Using Product-Results Fit to drive retention and growth
Our White Paper "Product-Results Fit: Rethinking Product-Market Fit" explored the importance of understanding the relationship between the results customers are trying to achieve and product features. This blog expands on one suggested use: identifying expansion sales opportunities.
The basic premise of Product-Results Fit is that features exist to help customers achieve the results that matter to them. It can be summed up in this simple table.
At the core of customer-led growth is the synergy between improving measurable results for customers and profitable revenue for the supplier. Sell results: deliver results. And that approach applies to expansion sales as much as it does new logo sales. The key is to identify the results that matter and how your product enables improvement in them.
As part of that process, imagine an account specific version of the Product-Results Fit matrix: one that lists the results customers are not addressing and/or features they are not using that enable those results. For each intersection, identify how important that result is to the customer, if the feature is used and the potential to improve the customer's performence. Now think about how you should respond. For a feature the customer has acceess to, this might be to help the customer adopt the feature, which will improve retention propensity. If the feature is an add-on or part of a higher package, a results-driven sales conversation is called for.
The approach can be led by data on either dimension. App telemetry data will inform what features are not being used. Results discovery, a structured approach to maintaining an up-to-date view of what matters to the customer informs the results dimension.
Having shared the idea with a few people, one question often arises: is this a tool for CSMs or Account Managers? The answer is both. The deeper answer is that for CLG companies, the boundary between these two traditional roles is blurring and  increasingly unimportant. What is important is the focus on translating measurable results for customers into profitable revenue, and that's where frameworks like Product Results Fit make a difference.
