Operationalizing product discovery channels and processes in support of Product teams doing visionary work

15Five is a human-centered performance management platform that creates effective managers, highly engaged employees, and top-performing organizations. From engagement surveys and 1-on-1 tools to performance reviews and OKRs, 15Five is the most complete solution that combines software, education, and community to develop successful managers and unlock peak employee performance. Built using the Positive Product Design™ method, 15Five is the only platform that offers software aligned to the latest positive psychology research. Through it’s HR Superstars community and podcast, 15Five aims to empower every leader to create highly engaged, high-performing organizations by helping people become their best selves.Product and support responsibilities I fulfilled at Emplify carried over to 15Five after acquisition.

The Customer Experience Manager is responsible for the daily support of all of our customers and users. This includes participating in conversations, designing automation and efficiencies, providing feedback to the product team, and establishing process improvements. During a normal day, I maintain multiple conversations with customers who are using our product while building the system to support them with more efficiency. There are two modes for this role that are in conflict and will have to be considered. The first is speed and triage of issues customers have. In this mode, timeliness, clarity, and emotional stability are needed. The second mode is creative and thoughtful requiring support system design and helping develop that system with Product to be effective and scalable. One is about being excellent now, the other is about consistently growing to be more excellent in the future. Responsibilities:- Manage all incoming support issues from customers and internal teams- Escalate issues appropriately to account managers and the product team- Collaborate directly with the product team to design a feedback loop for improvement- Create content and systems for automation using Intercom- Own the support process and experience and consistently refine it- Design and maintain a support model to predict scalability and capacity- Work with product to transition employee management to customersTasks:- Engage in and close the majority of support conversations- Add quick replies and articles to support more efficient closure of conversations- Train customers on how to use Emplify through formal training sessions- Write and produce content that helps users learn the software- Surface feedback and product ideas to the product team and coordinate discovery sessions- Analyze and report on support progress and metrics

Customer discovery is the process by which product decisions are validated in a continuous manner through the use of various feedback methods and systems.Product feedback must be able to be organized, sourced, analyzed and consumed. Customer discovery delivers meaningful context to product designers and managers on a regular cadence.Customers exist externally and internally. Both groups deserve to be heard and are indispensable in building valuable, usable and feasible software products. Customer Success and Product Support are critical inputs to the customer discovery process who also stand to reap great value from it.

The Customer Discovery Manager role is responsible for leading and managing the product team’s relationship with customers. This role interfaces deeply with our support and customer success teams to help handle product escalations, feature requests, and customer feedback. The goal of the role is to provide consistent and quality feedback to the product team that is directly from customers who are using and interacting with our product.As Customer Discovery Manager, I report to the Director of Product Management and operate independently from the product teams. The role is a resource and input to the product teams and process at the very top of the product opportunity funnel. Areas of focus for the role include:- Work with the support team to develop a consistent and repeatable process for capturing, categorizing, and prioritizing product ideas from support exchanges.- Train the support team on product features.- Encourage and train the support team to recognize critical product issues and defend intentional product decisions- Manage Beta program- Manage specific customer discovery interactions with the product team- Route product teams to the appropriate feedback partner- Track and evangelize the impact of customer discovery activities

- Relentlessly advocate on behalf of customers while mastering the OneCause CX - Solely manage inbound support inquiries relative to software products and features developed on the newest OneCause platform- Serve in a multi-capacity role coordinating with Sales, Marketing, Support, Orders, and Accounting teams to ensure customer delight and to gain a deep understanding of critical business challenges- Help to develop platform knowledge base authoring articles in support of this effort - Track and analyze all new subscription purchases along with general platform metrics including inbound sales leads, SEO results, support conversations, and new users- Build intimate relationships with customers in an attempt to understand their problems deeply while synthesizing that info into actionable user stories considered for development- Work closely as a member of the Product Management team to develop relevant experience in a range of disciplines including customer development, opportunity definition, design, and leading team efforts required to build great software

- Use manual methods to test software ensuring world class software is deployed to production- Employ risk assessment tactics and be objective in analyzing and auditing user experience- Serve as technical process lead in a combined scrum and kanban environment for one engineering team and lead QA resource on two teams utilizing continuous deployment pipelines

- Create and implement hybrid sales training program bridging ad sales and e-commerce offerings- Write and produce a print training manual - Contribute to design and development of a digital LMS- Assist in managing training activities of over 700 sales reps- Part of onboarding team responsible for managing metric achievement and development of up to 28 new hires every two weeks