Summer Conversations and Automation Dilemmas
Its summers, several years ago. And it’s a scorching heat outside and late afternoon. Not the best of times to have a enlightening conversation.
My senior business manager and I are arguing whether the new reporting solution will add value or not.
Ravi says to me “The paying customer gets what the customer wants. ” “Don’t waste time. Go ahead with it”
We build a dashboard to make the reports available in a second and available to download on a click. As the things stood after a year, the customer continued to raise adhoc requests for report extracts every Monday. And at the start of each month.
Site catalyst showed plateaued access of the solution.
What happened here? “It takes me 5 minutes to extract that report” Says the support agent.
“It took me 10 days to develop the solution”. Says the Engineer. A solution which no one uses.
A report scheduler would have been a more suited solution, perhaps.
Sometimes, in the name of automation we don’t ask the right questions to the customers. Ask what is really hurting them. Even the Pendo report for 2020 says that 80% of features in the average software product are rarely or never used.
Have this ever happened with you? Would love to hear!