Lean Into, Look and Listen to Your Customers Before Taking a Product Leap

Product innovation comes from “Aha!” moments in customer conversations, North SVP of Product Preet Patel writes in a new PYMNTS eBook, “The Listening Economy: How Customer Conversations Are Transforming Financial Services.”

The publicly untold stories behind North’s long-running success in product innovation are the “Aha!” moments that stem from customer conversations. Though we are one of the leading FinTech companies in the payments space, and have been so for over 30 years, we’ve always prided ourselves on fostering the personal relationships that help us grow and succeed along with our customers. Evolving the payments landscape is never work done in a vacuum.

For example, our North Developer team was in recent conversation with a large ISV with which we’ve been working for years. They were leveraging a new payments product, and had what they thought was a longer-term vision of a feature in mind.

The ISV wanted to be able to programmatically develop websites that would allow for donation processing on behalf of dozens of separate churches. The configuration requirements had to be minimal because of the scale of different parishes involved. In addition, the websites needed to be easily branded, with the capability of accepting popular, non-card payment methods like Google Pay and Apple Pay.

At the time, we had no existing solution that fully accommodated their requirements. However, the more we listened, the more we realized that a product we were developing could be a fit, with only minor changes to the upcoming roadmap.

So we got to work. Throughout the ensuing development process, the customer had a voice in designing the features that will ultimately best serve their own customers. They are also acting as a beta integrator for North Developer, using and helping our team refine the product before a wider launch.

The ISV partner definitely felt heard and seen throughout this process, which further excited them about rolling out the product to their own customers. But the measurement of our mutual success won’t just be defined by good vibes. We’ve sought actionable feedback, through qualitative and quantitative methods, throughout the development and go-to-market readiness stages.

In the former category, and because we want the solution to meet the needs of a wider customer base, we’ve conducted interviews with additional ISVs and agents. At the same time, we’ve obtained quantitative results from a larger sampling of merchants and ISVs, through surveys and by seeking direct input at the end of customer support calls.

From a high-level strategic approach, the North Product Team draws inspiration from the principles of “Lean Customer Development,” a book by Cindy Alvarez. Its central tenet cautions developers against falling in love with an idea or solution, before fully understanding the problem they’re trying to solve. While the book is powerful reading, it’s in the practice of open-ended, two-way communication with your customers that the magic really happens.

Do you want to know what your customers really need? Ask. Then listen. Then apply.