space.
It creates the ability to move forward faster and it creates the the ability for you to enjoy the moment that you're in.
Taylor: I love it. All right. Well, on the totally opposite end of the spectrum, if there was one thing you could automate [00:28:00] in your work life, what would it be?
Christine: There's a lot of things that are, we can automate now. I'm actually just trying to try it out. There's this new product called chat PRD, which looks phenomenal. Um, there's, there's a plug there that I don't, I just got rid of them. So not promoting them, but I mean, maybe it's great. Um, that's how you write better PRDs. Um, and for product teams, that's incredible. So really just getting, again, getting people to alignment faster. PRD should be aligning people to what the problem is and how we're going to be solving it. So that's one thing in life. Man, I wish I could automate, and I probably can. I'm just going to hire somebody, but I still kind of want to be involved.
Planning all the kid things. Planning, planning all the kid things. Planning the, all of the Sports things and like the meetups and then, oh my gosh, everything, you know, we talked about schools when you and I first started figuring out how to get them into certain schools and automating, automating all of that.
Taylor: Automate the stress away. How do we do that? Automate the stress away. It's a lot. It's a lot of stress. Amazing. Well, what is one habit or routine that you follow that's had a positive impact on your life? I have two.
Christine: One is meditation. Positive impact on my life. If I feel like, um, there's chaos, I just sit down, even if it's for five minutes and just do that. One is very tactical and so simple and people just forget about it because we have so much tooling in the world. It's just sitting down and literally writing out a to do list. Every Monday morning, first thing I do before I hit Slack and start checking in on all the things is sit down and to do list right here. That's it. That's for the week. I love checking things off. That's why.
Taylor: I see some different colors in there. I mean, it's beautiful. Amazing. All right. If you had, this would be a fun one. If you had a crystal ball into customer behavior, what is the first thing you'd want to do? to ask your [00:30:00] crystal ball.
Christine: I used to work at a company that solved pain for product managers. And what I learned was, it's, the pain is not centered around the features. The pain to be solved is centered around how these humans think. This being one of the humans and what drives us and how we think about success in our day to day.
Christine: And that would be my crystal ball. question for CSMs, too, for the current customer that I serve, right? It's less about what we're doing as a product and more about what's going on in your world, what's going on in your day to day, how do you think, how do you solve problems, how do you learn best, what patterns make you happy, just from any sort of technology, not just from Vitally.
Christine: That would be my crystal ball. It's getting into their minds and understanding how they think, how they approach a problem, how do they drive customer delay. And I think that would answer a ton of questions for me and my team. So we [00:31:00] do, I mean, we do that through research, but if I had a crystal ball, I'd be like, tell me all that a little faster. Yeah. Tell me all that a little bit faster. It'd be great. Yes. Well, Christine, what makes you feel successful? Oh man, when my team has a win. Huge success. When they put product out and they are in full alignment with product marketing and go to market feels really prepared and they feel like, okay, the product team left no stone unturned.
That is, that feels super successful. And even if there are one or two stones that are left unturned, we're I love watching product design engineering just celebrate something that they just put out there that they're now seeing, um, a customer use real time and they're like, Oh my goodness, I built that like this, or we built that. Obviously, this is an idea that we had. This is something that we researched. This is something that we coded and now it's actually in customer hands. Like, that's hugely [00:32:00] successful, not just in customer hands, but now we're seeing that they're using it, the data supporting it, and there's, the best is when there's like a customer video, and then they go, customer goes, oh my goodness, and then, I just love watching my team's face, it's so cute.
Taylor: Alright, y'all heard it here. There's the product leader love language. Make sure you collect those quotes and get them back to your teammates to celebrate all that hard work. Christine, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure to have you here and to get some insight into the minds of product leadership.
Christine: Thank you. It was so fun being here and I'll see you in like a couple minutes. See you on our next meeting.
Taylor: Thank you to Christine for sharing her insights with us today. And a special thanks to all of you who tuned in. If you enjoyed this episode and found value in our conversation, remember to spread the word to your customer success friends. Don't miss our next episode. We're tackling pricing and packaging and how CS leaders play a strategic role in making those decisions. And before you go, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Take a moment to leave us a rating and [00:33:00] review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us. Until next time.