At HubSpot, buyer expertise comes first. All the time.
Whether or not our advertising and marketing workforce is choosing a time at which to ship an e-mail or our net workforce workforce is selecting the scale and site of a button on our homepage, the query we all the time return to is: “Will this be an excellent expertise for our clients?”
As HubSpot’s Chief Product Officer, this customer-first precept is my guiding mild in the case of product growth. And it is the explanation why we do not purchase expertise after we need to ship a brand new product to our clients. We construct it.
This build-first method is turning into more and more uncommon in our trade. Conventional SaaS firms have a tendency to accumulate different firms after they need to considerably develop their product choices or shortly improve their buyer base. This will typically result in a fast uptick in income — in any case, when an organization buys one other, it acquires all of its clients — however it’s usually a really unfavorable expertise for the shopper.
When two utterly completely different programs are cobbled collectively after an acquisition, the burden of creating them work collectively is foisted onto the shopper. Every firm most likely took a totally completely different method to product growth, leading to completely different underlying expertise, completely different processes, and completely different consumer interfaces.
Reconciling these variations with out inflicting friction for patrons is an nearly unattainable activity. And when SaaS firms apply this method over time, the friction accrues, technical debt goes by way of the roof, and the shopper expertise steadily degrades consequently.
This method solves for the corporate implementing it, not the shoppers it is presupposed to serve. That is why we do issues otherwise at HubSpot. In spite of everything, it is not like us to observe the gang.
When most firms had been doubling down on the previous outbound playbook, we championed inbound approaches as a substitute. When most companies had been questioning whether or not distant work might ever work, we noticed the proportion of HubSpotters working from house hit double digits lengthy earlier than 2020 pressured everybody’s hand. And whereas our trade was nonetheless furiously centered on funnels, we embraced the flywheel.
We’re completely different. It is in HubSpot’s DNA. It is even mirrored in our firm mission: we assist organizations develop higher. Not develop based on the established order. Not develop by adhering to age-old playbooks. Develop higher.
Simply as we consider there’s a greater strategy to develop, we additionally consider there’s a greater strategy to construct. That is the place the Main Colours are available.
Meet the Main Colours
Our method to product growth is straightforward, and it permits us to create multiplicative advantages for patrons that no different CRM platform affords. We deal with 5 foundational components that span all of our merchandise, and we work at bettering every one in all them, the entire time. These components are: Automation, Content material, Knowledge, Messaging, and Reporting. We name them “Main Colours.”
Each one in all our Hubs – Content material Hub, Advertising and marketing Hub, Gross sales Hub, and Service Hub – includes a distinct mix of the 5 Main Colours, that means that each product on our platform is constructed on the identical underlying basis.
So when the product workforce reveals as much as work on daily basis, the query we ask ourselves is not “Which Hub or function will we work on right this moment?” It is: “Which Main Colour will we improve?”
Because of this, after we add worth to at least one space of HubSpot, worth is robotically added throughout the whole CRM platform. And that permits us to ship a gradual stream of pleasure to all of our clients on an ongoing foundation.
Listed here are 3 ways wherein this method permits us to supply distinctive worth to our clients within the crowded CRM market:
1. Steady enchancment throughout the platform.
“HubSpot is the proper, always-improving advertising and marketing software program” – evaluation on G2
The identical 5 Main Colours go into constructing every HubSpot product, so after we enhance one Main Colour, we enhance each Hub. And each buyer of each HubSpot product sees a direct profit, no matter a part of the platform they use.
As an illustration, after we put money into making Reporting in Gross sales Hub extra sturdy, this robustness ripples out to each Reporting device throughout the HubSpot CRM platform. So Advertising and marketing Hub clients who use our Reporting instruments profit, Service Hub clients who use our Reporting instruments profit, as do Content material Hub clients — all as a result of we invested in bettering only one Main Colour.
2. Straightforward adoption of latest merchandise.
“We shortly adopted the Gross sales Hub Professional and Advertising and marketing Enterprise for our rising wants. It has been among the best selections we’ve got made” – evaluation on G2
Since all of our Hubs are constructed on the identical Main Colour basis, our clients can count on a well-known, quick, and pleasant consumer expertise each time they add a brand new function or product to their tech stack. This implies clients can get pleasure from the advantages of every new addition immediately, with no time misplaced to coaching, integration, or new-system frustration.
As HubSpot’s co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, places it: “Our clients’ time-to-joy is lowered.”
As soon as a buyer learns the best way to use Automation in, say, Advertising and marketing Hub, they immediately know the way Automation works in all of HubSpot’s merchandise throughout the CRM platform. In order their firm scales and provides new merchandise, options, and integrations to their tech stack, they’ll count on consistency, not complexity.
They do not should relearn how Messaging works or how Knowledge is saved each time they add a brand new Hub — one thing they might possible should do in the event that they had been working with a system that had been cobbled collectively by way of acquisitions or in the event that they use completely different instruments for various customer-facing groups.
3. The power to run a complete enterprise on a single platform.
“I can handle the web site, CRM, e-mail advertising and marketing and all different efforts in a single single place. This permits me to have a single location for all my knowledge Reporting and have a single supply of reality” – evaluation on G2
With HubSpot, fast-growing firms can run their complete enterprise on a single system, as a result of HubSpot affords the identical insights and energy to entrepreneurs, salespeople, and repair professionals alike.
And when all groups at an organization are understanding of the identical acquainted system, silos crumble, knowledge is centralized, and data flows freely. The entire workforce has entry to the identical worthwhile insights, permitting them to grasp their clients higher and ship a seamless expertise throughout each touchpoint.
For instance, when an organization’s advertising and marketing workforce makes use of Advertising and marketing Hub and its gross sales workforce makes use of Gross sales Hub, each groups acquire entry to the identical buyer knowledge in a centralized CRM. And since each Hubs supply equivalent performance for recording and storing Knowledge, it turns into equally straightforward for every workforce to entry not solely the info they generate, but additionally Knowledge the opposite workforce generates.
This provides entrepreneurs and salespeople a holistic view of the shopper, enabling every of them to tailor their ways and personalize their outreach. If a prospect is displaying specific curiosity in advertising and marketing content material a couple of sure function, the gross sales workforce can see this data within the shared CRM and can know to deal with that function on their subsequent name with the prospect.
They need not wait on a advertising and marketing report or depend on an impersonal script – they’ll personalize their outreach and hone in on a prospect’s particular areas of curiosity, all on account of each Hubs being constructed on the identical basis.
Constructing Otherwise, Rising Higher
The challenges that firms face in 2021 are new, so our method to constructing our merchandise must be new as nicely. With the rise of the hybrid office, we’re all discovering our work lives intersecting our house and household lives, too. That raises the bar on what we count on from enterprise software program.
Individuals use HubSpot to energy their companies, to offer for his or her households, to assist their communities thrive, and in lots of instances, to make the world a greater place.
It is now extra vital than ever that our CRM platform expertise seems like one thing you’d use on the weekends, not simply Monday morning.
That is why we’re fiercely dedicated to constructing software program that has enterprise-grade energy mixed with consumer-grade intuitiveness and an expertise as pleasant as that supplied by the apps all of us use in our private lives.
At HubSpot, our bar is ready by what our clients want, not what our rivals have performed in previous a long time. With the 5 Main Colours powering our platform and our unwavering dedication to by no means compromise on buyer expertise, we’re excited to proceed to assist our clients develop higher in 2021 and past.