Last week in a 1:1, someone on my team mentioned a new feature that’s being developed. We discussed all the stakeholders involved, including customer success and product marketing. CS and product marketing had been updated on the feature separately.

In our 1:1, we went over what each stakeholder was hoping to learn from the meetings. In general, CS is looking to improve customer retention, while product marketing is looking to communicate the value of our product to our ideal customer profile (ICP). Depending on where your company is at, these goals may not entirely overlap. In these cases, the conversation with CS may be very different than the conversation with product marketing.

A new feature could be used in entirely different ways by existing customers compared to the ICP. This is especially true if you’ve pivoted to a new ICP, or have a lot of legacy customers that have been through multiple phases of your company’s growth.

Even if the existing customers and ICP overlap 100%, there could still be differences between what information your teams are looking for when they learn about a new feature. In the 1:1, we talked about how CS and product marketing have slightly different goals in their functions, and so they may focus on different parts of the feature in order to most effectively reach their goals. I suggested that it might be good to communicate to CS and product marketing in the same meeting to avoid any miscommunications, or to make sure both teams were getting the same information out of the meeting.

Taking this step early allows us to make sure the teams are aligned and actively committed to the appropriate messaging.

Even if you bring the teams into a single meeting, they may still receive different things from what you’ve communicated in the same meeting. In these cases, it’s always best to end the meeting with a little more active commitment to make sure everyone understands what you were trying to get across. From there, things may get off track again after your meeting, but this is where Product Leadership has the opportunity to get everyone together again and resynch.

Wrapping Up

By keeping people together, you can make sure your message is consistent and ensure everyone walks away with the same understanding. As a bonus, you’ll also have fewer meetings.