AMA: Gainsight Director, Product Management, Sailaja Kalle on Product Management KPI's

KPI’s are measured and recorded to track performance and business decisions are rendered with the use of this supporting data. The intent behind this movement is to provide managers and leaders with more information and drive better decision making. While there is a need for Proxies in some cases, it is very important to choose these with utmost care and deliberation. 1. Having clear goals to achieve will provide a great way to avoid choosing the false "proxies". 2. Choose KPIs that should be measuring the actual objective itself and any other key actions or outcomes that will lead to that objective. 3. Ensure the sanity of Data used so that when relying on data to make decisions, then what is being utilized needs to be accurate.

Product Management is responsible for Product strategy but that needs to align to the Product market fit which is defined by the GTM strategy that is defined by Product Marketing. One of the key requirement is that we from product align to the GTM strategy before defining the Product strategy. This will help build high quality products that bring customer delight and high ROI. It is crucial part of partnership from Business perspective, just like how partnership between Product and Engineering is crucial from Execution perspective.

Defining the right KPIs is quite risky. There are few steps we can follow that can help define the right KPIs Follow these steps when defining a KPI: * What is your desired outcome? * Why does this outcome matter? * How are you going to measure progress? * How can you influence the outcome? * Who is responsible for the business outcome? * How will you know you’ve achieved your outcome? * How often will you review progress towards the outcome?

Customers are humans who attempt to take care of matters themselves instead of reaching out for answers or support. One important KPI the self serve product is the Self-Service Rate. It is percentage of queries that customers solve by themselves over the total number of queries raised by the customer. Key ways to keep on top of this KPI is * Ensure your self-service resources are comprehensive, up-to-date, and easily accessible. * Promote self-service options through proactive communication with customers. * Monitor user feedback and continuously improve self-service resources based on customer needs.