At HubSpot, buyer expertise comes first. At all times.
Whether or not our advertising workforce is choosing a time at which to ship an electronic mail or our internet workforce workforce is selecting the scale and site of a button on our homepage, the query we at all times return to is: “Will this be a great expertise for our clients?”
As HubSpot’s Chief Product Officer, this customer-first precept is my guiding gentle in terms of product growth. And it is the explanation why we do not purchase expertise once we wish to ship a brand new product to our clients. We construct it.
This build-first method is changing into more and more uncommon in our business. Conventional SaaS corporations have a tendency to amass different corporations after they wish to considerably broaden their product choices or rapidly improve their buyer base. This will typically result in a fast uptick in income — in spite of everything, when an organization buys one other, it acquires all of its clients — but it surely’s typically a really destructive expertise for the shopper.
When two utterly completely different programs are cobbled collectively after an acquisition, the burden of constructing them work collectively is foisted onto the shopper. Every firm most likely took a very completely different method to product growth, leading to completely different underlying expertise, completely different processes, and completely different person interfaces.
Reconciling these variations with out inflicting friction for purchasers is an nearly unattainable process. And when SaaS corporations apply this method over time, the friction accrues, technical debt goes by means of the roof, and the shopper expertise steadily degrades consequently.
This method solves for the corporate implementing it, not the shoppers it is alleged to serve. That is why we do issues in another way at HubSpot. In spite of everything, it is not like us to observe the gang.
When most corporations had been doubling down on the outdated outbound playbook, we championed inbound approaches as an alternative. When most companies had been questioning whether or not distant work might ever work, we noticed the proportion of HubSpotters working from residence hit double digits lengthy earlier than 2020 compelled everybody’s hand. And whereas our business was nonetheless furiously targeted on funnels, we embraced the flywheel.
We’re completely different. It is in HubSpot’s DNA. It is even mirrored in our firm mission: we assist organizations develop higher. Not develop based on the established order. Not develop by adhering to age-old playbooks. Develop higher.
Simply as we imagine there’s a greater option to develop, we additionally imagine there’s a greater option to construct. That is the place the Main Colours are available.
Meet the Main Colours
Our method to product growth is straightforward, and it permits us to create multiplicative advantages for purchasers that no different CRM platform presents. We concentrate on 5 foundational components that span all of our merchandise, and we work at enhancing every one in all them, all the time. These components are: Automation, Content material, Information, Messaging, and Reporting. We name them “Main Colours.”
Each one in all our Hubs – Content material Hub, Advertising and marketing Hub, Gross sales Hub, and Service Hub – contains a unique mix of the 5 Main Colours, that means that each product on our platform is constructed on the identical underlying basis.
So when the product workforce reveals as much as work day by day, the query we ask ourselves is not “Which Hub or function will we work on at this time?” It is: “Which Main Colour will we improve?”
Because of this, once we add worth to at least one space of HubSpot, worth is routinely added throughout the complete CRM platform. And that enables us to ship a gradual stream of enjoyment to all of our clients on an ongoing foundation.
Listed here are 3 ways wherein this method permits us to supply distinctive worth to our clients within the crowded CRM market:
1. Steady enchancment throughout the platform.
“HubSpot is the proper, always-improving advertising software program” – evaluate on G2
The identical 5 Main Colours go into constructing every HubSpot product, so once we enhance one Main Colour, we enhance each Hub. And each buyer of each HubSpot product sees a right away profit, no matter a part of the platform they use.
As an example, once we spend money on making Reporting in Gross sales Hub extra strong, this robustness ripples out to each Reporting device throughout the HubSpot CRM platform. So Advertising and marketing Hub clients who use our Reporting instruments profit, Service Hub clients who use our Reporting instruments profit, as do Content material Hub clients — all as a result of we invested in enhancing only one Main Colour.
2. Simple adoption of recent merchandise.
“We rapidly adopted the Gross sales Hub Professional and Advertising and marketing Enterprise for our rising wants. It has been among the finest selections we now have made” – evaluate on G2
Since all of our Hubs are constructed on the identical Main Colour basis, our clients can anticipate a well-recognized, quick, and pleasant person expertise each time they add a brand new function or product to their tech stack. This implies clients can get pleasure from the advantages of every new addition instantly, with no time misplaced to coaching, integration, or new-system frustration.
As HubSpot’s co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, places it: “Our clients’ time-to-joy is lowered.”
As soon as a buyer learns how you can use Automation in, say, Advertising and marketing Hub, they immediately understand how Automation works in all of HubSpot’s merchandise throughout the CRM platform. In order their firm scales and provides new merchandise, options, and integrations to their tech stack, they’ll anticipate consistency, not complexity.
They do not need to relearn how Messaging works or how Information is saved each time they add a brand new Hub — one thing they might possible need to do in the event that they had been working with a system that had been cobbled collectively by means of acquisitions or in the event that they use completely different instruments for various customer-facing groups.
3. The power to run a whole enterprise on a single platform.
“I can handle the web site, CRM, electronic mail advertising and all different efforts in a single single place. This permits me to have a single location for all my information Reporting and have a single supply of fact” – evaluate on G2
With HubSpot, fast-growing corporations can run their complete enterprise on a single system, as a result of HubSpot presents the identical insights and energy to entrepreneurs, salespeople, and repair professionals alike.
And when all groups at an organization are understanding of the identical acquainted system, silos crumble, information is centralized, and knowledge flows freely. The entire workforce has entry to the identical precious insights, permitting them to grasp their clients higher and ship a seamless expertise throughout each touchpoint.
For instance, when an organization’s advertising workforce makes use of Advertising and marketing Hub and its gross sales workforce makes use of Gross sales Hub, each groups acquire entry to the identical buyer information in a centralized CRM. And since each Hubs supply equivalent performance for recording and storing Information, it turns into equally simple for every workforce to entry not solely the information they generate, but in addition Information the opposite workforce generates.
This provides entrepreneurs and salespeople a holistic view of the shopper, enabling every of them to tailor their ways and personalize their outreach. If a prospect is exhibiting specific curiosity in advertising content material a couple of sure function, the gross sales workforce can see this info within the shared CRM and can know to concentrate on that function on their subsequent name with the prospect.
They need not wait on a advertising report or depend on an impersonal script – they’ll personalize their outreach and hone in on a prospect’s particular areas of curiosity, all because of each Hubs being constructed on the identical basis.
Constructing In another way, Rising Higher
The challenges that corporations face in 2021 are new, so our method to constructing our merchandise must be new as effectively. With the rise of the hybrid office, we’re all discovering our work lives intersecting our residence and household lives, too. That raises the bar on what we anticipate from enterprise software program.
Individuals use HubSpot to energy their companies, to supply for his or her households, to assist their communities thrive, and in lots of instances, to make the world a greater place.
It is now extra vital than ever that our CRM platform expertise looks like one thing you’d use on the weekends, not simply Monday morning.
That is why we’re fiercely dedicated to constructing software program that has enterprise-grade energy mixed with consumer-grade intuitiveness and an expertise as pleasant as that provided by the apps all of us use in our private lives.
At HubSpot, our bar is ready by what our clients want, not what our opponents have finished in previous many years. With the 5 Main Colours powering our platform and our unwavering dedication to by no means compromise on buyer expertise, we’re excited to proceed to assist our clients develop higher in 2021 and past.
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