Step one: Reconnaissance
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 7:10 am
When I was handed the reins of this pivotal project, I knew the stakes were high, but I also knew what we needed: a solid plan, plenty of empathy, and a healthy dose of common sense.
Without a template to guide us, I knew that success in managing this product's end-of-life hinged on clarity. The level of preparation – what I like to call reconnaissance – depends on the specifics of the product retirement and whether you’re transitioning customers to a new product or referring them to a different solution.
The first step is to clearly map out the customer journey. To do this, I asked a lot of questions, including:
What’s the timeframe for retiring this product?
Who are the customers affected, and why are they reluctant to transition?
How many customers will we retain, and who are we willing to let go?
Does our new product match these customers’ needs?
How are we going to move customers at scale? Do we have the right team and structure to enable this?
How do we convince them to move?
Transitioning from a 30-year-old server-based product to a cloud-based bangladesh telegram number one wasn’t just about replicating old features. This was a fundamental shift, designed to help customers work more efficiently. But with that transformation came significant change – change that many customers weren’t immediately ready to embrace.
The importance of understanding your customers
Once the timeline and internal goals were clear, the next step was understanding how to win over our customers and alleviate their fears. Early on, we conducted a survey targeting our most reluctant adopters – our "laggards." The goal was to uncover what we were up against and identify ways to smooth the transition.
The survey focused on five key areas:
Perception of the new product: What did customers think of our cloud-based platform?
Intentions: Did they plan to move? If not, why?
Alternatives: Were they exploring other solutions?
Barriers: What was preventing them from making the switch?
Levers: What incentives or reassurances might convince them to move?
The results were sobering. A third of our customers had no intention of moving anytime soon. They were fearful of change and harbored all kinds of misconceptions about our cloud product’s capabilities. Concerns around data security, vulnerability, and accessibility were especially prevalent among regional customers who worried about their limited internet infrastructure.
And then came the kicker – customers wanted the software to be "finished" before transitioning. In other words, they expected a perfect, fully polished product. But as anyone in SaaS knows, software is never truly "finished." Iteration is constant, and perfection is an ongoing process.
So, we had two major challenges: overcoming customer reluctance to change and addressing gaps in product knowledge. To address these challenges, we knew our messaging couldn’t stop at highlighting product value.
Without a template to guide us, I knew that success in managing this product's end-of-life hinged on clarity. The level of preparation – what I like to call reconnaissance – depends on the specifics of the product retirement and whether you’re transitioning customers to a new product or referring them to a different solution.
The first step is to clearly map out the customer journey. To do this, I asked a lot of questions, including:
What’s the timeframe for retiring this product?
Who are the customers affected, and why are they reluctant to transition?
How many customers will we retain, and who are we willing to let go?
Does our new product match these customers’ needs?
How are we going to move customers at scale? Do we have the right team and structure to enable this?
How do we convince them to move?
Transitioning from a 30-year-old server-based product to a cloud-based bangladesh telegram number one wasn’t just about replicating old features. This was a fundamental shift, designed to help customers work more efficiently. But with that transformation came significant change – change that many customers weren’t immediately ready to embrace.
The importance of understanding your customers
Once the timeline and internal goals were clear, the next step was understanding how to win over our customers and alleviate their fears. Early on, we conducted a survey targeting our most reluctant adopters – our "laggards." The goal was to uncover what we were up against and identify ways to smooth the transition.
The survey focused on five key areas:
Perception of the new product: What did customers think of our cloud-based platform?
Intentions: Did they plan to move? If not, why?
Alternatives: Were they exploring other solutions?
Barriers: What was preventing them from making the switch?
Levers: What incentives or reassurances might convince them to move?
The results were sobering. A third of our customers had no intention of moving anytime soon. They were fearful of change and harbored all kinds of misconceptions about our cloud product’s capabilities. Concerns around data security, vulnerability, and accessibility were especially prevalent among regional customers who worried about their limited internet infrastructure.
And then came the kicker – customers wanted the software to be "finished" before transitioning. In other words, they expected a perfect, fully polished product. But as anyone in SaaS knows, software is never truly "finished." Iteration is constant, and perfection is an ongoing process.
So, we had two major challenges: overcoming customer reluctance to change and addressing gaps in product knowledge. To address these challenges, we knew our messaging couldn’t stop at highlighting product value.