Launching a brand new characteristic is an thrilling time at Buffer. It is the fruits of days, weeks and typically even months of the work that goes into constructing one thing new. There’s numerous pleasure and lots to have fun. It is also a big time for our Help group. A product launch can generate plenty of conversations with our prospects. We need to be able to deal with that ticket quantity, shortly reply any questions on any nuance of the brand new characteristic, and successfully channel suggestions to the product groups that constructed it.
Launching a brand new characteristic generally is a step into the unknown — our prospects are artistic and can use our product in methods we did not anticipate and ask questions for which we did not put together solutions. In some edge-case eventualities, they could uncover bugs we did not learn about or have nice strategies for future iterations of the characteristic that we might add to our product roadmap.
We now have refined a course of for engaged on launches, making certain that the related folks from the product, assist, and advertising groups come collectively to work on the launch plan. On this publish, we’ll share a little bit about what we do in preparation for launches to create the very best final result for our prospects and our group.
Reviewing new characteristic performance
Our Product group steadily shares updates to our product roadmap — the define and timeline of the options we’re planning to construct. Transparency is one among our strongest values, and we share this timeline publicly with prospects right here.
At an early stage, a Product Supervisor will create a design transient describing the brand new characteristic’s performance in order that the engineers and designers can begin planning their strategy to bringing it to life. The Buyer Advocacy group will even have a look — because the group that works extremely intently with prospects, we hear from our most vocal customers about what options they’d like to see us add or what elements of their present workflow they’re trying to enhance. We are able to provide beneficial insights and strategies to assist form the characteristic.
Working alongside advertising
As soon as the product supervisor has put a supply date in place for a brand new characteristic, the Advertising and marketing group begin placing the wheels in movement for the launch occasion. We usually need to make an enormous deal of a launch to make sure that as many present and potential prospects find out about it. The Product Advertising and marketing Supervisor will work with the Product group to decide on the launch date, and the Buyer Advocacy group will guarantee we have good inbox protection for the proposed date.
The Product Advertising and marketing Supervisor will begin drafting the comms for the launch, together with the emails, weblog posts and social content material. Our Buyer Advocacy group additionally will get to evaluation this, because it helps us to anticipate the shopper response. Past the brand new characteristic’s performance, the advertising communications shares the story of why we have constructed it and the way it advantages prospects.
Testing out the characteristic
The design group will usually share a design prototype internally, an interactive preview of how the brand new characteristic would look and performance. The Buyer Advocacy group are often wanting to attempt it out. This helps us perceive the way it works and permits us to make strategies for any tweaks or modifications.
Per week or two earlier than the launch, the product is often prepared for some testing. Initially, that is inner earlier than we begin inviting prospects to have a look.Testing helps us be sure that the product is top quality and simple to make use of earlier than it will get into our prospects’ fingers. It helps uncover any last-minute bugs or points we will repair earlier than launch. Some members of the Buyer Advocacy group will often be concerned in testing. We’re our prospects’ first level of contact once they need assistance, answering questions and serving to troubleshoot issues. So, we should have a very good understanding of the product earlier than it launches. That manner, we’ll be prepared to assist our prospects get probably the most out of it.
Creating exterior assets
Inside our Buyer Advocacy group, we’ve got a buyer schooling group. They’re going to be concerned from an early stage to start out creating Buffer’s Assist Middle articles, making ready customer-facing guides and assets that describe how the characteristic works to reply frequent questions. We frequently share these assets within the emails and weblog posts we create after we launch a characteristic. It can cowl extra technical element and the nitty-gritty together with any vital technical limitations or complicated processes. The weblog posts and emails usually focus extra on the excessive stage options and advantages of the brand new characteristic.
Updating the inner launch information and coaching out group
We create an Inner Launch Information for the Buyer Advocacy group for every new characteristic that describes the way it works and highlights the good-to-knows, equivalent to plans for future iterations. Relying on how prospects use it, some further performance may be deliberate for the longer term, and we would anticipate questions on this. For instance, after we first launched TikTok publishing, we did not have entry to the TikTok API for direct publishing, and we used a workaround to assist share scheduled posts to the TikTok app. We knew prospects would ask about the opportunity of direct publishing, so we anticipated this query within the Inner Launch Information and shared the context across the limitations and the plans for the longer term.
The Inner Launch Information is a working doc, and it features a house for capturing buyer suggestions from our electronic mail and messaging inboxes and an space for the Buyer Advocacy group to ask questions. The Product Supervisor and Advertising and marketing Supervisor will evaluation the suggestions and reply any questions that come up there. Quite a lot of the time, the shopper suggestions and questions that come up assist us develop our assist heart articles. We might not have anticipated all of the steadily requested questions forward of them really being steadily requested!
Should you’d prefer to take a peek on the template we use for the Inner Launch Information, you may obtain a duplicate in .pdf format right here. Be happy to make use of it and adapt it to your wants – I’d love to listen to from you in the event you do! I’m on Mastodon right here: @davechapman@mas.to
Along with the Inner Launch Information, we’ve got inner coaching periods for vital or difficult product modifications.
Anticipating inbox quantity
Once we launch a characteristic, we count on a rise within the quantity of questions and tickets on the assist channel in response to the advertising communications on electronic mail and social. A day or two earlier than the launch, we goal to double down on the inbox to scale back the amount prematurely. For a big characteristic launch, we’d goal to maximise group protection. Tuesdays work properly for us, with the best quantity if group mates accessible, and we’d keep away from any syncs or conferences that may take us away from the inbox on lately.
[Callout: We work a four day work week at Buffer. See how our Customer Advocacy team works just four days a week while keeping up customer support.]
We’ll additionally put together macros and snippets containing pre-written sentences and phrases to assist us shortly reply to anticipated questions. These work properly as a approach to persistently share the steps wanted to navigate specific settings, for instance. These all get added to the Inner Launch Information to share throughout the group.
Launch day
Making a devoted channel for the launch is an effective way to maintain everybody knowledgeable. It helps maintain observe of what’s taking place with the launch and makes it simple for the group to entry details about it. We now have a devoted Slack channel for launches, and we’ll share important milestones and timings, equivalent to:
- the preliminary rollout to five p.c of customers (vital final verify for any surprising points!),
- roll out to 100% of customers,
- the weblog publish is dwell,
- launch emails are despatched
- and many others…
This screenshot shares just a bit sneak peek into our #launches Slack channel:
It is also useful to have one place to direct group members who’re in search of info. The Buyer Advocacy group will probably be working of their common channels and utilizing the Inner Launch information as a useful resource for asking questions and sharing non-urgent suggestions.
Abstract
When a brand new product or characteristic is launched, there’s usually plenty of pleasure, and hopefully many completely satisfied prospects! The Buyer Advocacy group will probably be working with customers who’ve varied questions, and a few might have issues or run into points, if there are some surprising bugs or hassle. We do our greatest to make sure the group is ready to deal with all of those conditions, and thoroughly planning product launches makes an enormous distinction to how issues go on the day of the launch and the times quickly after. Having a plan, and dealing intently with the product, engineering, design and advertising group alongside the entire journey of bringing a product to market, provides our Buyer Advocacy group the perfect likelihood contributing to a profitable launch day. There may be at all times extra we will do to organize for a launch, and we take time to replicate after every one. It’s at all times a studying expertise.
Right here’s a run down of our present strategy:
- Overview the exploration/discovery transient as soon as the product group have mapped out their plans for the brand new characteristic. At this stage the Buyer Advocacy group can provide beneficial insights, in addition to probably put the product supervisor immediately in contact with prospects who may need some nice views to share
- Overview the design prototypes. These usually give us our first concept of the appear and feel of the brand new characteristic and it’s our likelihood to supply suggestions and views to the design group.
- Create an Inner Launch Information, to explain the options, together with the ‘good to is aware of’, and create an area to reply questions and accumulate suggestions.
- When the engineering group is completed, the Buyer Advocacy group run thorough testing to ensure every part works as anticipated
- Put together the Buyer Advocacy group to concentrate on the inbox, ‘all fingers on deck’ model, each forward of the launch to clear any inbox backlog, and in the course of the launch to maximise response occasions
- Create an inbox filter in order that that members of the product and advertising groups can regulate the responses to the launch emails
- Collect the group in a particular launch Slack channel on launch day, to share the thrill and comply with together with the rollout and bulletins
- Overview the suggestions and questions which have come up within the Inner Launch Information. This usually helps us evolve the shopper dealing with Assist Middle assets in addition to retaining everybody updated and knowledgeable.
As Buffer has grown, our product and engineering groups have additionally elevated in dimension. And as our product turns into extra highly effective, we should work collectively to roll out a brand new product or characteristic efficiently. Launching a brand new product is plenty of work, however it’s value it if you see prospects utilizing it and getting worth from it. And as a Buyer Advocacy group, it is much more gratifying to assist them each step of the best way.
What does a product launch seem like for you? I’d love to listen to your tales! You possibly can attain me on Mastodon right here: @davechapman@mas.to
This publish was initially printed on Buffer’s buyer assist weblog.
