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Focused on removing friction? In this episode we discuss when it might be worth it to add some friction instead.
***
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (08:36) - Just try creating one graph
- (15:44) - Why is there no pricing page??
- (23:35) - Support friction
***
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That's why Growblocks built the first RevOps platform that shows you your entire funnel, split by motions, segments and more - so you can find problems, the root-cause and identify solutions fast, all in the same platform.
***
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Creators & Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Mikkel Plaehn, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
[00:00:00] Toni: Hey everyone, this is Toni Hohlbein from Growblocks. You are listening to the Revenue Formula with Mikkel and Toni.
[00:00:06] In today's episode, we'll talk about friction by design, when to remove friction, and much more importantly when to add it. Enjoy.
[00:00:21] Mikkel: So we're shipping off the kids to Sweden. We just shipped them off today and yesterday. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I'm liberated. It's like, it's so crazy not to have that hard stop mentally. Like, and I was talking with my, when are you actually coming home today?
[00:00:35] Because I don't know. It could be early. It could be six. It could be, I have no idea, but so we were shipping them off. And yesterday, um, my youngest, uh, daughter, she got.
[00:00:48] And we were just like, uh, no, we will not be able to send her off. Will
[00:00:52] Toni: will not ruin
[00:00:54] Mikkel: yeah, yeah. Except I was exactly, I, I, no, but then, um, so then the trouble was, well, who's going to stay at home with her and, you know, I was like, well, we're going to record, also need to cut an episode.
[00:01:06] I kind of,
[00:01:07] Toni: Isn't this a
[00:01:07] Mikkel: of have to,
[00:01:08] Toni: here
[00:01:09] Mikkel: yeah, yeah, it is.
[00:01:10] Toni: I have to be in the studio.
[00:01:11] Mikkel: That's why I have it blocked off every day, just without you. So I have the excuse. No, but it was like, um, you know, we had agreed that I could go to work. Thank you. I mean, I have the most appreciative wife. Uh, I don't know if I'm using that term right though, but anyway, I have the best wife and then, and then after, uh, you know, after we had agreed, I was like, maybe I better check.
[00:01:34] Whether you're still on and I was like, SOS, SOS, we have a problem. Do we need to record today? I was like, we can move it, Toni, for you. We can
[00:01:44] Toni: just, I just have the most appreciative co host.
[00:01:49] Mikkel: That's what it is. That's what it is. But it makes it so much easier when you don't have that, you know, friction in the decision making, especially in the morning, especially in the morning, there's so much pressure to get out the door. So you know, if you can reduce friction, you're going to be so much happier.
[00:02:03] So much happy, and that's what we're going to talk a bit about today. We're going to talk about friction, because Revenue Operations, if there's one thing they're focused on, it's efficiency, and friction is one of those things that might hold you back from actually operating at a, you know, excellent level of
[00:02:21] Toni: And already friction is kind of a reference to like a mechanical process or something like this, right?
[00:02:26] It's kind of, um, I mean the, It's, there's like a physics explanation to what friction basically is, right? And we're just transferring it over into, I don't know, a process and software and so forth, right? So I think we'll kind of be diving into a couple of other examples and software today necessarily.
[00:02:41] But, I think what's, what's important to keep in mind is, you know, number one, not every, not every friction is bad and or not every friction is unnecessary. Um, and I think, What we want to also kind of check today is like, you know, how do you actually differentiate between those two things? Yeah.
[00:03:02] Right. What is necessary friction. What is friction by design? What is even friction that is better for the customer than the other way around? So you don't want to kind of scratch all of that out, um, just to begin with. and I think we have a couple of examples for this slide up.
[00:03:15] Mikkel: We do. And I think the classic example I was trying to, I was literally reflecting while we were talking.
[00:03:19] What is the book where they talk about the flywheel? You know the one I'm thinking of? We're talking like seminal business. We, you know, now we're, thank you. I was going to be like, if we don't know this now, no listeners left, no listeners left. No, but so there's the classic example of, uh, imagine a flywheel, like you have it on a fishing rod, right?
[00:03:36] There's a flywheel there where you, you know, turn the wheel and you can pull in the line. Now imagine one that's maybe, you know, 20 times bigger and you need to turn, The wheel at first, you know, there's a lot of friction, you need to gain momentum and then it's easier and easier, right? That's, that's one of the most classic examples where friction is a heavy part, by the way, of that book, you know, to, to look at, hey, you know, if, if the line is wet, it's going to be harder, right?
[00:04:02] So there are some friction points you want to remove.
[00:04:04] Toni: talking about fishing.
[00:04:05] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:04:05] Toni: That took me a little
[00:04:06] Mikkel: yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you, you want to remove as much friction so you can, you know, turn the wheel faster. And so, I think one of the, the things that's being covered quite a bit is a lot of the things we actually built in terms of process, whether it's a tool we buy, a system, we build it for internal reasons, not necessarily for the customer, but because this is how we, we kind of want the customer to fit into our
[00:04:31] Toni: And I'm actually not so sure about this. And the, the thing is, you know, yes, it might be true and I'm going on a limb here. But what actually, what are all of these internal processes optimizing for?
[00:04:42] They're optimizing for someone buying or renewing, you know, and that, that can be a whole side conversation, by the way. but, but in that sense, the, the, the best intention actually is to try and kind of pull in as many people as possible, right? Because that, that's, that's the whole idea. And in some cases,
[00:05:01] That fiction has been put in place, you know, by design.
[00:05:04] Um, and it's, it's, it's there because it's even has been proven to be better. Right? So let's, let's jump through some of the hoops here. Or you want,
[00:05:12] Mikkel: I think, I think the counter argument though, is when you look at designing, if you look at any company outside of this room where the two of us are recording and they're going to go and design their PLG motion or their sales process or whatever, where are they going to start?
[00:05:28] They're going to start inside the building in most
[00:05:31] Toni: So
[00:05:33] Mikkel: so I, so I think there's just something around the approach to say, Hey, This is how everyone does it. They, you know, they have an SDR and they book a meeting and then we get the demo and then we run the negotiation or MEDDICC or SPICED or whatever they do.
[00:05:45] And I think at some point, you know, you also have to maybe go outside and look, how do they actually want to purchase? What are,
[00:05:51] Toni: think the, I think the reality of this is, um, it's more companies growing up than anything else. It's really the, okay. Someone designed the product market, the go to market and all of, you know, went through all the hard stuff. And then you put some other people in place and then you put another couple of people in place and, you know, then everything turns over and it's a completely different set of people.
[00:06:11] And suddenly, um, they're like, Oh, wait a minute. Let's just design all of that to make it easier for me.
[00:06:16] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:06:17] Toni: And I think, I think that's also super true. And I think this is. Corporate America world and, you know, a couple of other places, corporate world. I actually doubt that that's necessarily true in, you know, the, and whatever you, you, you tell yourself.
[00:06:32] If you're 10 million in ARR and you're like a hundred people or maybe 200 people. You're a small business. You're still a small business. You're still like a startup, really. Um, sure. And then we talk about scale up and all of that stuff, but really kind of the way to be like a corporate business, like we're discussing, it's like, that's still far out, right?
[00:06:50] So I think many things here, and the founder is still so close to everything. Um, so many things here probably are not completely optimized for our own. I don't know, laziness necessarily. There, there are certain parts, but I just don't buy the fact that, that, that's always the case. Right. And, um, and let's just jump through a couple of examples here.
[00:07:10] Mikkel: Yeah, so I think, and this is really like, in my head, this is probably the best sign that you've built inside out.
[00:07:19] in terms of friction. So I'm requesting a demo. I really want to see the software. Now I've filled in the form. If I'm lucky, and I think this is by now, maybe in half the cases, I can book something in the calendar directly, but then I have to sit and wait for that meeting. And usually I will have to be qualified.
[00:07:35] And then maybe I'm lucky enough to make the cut to actually get a demo, which is booked, you know, two weeks out. This whole process. Takes like two and a half weeks just to get, just to get the conversation started and maybe park the friction on the customer for a second. Think about two and a half weeks in terms of your sales cycle
[00:07:54] Toni: I get it. So let's talk about the alternative.
[00:07:56] Mikkel: Yeah. The alternative, like, could you fast track directly to the AE? Could you surpass the
[00:08:02] Toni: we're only talking about the one and a half, two weeks, not about the actual process itself, right? Because the, the real alternative would actually be to have like a, um, Hey, just, you know, log in, walk into the, you know, walk into this thing.
[00:08:15] Right. And I think. And you know, even on the Growblocks side, we haven't figured this out actually where we want to, you know, land on the side. We could, you know, tomorrow open up like a sandbox environment for people to click around. If you want to have that, ping me. but the other thing is also, if, and we know this from talking to lots of PLG leaders and, you know, kind of how they're thinking about this.
[00:08:36] If you want to do something where people kind of get to the next step in their thinking funnel, like, do I want to buy this thing? You can't, you know, have a. A shitty or a meh like experience in there. It doesn't work out. Right. So if you, and we, we chatted about this, you know, previously, it was like, um, okay, I'm, You get a login to Looker,
[00:08:58] Mikkel: Yeah, the BI tool. It's like, have fun.
[00:09:01] Toni: Yeah. Just, just, just play
[00:09:04] Mikkel: Try connecting your, you know, setup
[00:09:06] Toni: dbt and
[00:09:07] uh, just write a little bit. Um, you know, what is it? Looker ML, LookML, kind of just, just write a bit of SQL there in the corner, right. And, um, and, uh, and try and set up just a graph
[00:09:18] Mikkel: Yeah. You'll get to the aha moment
[00:09:21] Toni: know, you will totally get it. Um, and, uh,
[00:09:25] Mikkel: you know what? It, it, it really, it really grinds my gears, this conversation because they're so, it's such a hot take on LinkedIn to make.
[00:09:32] It's like, why can't I just see the thing? Just give me access. Give me a login, give me whatever. And I think it's missing the point that some products, they just don't lend themselves well to that in all cases.
[00:09:42] Toni: So, and, and I think it's, um, um, it's, it's really hard to draw the line,
[00:09:48] Mikkel: Yeah, yeah,
[00:09:48] Toni: hard to draw the line. Um, and the tricky thing is, uh, in some cases it makes total perfect sense.
[00:09:55] In other cases, it's just completely actually, you know, adds a ton of friction to the process, not for the customer necessarily, but for. The company that's not going to, you know, convert that customer into an actual paying customer.
[00:10:08] Mikkel: I think a strong clue you can take when, when you're, when you're Whenever you're buying or considering buying a car, the number one objective the rep has is to get you to ride the car.
[00:10:19] Because if you ride the car, he knows or she knows that the chances of you buying the thing goes up like drastically, right? And I think if, if, if it was me sitting in this scenario, because it's hard, you're not going to be able to say, Hey, if you meet these criteria, yeah, then you should definitely do a free trial.
[00:10:35] I would rather than test it and see, hey, does it boost those win rates or performance metrics that we have? And I think even just this thought example of, hey, if, if people try it, do you really believe that you're going to close more business? Just that thought
[00:10:50] Toni: say it the other way around. do you believe someone needs to take lessons and get a driver's license?
[00:10:58] Before they can test
[00:10:59] Mikkel: Yeah, I think that's actually the way to look at it. That's actually it.
[00:11:02] Toni: Because, um, the, when you sit in the car and test drive the car, it's not like you've never driven a car before. You know, all of that stuff is the same and you know, some of these things will obviously be different. But when you log into a new product that, you know, isn't.
[00:11:17] Or project management. Ah, create a new project, add someone, do this, like, okay, I've done that before. Um, if you don't do that, but have something else, I think then the experience will just suffer. Right? Um, and, and, and there are also different tiers of, of trial and kind of trying to reduce that friction.
[00:11:35] So one is, Um, sure, you know, put your credit card before or after. That's a, by the way, Tencent, that's another thing, kind of, they actually found out that adding the credit card before is much better for conversion rates, but hey. It's a friction point actually. So, you know, anyway, um, the other pieces, okay.
[00:11:53] Free trial. That makes sense. Um, another one is just a sandbox. You can go on salesforce. com today and you can open a sandbox in a second and kind of, you know, you know, click around and see some stuff. It's not going to be your accounts on your stuff, but you'll get the gist of what Salesforce does basically.
[00:12:12] Right. If you don't know this yet. so that's another way of trying to test drive, so to speak. And, um, you know, with data heavy products, like, uh, like a, you know, Looker or like us or like someone like this, um, I think that also is an option actually to, to give something that's already there. Someone can look at this.
[00:12:29] It's like, oh, okay. I kind of get that. I can transfer that to my company, to my specific use case. And I can see the angles here potentially. Right. And then the other one is a gated or ungated video. Walkthrough. Right. Um, then we have group demos and yeah, at the very end, you have custom demos for someone, you know, specifically.
[00:12:50] Right. So there's, um, even on that range, um, there are different, different friction degrees, so to speak, that you can add. Um, and, um, um, and I think you as a, as a company, you will very quickly figure out which one is maybe the best one for you. And,
[00:13:09] And You know, there's also something to be said. Not everyone is just stupid.
[00:13:13] Uh, and you know, going the request a demo route, because when you look at most mid market enterprise companies, that's what they're doing. Right. And it's like, uh, they're all stupid. They're just adding friction for, you know, they're, they shouldn't be doing that obviously. It's like, no, all of these people can't, can't necessarily be wrong.
[00:13:29] And I totally get the argument of, um, just this whole crowd moving in this direction. Hey, they're doing it. We should be, I get that. But still, it works, right? And the reason why it works, in my opinion, is, um, you're basically, you know, in the half an hour prequel, in the, you know, disco, uh, in, in the demo and so forth, you basically are getting a little bit of time, to teach someone how to drive this car.
[00:13:55] That, that's, that's kind of what it is, right? And you kind of get to explain, um, So what this thing does is it takes you from A to B, right? How important is it for you to get from A to B, right? And kind of, you put them a little bit into the, you know, mindset and frame, like, ah, okay, this is what this is doing for me.
[00:14:11] Uh, I wasn't aware that I needed this maybe before, but I understand now that this is actually kind of a, uh, A problem that has a root cause and one, two, three levels down, right? Kind of, you need to kind of connect it to that, um, et cetera. Right. And, um, uh, those are things, um, when you, uh, kind of half on TikTok, you might be that on a demo anyway, um, uh, you know, I have all kinds of other things
[00:14:36] Mikkel: I'm on TikTok now. So,
[00:14:38] Toni: exactly.
[00:14:38] Um, because, you know, I'm talking too long. Um, and, um, and you're clicking around on a product and I'm like half interested, you probably. Uh, it's probably not going to work out. Right. And, and I think some of that logic is probably the same as with the request in the credit card before, um, before the login, right?
[00:14:58] Because, um, the, the stakes are suddenly higher, you know, suddenly we know, yes, fewer people will put down their credit card, but then more people actually will convert through. And if you take People that landed on the website to people that actually converted through the conversion right through the whole funnel are higher when you request a credit card upfront, right?
[00:15:16] Kind of that's, and by the way, some of the PLG kind of people out there would be like, Toni, this is wrong here and there. I, what I heard is it's actually correct about some of the streaming services and so forth. Right. Um, and it's almost, um, you know, having this one to one demo. It is almost kind of the same thing, kind of increases the stakes.
[00:15:35] You're spending time on this now, right? You, you better, you better pay some attention here. Anyway, this is kind of my, my rant on the, on the, uh, you know, friction
[00:15:44] Mikkel: app.
[00:15:44] I think there's another hot, uh, topic, which is certainly also a friction point. It's like one of the first one I can think of as a buyer. It's, um, pricing, pricing, pricing, especially like that's the first step.
[00:15:56] Right. And I think, uh, again, this is one of those subjects where a bit of nuance is needed to the discussion because it's not a binary thing that either you should have it or not, I think it really depends in many cases, if, you If you're, you know, low ACV, high velocity, then you know what? Yeah, it probably makes sense for you to have pricing on there.
[00:16:14] So your point Netflix, I mean, they would die not having pricing on there. And if you're on the other extreme end of really high ACV, you know what? That probably doesn't make sense because those buyers are most like the enterprise. They're going to run a procurement process. They're going to have everything laid out.
[00:16:30] So they, you know, can't really use it for, for that much. And then there's the in between, right?
[00:16:35] Toni: I, I saw, some presentation from Dave Boyce the other day, and he was talking about the different ways of manufacturing and, you know, how that has developed over time.
[00:16:43] Fits very much into the revenue factory thing that they're kind of pushing now. Uh, but it went from, you know. Handcrafted manufacturing to, um, I think mass productions of the T model, T Ford kind of thing, uh, to, um, lean, whatever, mass product, I don't know. I forgot, uh, that you have now basically, right? Um, and then he's like, well, those things kind of historically existed, but they also exist today.
[00:17:07] Yeah, you can buy the, um, Aston Martin, whatever for 200, 000 bucks. Um,
[00:17:13] Mikkel: And Joe built it down the
[00:17:15] Toni: it's like, it's like manufacture, right? Every single piece is crafted, you know, put together by hand and so forth. Then you have the mass production, which is, I don't know, he was like, Hey, he's a BMW or something like this, where still some pieces are, you know, neatly fitted, but you know, a lot of these pieces are kind of automated.
[00:17:29] And then you have the Toyota Corolla, um, And by the way, the output of the Toyota Corolla is impressive. Like, uh, he mentioned something like 300, 000 pieces per year, um, beats the other two, like by insane amounts, um, uh, runs 300, 000 miles more than the BMW and the Aston Martin combined. It's insane, by the way.
[00:17:52] and, Uh, what was last one for 30, 000, like, you know, almost no money basically. Right. So how did they achieve that? Well, like lean automation and so forth. Right. And I think, uh, you know, why am I talking about this? I think, um, the pricing page, maybe it's a bad example because, you know, you do know what the Aston Martin costs, but the pricing page is kind of on that range.
[00:18:12] Actually the, the further you are to the right. and have like, everything is clear. We're just churning out kind of lower tickets for, you know, whatever you want to buy, um, you definitely need the pricing page there, uh, for the Aston Martin and the customization. And do you want to have, you know, I don't know, different kind of leather, or do you want to have like this thing over there?
[00:18:33] It's kind of, you want to, you want to have customized pricing there. Um, and you know, probably that lends itself also to a kind of a discount conversation, and then you will have something in between for the middle. Um, and I think, if, You know, the, wherever you see yourself as a product, I think that will guide you on whether you should have it even on the website.
[00:18:55] Right. Because the, and this is not just a sales people are, you know, these, these guys, um, and girls, no, this is a company thing. Setting pricing is by the way,
[00:19:07] Mikkel: Yeah. Especially if you have high variability in your ACVs.
[00:19:11] Toni: And it takes balls to kind of do it. Um, and then. You know, even worse, changing prices, suddenly it's like, it's, you need to think about this stuff, right?
[00:19:21] So what do you do with the old prices? Um, when, when do you change the what? Oh, you took down the prices? What, what if like one of the existing customers is now seeing this and wants kind of a downsell? Kind of, there's so many things in there. We're like, well, you know, That's for, hey, we haven't figured this out yet or something else because of laziness.
[00:19:39] I think many times also laziness, but let's just not show it to anyone. Let's just have it in our back pocket. We can do a thing behind the scenes. And that's cozy and easy. And I totally get that. Like I 1000 percent get that, right? I think where it for me flips over is when Transparency and pricing is becoming a competitive advantage.
[00:19:58] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Toni: If, um, if your whole industry is pricing online kind of, and selling to the same
[00:20:05] and you don't, basically the person who was doing the research, it's like, ah, you know,
[00:20:10] Mikkel: buy a web chat tool right now. I mean, if you don't have pricing on there, it's like, you know what? I don't think we need that one. Um, and that, that's going to happen for sure.
[00:20:20] But I think it's also interesting because it's, this is a point where this can also be friction by design because to a large degree, if you're operating in the mid market, The act of putting pricing online can also act as an anchor for how much you can sell for. They will have that kind of mental, oh, you listed a thousand per month and now you're quoting me two thousand.
[00:20:40] It's like, yeah, let's, let's get that down to what I expected,
[00:20:43] Toni: Yeah,
[00:20:43] And the, I mean, we've, we've made so much fun of, you know, salespeople over the years. Um, but, but there's so much truth also to it.
[00:20:50] Right. Because the other thing is. Um, what if you scare people away with the too high pricing? Um, what if, uh, you know, the, uh, the person on the call you would never give the high pricing to, because you're just hearing like, no, they wouldn't be able to go for this. You go for like a cheaper option. Right.
[00:21:07] Um, and, um, and to a degree you can now say, you know, that's adding friction, but to a degree, actually what the organization is doing here is, you know, trying to optimize how many customers you kind of get in, right. And you're trying for everyone. To guesstimate the best price point, so the highest they could pay and the lowest you could go for them, basically, right?
[00:21:29] That's really what you're trying to, in a customized world, that's what you want to achieve. And putting the stuff on the website, especially if like, um, um, not so many leads and so forth, right? Maybe you can't even afford to, um, uh, to not customize pricing.
[00:21:46] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:21:46] Toni: Do you know what I mean? It's like, you might have someone that you can get 20K from, and then you have someone else you get 40K from, um, do you really either want to lose the 20K guy by like 40K, way too expensive, you know, can't do it, or you want to downsell the 40K guy on 20, it's like, Oh, thanks.
[00:22:03] You know, I would have paid 40 for this, but thanks. and I think, um, I think making that decision, honestly, it's, it's, um, it works really well on LinkedIn. Like just, just put the pricing on the website.
[00:22:16] Mikkel: me after. And
[00:22:18] Toni: and one of the first guys doing that, um, well, at least for my memory, it was actually Chris Walker.
[00:22:22] Um, he talked about this a lot. Um, and then I went on his website and yes, pricing was there, but big, but by the way, um, well, he's, he's quoting, uh, 5, 000 or 10, 000 a month or something like this, but it's for consultancy. It's an agency, right? And kind of, and those numbers are different. It's, it's also when people say like, well, PLG.
[00:22:46] That's a massive thing now and that's how everyone wants to buy. Toni, how did you buy your car? Well, yeah, I used an app on the phone to buy it. I didn't talk to anyone like through the phone. I'm a millennial I would never do that.
[00:22:59] Mikkel: that.
[00:23:00] Toni: Just clicked some buttons and then kind of bought
[00:23:02] Mikkel: then you got embezzled.
[00:23:03] Toni: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, um, tosla.
[00:23:10] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:23:13] Toni: anyway, so it's a, it's a different frame of mind. That doesn't mean, I think it doesn't mean that we're at the point yet where someone goes like, Oh, 100, 000 worth of software. Yeah. I'll, I'll just buy that PLG. No, no biggie. No problem at all. Right. Um, so I think there's, um, again, it works extremely well on LinkedIn, but I think it's, um, it's distorted.
[00:23:35] Mikkel: Yeah. I mean, we could keep going down this route for quite a bit of time, but I think it, at least we've painted the picture of there's both good and bad, you know, friction in that sense when it comes to price. Another one I've seen as well is actually the support side. So we've talked a bit about, Hey, you could.
[00:23:52] Charge, you could make this an upsell. Charge for, you know, extended support hours or quicker SLAs or whatever. But irregardless, this is a point where there will be a lot of friction. And I have, you know, we have a vendor where I sit in EMEA Europe and I have a problem and I reach out to support and then I can wait until next day to get an answer because guess what?
[00:24:14] They're in the states, they're sleeping, yeah they're in the west coast, they're sleeping and then I never actually resolve the issue because then it's just gone mentally right? So actually the perceived value of the product is lower Then it should be. And this is a case where I would say that's not the kind of friction you have.
[00:24:32] And I get it by the way, there's going to be cases where you go, well, we can't afford to bring on a support agent who sits in whatever Europe or Asia or something like this. Um, but, but it is definitely something to pay attention to at some point you will need to consider what you can change to potentially reduce that friction because it's going to hit you on retention, uh, expansion, stuff like this.
[00:24:54] Um, I'm not sure whether there's,
[00:24:56] Toni: is also with that, there are just many different levels again. Yeah. Right. Kind of the highest level is I want to talk to a person right now on the phone, video screen, whatever, I want to talk to that person. Um, and then on the opposite scale of that is, this async email back and forth, which by the way, was You know, normal, not actually, you know, it's not even on the opposite side.
[00:25:20] Now that I think of it on the opposite side is no help whatsoever.
[00:25:23] Mikkel: No, we have a help center article that was updated five years
[00:25:29] Toni: so, but now there we go. Right. Then there's a help center. There's an FAQ. There's like this AI chat bot. You had like a funny
[00:25:36] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:25:37] Toni: I want to talk to a human.
[00:25:38] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:25:39] Toni: Um, then yeah, the chat that's kind of live and so forth, right.
[00:25:42] Kind of that again, different kind of levels that you want to introduce. And you as a company, I would argue, yes, lazy corporate, uh, you know, world aside, you would probably opt for the thing that you can afford, basically. You're trying to look for, okay, how much money is there? Mikkel only pays me, you know, $49 a month, you know, you know, what, what's it to me really?
[00:26:05] Um, and you know, we only have one person in Denmark anyway, so it doesn't, it doesn't matter. but you know, if they had a larger, customer base in EMEA for example, they would probably gradually kind of, you know, rack up the, uh, the um, the kind of services that they wanna provide given that the customer side can actually pay for that.
[00:26:23] Right. And I would say for 49 bucks a month, probably, I don't know how much we're paying them by the way, but, uh, probably not much you can actually give.
[00:26:31] Mikkel: And I will also say like, it's not a matter of you having to turn away customers.
[00:26:34] If you're on the West coast, you don't have to say, yeah, we're not going to sell to EMEA or Europe, but maybe you don't need to actively pursue it in that case. And if you do, you might need to consider that side, uh, because it's going to be a really terrible cohort you're bringing on board. And I mean, by the way, this extent beyond just the, Hey, I want to chat with someone now.
[00:26:51] It's also the, let's just take the help center. Like, uh, for this specific vendor. Whenever I then search on the help center, those articles, it's on the old V1 platform where the buttons are placed differently and call something else. So I can't even use it, right? And it's just, you know, all around that perception, they have a cool brand and don't get me wrong, they have a cool product to a degree, but it just starts cracking quite heavily the surface there for me.
[00:27:18] and I think that's one of those friction points you need to also actually be mindful of because you won't naturally gravitate to think about that piece, You will think about, hey, new biz, stuff like that. But this is actually one of
[00:27:29] Toni: So I also think in a heavily commoditized market that can screw you over because I'm sure we're probably on a month to month basis with them, right?
[00:27:38] Kind of, you can just, you know, pull the plug and jump somewhere else. And I think if you're, if you're, if you're that vendor, I think you need to think hard about this. Um, I think the other thing is if you are in a still completely unknown space, Where people might just, yeah, I bought this, I went through the demo, I went through the online, got all of that stuff, but, um, I don't understand this thing anymore.
[00:27:58] You know, you basically kind of create failure moments for them in the journey, right? Um, and yes, you need to have some, you know, really darn good response to that. Can that be an AI? Does it need to be an actual agent? I don't know. You know, that kind of depends on you, but you need to, again. Based on where you are, you need to understand what fraction you can get away with, uh, friction, uh, you can get away with and, and which one you can't.
[00:28:21] Mikkel: Yeah. And I think it's also like when, so just reflecting over what we've talked about so far, when you look at, if you, uh, if you look at, uh, Business books, they will tell you to build a great business, you need a great product, and you need happy customers, meaning great customer service.
[00:28:37] Rarely do they talk about the sales side, by the way, it's those
[00:28:40] Toni: Oh, that's right. If you want to build a great business, you actually don't
[00:28:43] Mikkel: it. No, you don't need it. But that's, that's a massive part of it. And I think that's, that's definitely one of the areas where you, you need to consider where do you have friction that should be removed?
[00:28:51] Where do you add friction? and then it's like, you got to pay attention to some of the other facets as well.
[00:28:57] Toni: But it's also, and again, right, to kind of, we are now living in real world, right? That's, that's, it happened now. Um, and I mean, this more on the venture capital, you know, SaaS world
[00:29:07] Mikkel: Okay, got it.
[00:29:08] Toni: it? most appreciative cohost
[00:29:11] Mikkel: Yeah. And
[00:29:12] Toni: and, uh, and you got to figure out, you know, Can you do these things and still turn a profit?
[00:29:18] That's what you, you need to ask yourself these things. It's not, I don't, I don't think anyone is out there. It's like, you know what? we want to give shitty service to our customers. Like that's
[00:29:28] Mikkel: that's well some of the car rental companies, for sure.
[00:29:31] By the way, car rental
[00:29:33] Toni: By the way, car rental was a venture capital case like 30 years ago or something like this. Right. Um, but, uh, any who, my, my point is really, um, I don't think anyone chooses to, in this case, be shitty at customer service. I think they're just like trying to run the numbers and trying to figure this out. And ultimately it's actually, how do you distribute budget between sales and marketing and CS?
[00:29:53] That's actually, that's actually the bigger question, right? and, um, you know, we're not going to solve that in the next, you know, two minutes here, but, uh, um, that's, that's what's people, that's what's difficult for people, right? Figuring out how can you do this in the right balance? Because, and I've seen this, even enterprise CSMs and, you know, dedicated support people for an account and everything like this.
[00:30:15] It also still didn't tick all the boxes, like, okay, now please be in my office. It's like, no, you know, sorry, can't do that.
[00:30:21] Mikkel: But honestly, it's also like, if you put it bluntly, if you're a 10 million AR company, Do you really need to prioritize reducing friction on the customer support, retention, expansion side? Probably no. Probably no, because you still need to bring in more newbiz.
[00:30:39] Um, and I think that's kind of one of the shifts you as a business will go through that you need to be very mindful of. and it can be a strategic decision, like think about SAPOs. They were always kind of prioritizing the customer service as a big part of their strategy. And if that's a decision, then you need to put your money where your mouth is.
[00:30:58] Toni: is. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. And I think there are like 20, 000 other examples of friction, by the way, that we
[00:31:03] Mikkel: I mean, these listeners are so fucking smart and bright. They probably already know where some of the friction is. I just hope we provoked some new trail of thought on, Hey, instead of finding friction to remove, Should we find some to maybe add?
[00:31:19] Toni: Oh wow, that took a turn, but yeah, let's end on that.
[00:31:23] Subscribe to, uh, you know, help the cause, uh, and, uh, thanks Mikkel, thanks to everyone else, have a good one, bye bye.
[00:31:32] Mikkel: Bye