Task 1 Results!

Things a Product Advocate Might Do:

Empathize with customers

Customers come first in business relationships, especially when their needs are predicated on their own company’s success. They come to Vercel for solutions that could literally make or break their survival. A Product Advocate is responsible for that critical first impression: introducing the Platform as a Service, revealing expertise in Next.js features and recommending the right pricing plan that best suits the customer’s final vision. This must be achieved all while allaying fears about the project’s feasibility, timing and adaptation to the future. Product Advocates get a perfect opportunity to remain in touch; letting the customer know Vercel wants more than a sale, but to hear their story, hopes and fears. If there are any initial hurdles and concerns, wouldn’t it be great to be the one to help customer’s turn them into a win?

Research and organize notes to ensure Account Executives are prepared for calls

Another vital business relationship is internal – team-to-team. Account Executives receive the hand-off from Product Advocates after their customer becomes primed for their next steps. An open channel between these teams, sharing feedback when necessary, promotes an effective path for customers from sign-up page to active status. “Know your audience” is a sentiment that goes beyond live communication, so preparing “heads-down” work requires the stakeholder in mind the whole time. To that end, a keen understanding of an effective customer profile will optimize the transfer experience for everyone. This activity goes hand-in-hand with finding ways to improve the day-to-day workflow. If the Product Advocate keeps their team records in order, Account Executives will rightly trust on them when it comes time to pass the baton.

Create Salesforce reports to keep track of data pertinent to the team or your stats

The scary part about data is that there is too much of it. Finding pertinent data demands that an analyst know the context and the stakeholder’s goal which will reveal the proper metrics to compare the past with the present. A primary success measurement for Product Advocates is the conversion of potential customers into Vercel subscribed teams, ready for the Account Executive. That journey involves a whole lot more: milestones, documentation and stages of correspondence with the customer, many of which could have dependencies on one another, or may occur in any order. Fortunately, all of this can be quantified, and customer types can be categorized. Being able to track with this depth of fidelity allows many effective business questions to be asked. What part of the customer onboarding process takes the longest time? Where, when and how often do customers back out of their interest in Vercel? What are the perceived reasons? Which customers found the most satisfaction from their experience? Their answers will provoke effective business decisions. The more data is analyzed, the less blind the forward path becomes.