Why we want to be the most customer-centric company ever

Every year, at the end of the summer, we gather all of our employees together at our headquarters in Ottawa for our annual onsite meeting.

We make a point of inviting a few of our customers to join us.

Why do we do that, when we already have a Customer Advisory Board?

It’s part of our effort to be as customer-centric as possible.

We think we’re on the right track. This year the Amazon rep at our onsite told us we were customer-obsessed – which is really saying something when you consider that Amazon lists customer obsession as one of its leadership principles.

This blog is about why we go the extra distance for our customers – and why making the effort is well worth it for everyone involved.

Being customer-centric is in our DNA

We’ve always been particularly attuned to the needs of our customers.

That’s because Knak owes its existence to one of its very early customers, a Fortune 100 enterprise in the pharmaceutical sector

That company really liked what we were doing, but they were hesitant to use us because our service didn’t quite meet their needs.

They reached out to us anyway, told us they thought we were onto something really good, and suggested a few improvements that would make Knak work for them.

We were happy to oblige, and we ended up building our platform as a result.

That’s how customer-centricity got baked into our DNA. We owe our success to having been able to listen to an early customer and build what they wanted.

From that moment on, we’ve tried to put the customer at the heart of our work.

And it’s paid off. When we listen to our customers and delight them with what we build, it inevitably leads to growth. What satisfies one customer is sure to please another.

We do several things to help us understand what our customers want and need.

Our Customer Advisory Board is an important way for us to gather customer feedback, but it’s not enough.

The CAB lets customers get to know our leadership team. We bring customers to our onsite because we want our employees to get to know them as well.

Employees are motivated when they can put a face on the customer

As Knak’s Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist, I talk to customers all the time.

But most of Knak’s employees don’t deal with customers at all.

We bring customers to our onsite so our employees can put a face on the people they are working for. We want them to hear customer stories first-hand, both the struggles and the successes.

We are very deliberate about creating those personal connections.

We start by choosing which customers to invite.

This year we invited people from four different companies representing a cross-section of challenges and perspectives.

To provide an incentive for the invitees to attend, we pay for their trip, put them up in a nice hotel and show them around the city before bringing them in for one whole day of our onsite meeting.

On that day, the customers take centre stage.

The day starts with a much-anticipated panel where I present our customer invitees, get them to talk about their challenges, and moderate as Knak employees pepper them with questions.

Our employees really look forward to this panel. Not only do they get to meet customers in person, they get to see how Knak helps them work more efficiently.

I frame the panel discussion so that it’s productive.

It would be easy, for example, to let the first customer say, ‘Hey, Knak’s a great platform, it solves 20 problems for me!’ The next three customers would simply say ‘Us too!’ And that would be the end of it.

This year I framed the panel discussion by showcasing a key challenge for each customer, and then let each customer speak to their own particular challenges. That way, we were able to highlight Knak’s ability to address a range of customer issues.

I’m a big fan of making information entertaining. This year I made parody videos in which I acted out the key challenges each customer faces. I got to wear wigs and costumes and be generally silly, which not only got people laughing, but helped break the ice. No one can be intimidated by me after they’ve seen me in a wig!

The result? (Of the panel, not of seeing me in a wig!) Our employees were able to see exactly how the work they do helps real, live people.

When someone at Knak can hear how our solutions boosted the career of, for example, that nice guy Felipe from Company XYZ, or how it let him do his work more efficiently, it gives meaning to their job in a personal and very tangible way.

Our customers are not anonymous anymore.

And that is incredibly motivating!

All of our people who don’t deal daily with customers come away from the onsite ready to work harder and faster to build more things that will make life easier for Felipe and others like him.

Our customers gain confidence when they know us personally

Our customers also benefit from getting to know people at Knak personally.

When they can, for example, interact with the people who design the software they use every day, it gives them confidence in us and in our ability to help them.

It’s not that they are going to call up a developer directly after they’ve met them. But we hope they will go away knowing that the developer they’ve just met has a good understanding of their problems, and is working for them.

Customer involvement in our onsite meeting isn’t limited to the panel.

We get our customers to meet with various teams, and we tell them about projects we’re working on so that they can provide feedback about the direction we’re taking. In a sense, those team meetings are almost like smaller versions of our Customer Advisory Board.

This year we also organized a session with our sales and marketing teams during which our four guest customers were asked how Knak could do a better job of marketing itself to companies like them. How did they want to be treated? What did they want us to say? How did they want us to approach them?

It was magical to watch the interactions as our customers helped our sales and marketing people refine their approach and their methods.

Our customers were happy to help; it saves them time and cuts frustration if they aren’t getting pitched in ways that don’t work for them.

By coming to the onsite, and by visiting our offices, customers also get a better appreciation for our company culture. I speak directly to our core values when I give them a tour of the office; those values are posted up on a wall for all to see.

In other words, we don’t just listen to our customers about our products. We also want them to contribute to our vision for the future and tell us how we can best sell to them. And we want them to understand at a gut level that we work for them – which is something that can get overlooked in the B2B field.

The end result is connection at a deeper level for all involved. And that connection is mutually beneficial.

I get a buzz when I hear customers saying they couldn’t believe how excited Knak employees were to meet them, or how aligned everyone was with their needs. It helps our customers feel good about their investment in Knak, and more confident about future investments with us.

I hope each customer walks away from the onsite saying, ‘Wow, these people are all so passionate about what they do! They are so smart! These are people I want to be working with.’

Making Knak the most customer-centric company ever? Why not! Part of my role is to develop customer relations. Why would I settle for second best?