What is a customer zero program?

The better a software company understands its products and the unique challenges its customers face, the more value the organization will deliver. On the flip side, the further companies move away from their customers and what makes them tick, the harder it becomes to meet their needs.

For this reason, more and more software companies are launching Customer Zero programs — initiatives where the organization tries to become the best customer of its own products and services by using them every day. Similar to proverbially drinking your own champagne, Customer Zero programs require all employees to be active users of the solutions their organization sells.

Compare that to the SaaS sales, marketing, HR, or finance teams that have hardly ever been inside their own products. How can folks without any actual, battle-tested, first-hand experience with their organization’s offerings be expected to champion those products effectively?

If you’re looking to learn about one of the latest trends in customer obsession, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn more about some of the main reasons to consider a Consider Zero program and best practices to set yourself up for success.

Benefits of a customer zero program?

Not sure whether your organization needs to implement a Customer Zero program? The benefits of such an initiative speak for themselves.

1. Identifying issues early

Using your own product internally makes it easier to identify bugs, software errors, and usability issues at an earlier stage. Rather than waiting for issues to make it into production and negatively impact your customers, you can fix them immediately.

2. Improving quality assurance

By extensively testing your products through regular internal use, you can ensure their quality and reliability, leading to a more stable and robust software offering. This enables sales teams to sell with confidence since they trust the product themselves and know real-world use cases inside and out. 

3. Enhancing the user experience

According to a report from Salesforce, 84% of customers agree that the user experience (UX) is just as important as the products and services themselves. In other words, if your company is unable to deliver a strong UX, your users won’t be satisfied, making them more likely to churn. By implementing a Customer Zero program, you can surface valuable UX insights and use those to improve usability, navigation, and overall user satisfaction — making your products stickier once they’re deployed.

4. Collecting feedback earlier

Customer Zero initiatives enable you to collect feedback much earlier in the development process. As a result, employees can share their thoughts on existing features and how they might be improved. At the same time, they can also identify potential gaps and suggest new features.

5. Rolling out new features faster

Getting feedback earlier enables software engineering teams to accelerate the development lifecycle, bringing new features to market faster. As a result, Customer Zero programs can also help organizations drive competitive advantage.

6. Increasing customer trust and confidence

Customer Zero programs demonstrate that you have confidence in your own products. This, in turn, instills trust among employees, customers, and stakeholders since it shows that you believe in what you offer. After all, Elon Musk refusing to drive a Tesla wouldn’t exactly instill confidence among those shopping for cars.

7. Aligning with customer needs

The more time your company spends inside your own products, the easier it is to understand the pain points and requirements of your ideal customer. The better you understand your ideal customer, the easier it is to increase market share, tap into new audiences, and delight existing users.

Best practices for customer zero initiative

Customer Zero programs can transform software companies, helping them reach their full potential by providing the most possible value to customers. That said, you can’t just roll out a Customer Zero initiative and expect great results. Follow these best practices to increase the chances your program delivers the outcomes you’re aiming for.

Set clear expectations and goals

Clearly communicate the purpose and objectives of your Customer Zero program so that employees understand the goals and benefits. Make sure each employee knows which features should be evaluated and what feedback is expected.

Make it a company-wide practice

Making the most out of your Customer Zero program starts with getting as many team members involved as possible. Ideally, every employee should be involved in the initiative. At the very least, make sure that you have participants from every team. This ensures you collect diverse feedback from many different perspectives.

Establish feedback channels

Provide easy-to-use, highly publicized feedback channels so employees know exactly where they should share their opinions. By doing so, you can ensure that all feedback is in one place and that no important ideas or suggestions are hidden in silos.

Capture positive and negative feedback

Encourage employees to share positive feedback, usability issues, and suggestions for improvement. On one hand, you want your team to help you determine what’s working best. On the other, you want them to share critical feedback you can use to drive continuous improvement of your offerings.

Provide training and support

In order to get good feedback in the first place, your employees will need to know how to use the product. Give your team access to proper training, documentation, and support resources so they can use your software effectively and be able to provide meaningful feedback.

Learn from LeadIQ’s customer zero program

At LeadIQ, we’re huge believers in the Customer Zero philosophy and work hard to ensure our own team is our best customer. 

Not only do our sales, customer success, and RevOps teams use our prospecting platform to power their day-to-day workflows, we also encourage everyone — from marketing and HR to finance and engineering — to use it, too. 

Here’s what a few of our team members said when asked what they learned that they didn’t know before:

Krista Humbles
Sr. Implementation Specialist
It was nice to see how people take to learning how to use it [LeadIQ] initially that are on our team as compared to the customers I usually work with.

Daniel Danylyshin
Data Researcher
That we can generate messages based on prospects’ posts!

Mitch Comstock
Sr. Product Marketing Manager
I think understanding some of the challenges with it. It helped me think of how we create messaging for the platform and differentiate ourselves from competitors.

Juan Peñalva
RevOps Analyst
How easy the extension and integrations are to use compared to other apps!

Anthony Mennie
Marketing Manager
I have a much deeper appreciation for how hard the job of an SDR is. Even though LeadIQ makes daily workflows easier, it’s still so hard to get a reply. You really have to put a lot of thought into how to break into an account.

Now, there’s only one question left to answer: What will your Customer Zero program look like?