Teams often compete to be heard. They use their own findings and feelings in an attempt to prove that their direction of travel is the best bet for the business. In doing so, the one single truth is lost. The voice of the customer.

Combining best of breed methodologies across product and commercial teams allows a common focus and understanding of the customer. We can’t give away all our secrets, but below are the main insight categories that unite B2B SaaS teams around the single common truth.

Needs Analysis

To understand a prospective customer's requirements, desires, and potential problems. Starting with their current situation, it identifies gaps or problems and helps to assess how a specific product or service can fill those gaps or solve those problems.

It can cover areas such as functionality, budget, timelines, integration requirements, and more. This is really where businesses can begin to tailor their product or service offerings to best meet those needs. And that doesn’t just mean the actual product (code), it’s the market messaging, the educational content, the supporting processes, etc.

Jobs

The goal is to create "job to be done" statements. Each job fits into one category. The categories are: Sales (deciding whether to buy the system, learning about what the system does or how the system works, and the contract and buying process.), Deployment (deployment, customization or project management of the system), Functional (specific features of the system) and Non-Functional (overall ask of the system that is not related to a specific feature).

Solution

The Solutions Consultant (SC) will be describing functionality the product has, functionality the product partially has or could be configured to perform, or functionality the product does not have. Describing solutions are not just functionality and code, they are configurations, content, and sometimes other manual processes. As long as the solution achieves the impact and removes the pain.

Pain/Impact

Pain addresses the acute challenges and frustrations the company, team, or individual has. These can sound like emotional issues caused by their current processes or desired improvements in workflow OR rational issues affecting the company, like cash flow, costly mistakes, or strategic problems.

Letting the voice of your customer flow through your business ensures that every team is playing from the same score. If B2B SaaS businesses have a common language built around universal customer truths and jobs that need doing, then every part of the organisation will be working in sync, in time to what the customer needs.