Here’s How to Make Product Decisions as Quickly as Elon Musk
Last month, a frustrated Tesla driver found himself unable to charge his car, because other Tesla drivers were hogging the Supercharger stations while running errands and sipping coffee. So he fired off a tweet to Tesla CEO Elon Musk:
Twenty minutes later, the Tesla founder and CEO responded:
In less than a week, a solution was rolled out: slapping Supercharger scofflaws with a loitering fee—the idea being that chump change will make chumps change. Done and done: another win for Team Tesla! It’s easy to make this a story about Elon Musk, the consummate green-lighter who gets things done at almost frightening speed. Really, though, it’s best to see this as a story about healthy connections between customers and the folks who build the products they love.
Musk is really good at social media — that’s not a secret. He’s listening… maybe even listening to us right now… but as important as that initial touchpoint (driver to Tesla via Twitter) might be, what happens once the idea is shared is even more so. Musk made a decision, and a software solution was devised and implemented in under a week—because the integrity of the idea was maintained throughout. Neither the desire nor the ideal outcome got lost in the shuffle.
Give Yourself the Power to Listen
Surveys can be useful to a product team, but it’s vanishingly unlikely that the Tesla Supercharger-squatting problem emerged for the very first time on the day it was reported. No, it’s surely been going on for some time, but Tesla hadn’t yet captured that particular pain point through its standard listening workflow. You can sidestep that problem from the get-go, and move from listening to action to customer satisfaction with ease… and even grace.
First, nail your Twitter-listening strategy — it’s actually easier than you might think. Wantoo lets you seek out your customers (and would-be customers) where they already are, and that’s Twitter, where squeaky wheels seek grease. From Twitter, you can move a great idea into a cleaner, more-organized space; and invite the customer along for the conversation. This takes thirty seconds, tops.
From there, your product team can quickly and easily sort through new ideas and see how popular and well-developed they are. Validation has never been faster.
If you’re on the fence about whether or not to move an idea into your product pipeline, share it with your audience — wherever they happen to be — and see how they react. Beyond yay-or-nay, they may surprise you with their insights and refinements. You can listen like Elon does, but at scale. Then you can build with Musk-level confidence.
About Wantoo
Wantoo is a simple, powerful cloud-based platform that makes it easy to listen, analyze, and act on feedback from your team, your customers, or anyone else. For more information, visit wantoo.io.
