Why User Care Agents Make The Best Product Managers

How many product managers do you know that started their career as an actual product manager? Becoming a product manager is often as individual as the person themselves. But why are people becoming product managers? What are the stories behind the decision? That is what we here at XING want to find out.

This time I really feel honoured to tell you how and why I became a product manager. Let me take you on the ride and show you why user care agents make the best product managers!

What did you want to become when you were younger?

I always wanted to be a magician. But when I realized that making gold out of water is not that easy, I stopped trying. When I was in Gymnasium, I have chosen to become a lawyer or math teacher. I loved the idea of explaining people things that are not easy to understand, e.g. all the paragraphs in law and all the math formula in school.

What would you say are your best skills?

I would say I am really empathic and ambitious. Both are important skills if you want to become a good product manager. And without these two main skills I would not have become a product manager in the end.

What is your educational background? What did you learn? And why?

I studied sociology as main subject and media and communication as side subject.

After school I wanted to be a designer but did not have the money to drive around and present my portfolio to the design schools. Therefor I had to change my mind and had the idea of choosing psychology instead.

But in Hamburg it was quite tough to get a place at university and I did not want to be denied. This is why I applied for sociology as I thought both directions would be quite similar.

At that point I have to admit I was pretty wrong. Sociology wasn’t what I really wanted, but as I mentioned, I am quite ambitious and failing or changing the subject was not an option for me. And in the end, the time in university taught me some lessons about really good research and UX. Things that help me today in my daily work.

What was the exact moment you thought of becoming a product manager? And why?

While studying I thought about where I would end up. About sociologists there are some rumours of them all ending up in a cab as you cannot get a good job. I proved them wrong. I always wanted to work for a TV station. But as I didn’t want to move to Munich for ProSieben, I had to find something else. As online business grew fast I searched for jobs in this area. While my studies I had a job at Parship in user care. I always admired the product management as they really had the chance to change something.

How did you do it?

I was responsible for the bug dispatching in user care. Therefor I had some connections to the product management at Parship and at some point, I just asked what I need to do to get there. Answer was easy: getting more technical knowledge. So, I switched for one year to QA and after that I was more than ready.

How was the start?

As I grew within my company it was a quite comfortable beginning. But I have to admit I had preconceptions about engineers. Sitting in rooms without light eating Pizza all day long. I was really wrong and in today’s companies these stereotype nerds are hard to find. I would rather call myself a nerd now. But the start was really nice. The team consisting of Product managers and developers have been very cool and I felt very welcome and was ready to make PARSHIP more successful.

Who and what helped you to get to know the role better?

You learn from your teachers. The product community at Parship was awesome and I had so much help. The IT really helped me understanding all the technical stuff I needed to know and together with all my colleagues I grew. There were some books that taught me enlightening things about basic project and product management, discovery and Kanban so in the end I never had the feeling I would have needed to study product management (is there actually such a course of study in the meantime?).

What was your biggest challenge?

My biggest challenge in the end was leaving my first company after staying with Parship for eight years. When you grow within one company all your knowledge is based on what you learned there. I was concerned about how I would be seen in the market. Otherwise, I was so thankful that I loved working in my former company and stayed there for a really long time. But in the end, I had to change to continue growing and improving.

What is it about user care agents, that make them the best product managers?

There are many answers to that question. But here I want to raise the main three skills I would highly recommend having as product manager. And I believe you can learn them best as a user care agent.

Empathy: There is no other area in a company that is so well connected to the user and where you really have to understand how users feel and behave.

User obsession: You want to hear what is not working well in your product? Ask user care. They get the most honest feedback from customers — not only related to the app or a special part of the product, they get all the feedback from all over the product. You cannot be any closer to users.

Communication: In user care you really learn how to communicate. Difficult technical topics have to be made consumable for someone who is not into tech stuff. Conflicts are deescalated with „the user is king“-mentality.

From my point of view one of the first things a newcomer to a company should do is joining the user care team for one week to understand the users better and get this user centric view on his or her work.

What did you recognise in product managers you want to do differently?

I want to stay passionate about what I am doing. Many product managers are taught to stay rational in every situation.

If someone tells you a product manager can manage every product and this product is exchangeable, I will tell you that a good product manager chooses a product he or she loves because having a passion for your product makes you a good one aiming to deliver the best for your users.

What was your best moment as a product manager so far?

I would say planning my wedding and writing a children’s book. As product manager you get all the knowledge that you need for really challenging tasks that pop up in your life. And recognizing that my working related actions are connected to my private life in a really good way shows me that I have chosen the right job.

What was your hardest moment so far?

With changing the company, I was always anxious about what comes next. Having uncertainty about whether the next job will be as good as the old one and whether the people are that great, was hard for me. But in the end, I can tell you that I found some really cool people in every company I worked for!

Which advice would you give the younger you today before moving into product management?

In your life you are meeting many people with different backgrounds, knowledges and mindsets. Being open to them opens great opportunities for you. With product management it is the same. You will get to know so many great people, stakeholders, engineers, colleagues. They can really open a new world for you. Be curious and courageous to take a step into this new world.

This interview is part of the article series ‘Why … Make The Best Product Managers’. In this series we ask our colleagues here at XING and externally to get an insight into the many ways into product management.