April Dunford: preference

Transcript context

…ice at all. They don't care about any of that. And so they're all about driving the cost down. So if we look at Help Scout in their positioning, the alternatives to Help Scout are a handful of things. Most folks start using a shared inbox and it's really easy to use and the reps love it. It's easy to use. The problem is, is you start growing and then you want customer service features. You want to be able to do assignments and prioritization and things like that. So then these customers end up upgrading to help desk software and now they're in this whole different world. So the first thing is really hard to use. So we're not in shared inbox territory anymore. And the second thing is that there's this attitude of we're trying to push folks to low cost channels. We don't really care about them. We're going to assign you a ticket number. You're not a person anymore. All this stuff. So that's the situation. So Help Scout, if they did a typical pitch the way I see most SaaS companies pitch, they would just expose the features. Right? So the pitch would look like this. Digital business comes in and they say, "Hi, Help Scout, let me show you how to log in, let me show you all the features. Look, there's a shared inbox thing there that's really great. Oh, look, we can do assignments and prioritization and we can do this other thing and we can do this other thing and la, la la." And I keep going until the time runs out and I don't have any more features to talk about. The problem with that pitch is the customer's sitting there going, "I don't know, man, that sounds a little bit like my shared inbox, but it also sounds like help desk software. Is it different than help desk software? I'm not so sure. And there's overlap in the features there." And so it doesn't really answer the question, why pick us over the other guys? And so a different style of pitch would be one, we would do a little bit of setup to give everybody an idea about how we fit amongst all the other solutions and what our point of view is in the market. And then when we get to exploring the features, we would do that within the context of the differentiated value. So here's how that pitch would look like. Customer comes in and Help Scout says, "Hey, digital business, we work with a lot of companies like you, and I'm going to show you the product. But before we get there, one of the things we think is interesting is that digital businesses look at customer service differently. They look at it as a growth driver rather than a cost center. And so most of the folks we work with see delivering a really amazing experience as a key part of customer service. Would you agree with that?" Yeah, we would. They have a little conversation and then they say, "Great. We you have choices here. So most of the folks we work with start with a shared inbox, and that's great because it's really easy, really easy to use all that stuff. The problem is if you're growing and you probably are, then you're going to outgrow that because you're going to need prioritizations assignments, help desk stuff. And so then your option is to go to help desk software. And so help desk software is great, does all the things. outgrow that because you're going to need prioritizations assignments, help desk stuff. And so then your option is to go to help desk software. And so help desk software is great, does all the things. The problem is that it was not designed for businesses like you. It was designed for businesses that want to take the cost out of customer service. So it's going to do some things that are weird. It's going assign your customers a ticket number and it's going to try to drive them to low cost channels. So can we agree that in a perfect world for digital business like yours, we'd want something as easy to use as a help desk, but had all the bells and whistles so we wouldn't have to migrate to something else. And on top of that was built from the ground up to deliver amazing customer service. Do we agree we want that?" Now, at that point, the customer is either with you or you're not. But if they are, then we switch to the actual demo part. If we do a demo and then we say, "Great, we've got those three things. Let me show you how that works. So one as easy to use an inbox. Look, here's the inbox. It's easy to use. Looks just like an inbox. It's amazing. Two, features, so you never have to outgrow it. Look, here's how we do prioritizations assignments, whatever. We can do all the stuff you need as you grow, and you're never going to have to switch platforms. And then last one, deliver an amazing experience. Look, the customer gets to choose which channel that they interact with you with. And look, they get to stay Dave and not ticket number 1479." That sort of thing. So that's how the pitch looks in the after. But that's a really different pitch. That pitch is designed to answer the question, "Why pick us over the other folks?" And so as you might imagine, it is a lot more effective at actually getting clients to get their head around, what is this thing? Why is it different? Why should I pick you? And it just works way better in a sales situation. Awesome. So just to maybe summarize the framework 'cause you went through each of these pieces, and I think it might be helpful to give people the kind of steps. And I have them here, but maybe it might be better for you to kind work through.…

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