Consider the following concept: feature suggestions, defects and change requests are really just like sales leads.
Right now I’m sitting-in on the inaugural Infusion ICC (Infusion Certified Consultant) training course. It is the charter class for ICCs and every seat is full (over 50 in all)! It is a 5 day course and it is going great! Tons of great CRM and contact manager information being exchanged by the group. After all, almost everyone doing the ICC course is a CRM or contact manager expert.
Anyway, as the ICC course is proceeding everyone is encouraged to put feature suggestions and change requests on post-it notes. We put them into a basket and we later enter them into our ticketing system. We are getting some FANTASTIC suggestions listed on the post-it notes that we put in the basket!
Well, during one of the breaks a few of the course attendees and I were chatting and I was asked if I was cringing at all the post-it notes in the basket. To their surprise, I answered ABSOULTLY NOT! Fact is I LOVE all the suggestions on how to make the software better. I explained that all the post-it notes are just like sales leads to me. I consider all of the suggestions to be written on gold! Make no mistake, I’m very proud of our product and all the functionality it offers our customers.’ Nevertheless, we have a great opportunity to get feedback from all the ICCs to make us even better and stronger. I’m going to take every “lead” and chase it down and close it.
A few months ago our VP of Marketing David William Lee suggested the concept of bugs = leads, and I thank him for the idea. We are working every day here at Infusion to make the product better and I want to thank all the ICCs for giving me such great “leads” to work with.
