Customer Feedback is Product Management

Shay Howe is senior vice president of platform strategy at ActiveCampaign.

Shay Howe is senior vice president of platform strategy at ActiveCampaign, which provides customer-experience automation. He proudly calls himself a “generalist” and considers his ability to operate in any area of a business his superpower. Shay likes to function as a problem-solver in what he calls “gray areas” — wherever he sees an opportunity to make a difference, primarily in customer impact, for hyper-growth organizations. 

When it comes to customer feedback, he does not hesitate in touting its importance. “I see customer feedback as the lifeblood of an organization, and what you’re building should revolve around what you’re largely learning from your customers,” he says. “It’s going to point out the aspects of your product that need improvement. Getting close to those customers is going to make them feel involved and important. That will generate excitement and positive momentum and reviews from them.”

At ActiveCampaign, Shay uses a host of different methods and tools to garner feedback and stay focused on their customers. “We’re always having to pay attention to that feedback and bringing it back to the customer,” he says. “Then what is going to make their lives easier at the end of the day? I think there’s a balance of qualitative and quantitative insights that you can have to follow through that, but it truly becomes the lifeblood of the organization.”

Find out how he gets customer and non-customer feedback — as well as whose job it is in the organization to manage it — on this episode of This Is Product Management.

Download the transcript

Here are some highlights: 

• Working in “gray areas”
• The importance of automation across the customer experience
• Iteration as a value
• Defining hyper-growth
• The role of customer feedback