Industries
22 min read

How to build trust, reduce churn and improve CLV with a public roadmap

Published on
January 12, 2023
Authors.
Patrick Mehrhoff
CEO | MEHRHOFF DIGITAL
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Building trust and loyalty with your customers will be critical, especially in light of the collapse of FTX and what it meant for the industry, not just for crypto or blockchain but for all startups and businesses. Your business should never lose sight of its unrivalled potential to earn its customers’ extreme devotion and confidence by not betraying customer trust.

One Fintech and Saas product marketing trend is that the next wave of great product companies will all have some form of a public roadmap.

Roadmapping tools like LaunchNotes and Productboard make these incredibly easy to create and maintain. This will soon be the norm for any startup or scale-up that considers itself trustworthy and product-focused.

I first came across this idea a few years ago when I worked at a small SaaS company in Switzerland. They had this straightforward Feature Upvote accessible to anyone who wanted to look at it, laying out their likely product plans.

However, there needed to be more transparency on the actual roadmap.

It seemed so obvious what a great idea it was to communicate its roadmap transparently. They usually responded that their competitors aren’t sharing their roadmap either, so they won’t.

Thereby, businesses simultaneously neglect all three brand and product promotion principles: Authencity, Intimacy and Uniqueness.

You have to ask yourself, why aren’t they and other companies doing it?

With that said, I know firsthand from several customer projects publicly sharing that a product roadmap can be a significant change or sometimes even a paradigm shift. Indeed, it’s a big, bold decision to make and understandably makes the product and engineering teams a little nervous.

“What if we don’t meet the launch date and disappoint our customers?” or “We don’t want our competitors to see what we’re working on” are objections you might hear at the very mention of a public roadmap.

To the doubters, the whole crypto and blockchain industry is built around open and transparent communication of their whitepapers, business case, solution design, tech stack selection, development, deployment, integration, after-launch support and evolution.

Of course, they do not necessarily stick to their roadmap or timeline. Still, it helps to identify the best teams, projects and products, which you do not need to fear if you have a superior product.

And if your competitors align their product priorities with your roadmap, they have far more significant problems than feature parity. (Plus, you can keep some things you’re working on behind the scenes).

Here are some prominent examples of public product roadmaps

Buffer — a social media marketing and listening tool

Buffer public roadmap — Trello roadmap

Loom — a video productivity app that allows skipping meetings efficiently

Loom public roadmap — Productboard roadmap

To be more successful in persuading your product owners, I have put together a list of reasons you can pass on to your line manager and product managers in the hope that they will convince them to create more trust among their prospects and customers.

Improve customer loyalty

Customers switch when there is a gap between the product’s perceived value and the monthly amount they pay you. One way to solve this problem and add value is to show them what is planned in the coming months. You will significantly reduce churn and increase customer lifetime value, ultimately improving your bottom line, which is just a simple tweak.

Your customers want to be sure that you have big plans for your product. Letting them know that your team is not resting on its laurels and has an ambitious plan for the year ahead will make them feel invested and confident that they will receive more and more value from you as your product evolves.

Improve internal communication

Your colleagues are probably even more curious about what’s coming up for the product than your users — especially teams like Sales, Support and Customer Success, who chat with customers daily.

AND NO, despite a lack of funding or resources, your product management and marketing is not your customer support team. There needs to be a dedicated headcount for it.

Creating a focal point where everyone in your company can see what’s new will reduce noise in Slack or Teams channels for the product, improve team morale, create a buzz and improve everyone’s product knowledge.

Attract new customers

Certain features will also be necessary for potential new customers. Suppose a potential client is considering switching from a competitor or evaluating you as one of several options during the sales process. In that case, they will likely want to get a feel for feature parity.

You may offer only some of the features they want, but a product roadmap can reassure them that at least what they need will be available shortly. This is especially important for product-focused companies that don’t have Sales or Customer Success to provide this extra assurance.

Show your customers that you are listening.

Companies always ask their customers for product feedback but often need to act on it. With a public roadmap, your users can track the features that matter most to them and receive updates as you make changes to the schedule and launch day.

Some tools even allow you to use your roadmap as a place where customers can request new features. Again, this helps your users feel connected to your product.

Create a community

A public roadmap can be a product in itself. It is a fixed point of contact for your customers to engage with your brand regularly. This level of transparency is truly admirable and will create brand love among your most loyal followers.

How do you create your public roadmap?

Choose a roadmap tool.

Selecting a proper public roadmap tool should be your first step. That’s significant since it influences other choices you make on the layout of your roadmap.

LaunchNotes

Giving customers a quick summary of what is in the works, what is actively developed, and what has already been delivered is easy using LaunchNotes. It is unique because you can easily communicate modifications to your roadmap with the appropriate customers. They want or need to know and provide your customers with a glimpse into your product roadmap.

Read more LaunchNotes.

ProdPad

Teams may plan product features, get customer input, and communicate roadmaps with customers using ProdPad. They help teams produce clear, compact roadmaps.

Read more ProdPad.

ProductBoard

Software teams may prioritise features based on user feedback and communicate roadmaps with clients using ProductBoard, which works similarly to ProdPad. By making it simple for the entire team to track insights, ProductBoard highlights the value of customer input.

Read more ProductBoard.

ProductPlan

ProductPlan helps teams align around the product strategy by planning and road-mapping a collaborative effort. Product managers love ProductPlan as it helps them think through the business drivers behind each feature.

Check out ProductPlan.

Some requirements:

  • Make announcements. A roadmap is a tool for communication. Making announcements is a fantastic approach to educating your consumer base directly and piquing their interest.
  • Collect customer feedback. Any successful product team values and benefits from customer feedback since it supports and validates concepts for new developments. It should be straightforward for people to offer their input with a good roadmap tool (or a feature request). Comments and upvotes are also great tools for swiftly assessing user opinion.
  • Give you options. You should be able to choose whether to make your product roadmap private or public because, as we previously discussed, each has some differences and advantages.

Decide on a format

After selecting a tool, you must carefully consider how to arrange the data in your roadmap. The framework is crucial since it ensures that your target audience receives the most benefit.

I recommend to chose from the following formats:

  • Under consideration, planned, launched. This provides a view of the features you’re hoping to deliver imminently, what’s coming up next, and what ideas to add to your backlog.
  • Thematic. Grouping features by vertical, use case or persona is another standard organisational method (like Loom in the earlier example).
  • Workflow. This usually comprises ongoing projects, feature requests, backlog items, and releases and works well for complicated products.

Conclusion

If there is one lesson to be learned from the FTX collapse, establish trust with each customer using a public roadmap. It has many advantages, including strengthening customer relationships, improving customer lifetime value (CLV), enthusing users about the value you’re consistently providing for them, and allowing the customer to participate in your roadmap and company vision actively.

There’s no doubt that, even with the most thorough public roadmap, it will only be possible to please some customers, as each business and use case has different needs, requirements, challenges, and so on. But, as I have outlined, the advantages of publicly sharing your roadmap far outweigh the drawbacks.