Best Practices for Integrating Solution Engineering Feedback

Presales Engineers are known by many names, including, but not limited to, Solution Engineering, Solution Architects, Sales Engineering, and so on. In this article, I have opted to use Solution Engineering as a catch-all term for all the people who interact with your customers before they purchase your products.

There is a long-standing discussion on how product management and Development Teams interface. Balancing the competing priorities of business needs, product vision, and technical delivery from programming teams. The battle between new features and technical debt, and which is more important, has been widely discussed and continues to be a hot topic. I will probably write an article on this at some stage, as both camps have their virtues and flaws. This article aims to highlight that both of these teams miss out on valuable insights when they don't make an effort to integrate the feedback received from their Solution Engineering teams.

These teams engage directly with clients, gaining a deep understanding of both the technical capabilities of the products, and the specific needs and pain points of the customers. Their deep knowledge of their clients gives them a unique insight to identify gaps, potential improvements, and innovative use cases that might not be apparent to those not involved in the day-to-day sales process. Product Managers do speak to customers, but they mainly speak to the big spenders.

This skewed view impacts how products are used, cutting out feedback from smaller companies. While it is tempting to focus on customers who could sign large deals, sustaining a business and creating continued growth requires valuing the feedback from smaller customers.

The Disconnect and Its Implications

Organizational silos often cause the disconnect between Solution Engineers, Product Management, and Development Teams. Solution Engineering, typically embedded within sales teams, may lack structured channels to share their insights with product and Development Teams. Even when feedback mechanisms exist, they are often informal or inconsistent, leading to valuable information being overlooked or underutilized.

When a startup is still small, feedback is instant as Solution Engineers have direct access via a common forum to Engineers and Product Managers. Sometimes they even provide code to help fix bugs, or add new features. However, as the company grows, this distance widens, until the only way Solution Engineers' feedback is heard is if the feature or bug is connected to imminent million-dollar deals.

This lack of communication can result in product features that do not fully address customer needs, or misses opportunities for differentiation in the market. Solution Engineering teams might frequently encounter customer requests for specific functionalities or integrations that, if implemented, could significantly enhance the product’s value proposition. That said, without a fast and robust feedback loop, such insights might never reach the product backlog or influence development priorities.

Solution Engineers often have a front-row seat to competitive dynamics and emerging trends. Their exposure to diverse client environments enables them to provide early warnings about shifts in technology preferences or competitive threats. Ignoring this input can leave the company unprepared and reactive, rather than proactive.

Best Practices for Integrating Solution Engineering Feedback

1. Structured Feedback Mechanisms: Establish formal channels for Solution Engineers to regularly provide feedback through meetings, forms, or collaboration tools. Develop a closed-loop system to track, address, and communicate feedback back to customers, showing that their input was valued and acted upon.

2. Cross-Functional Teams and Regular Collaboration: Create cross-functional teams and schedule regular collaboration sessions where Solution Engineers, Product Managers, and Engineers can work together on projects and share insights. Hackweeks are ideal for fostering collaboration outside the normal work environment, encouraging innovation and creativity.

3. Feedback Integration in Product Roadmaps: Systematically integrate insights from Solution Engineers into product roadmaps by creating a dedicated section for field insights and using feedback to prioritize features.

4. Knowledge Sharing and Training: Utilize internal knowledge-sharing platforms such as wikis, forums, or collaborative workspaces for Solution Engineers to document and share insights. Provide training for Solution Engineers on effective communication, and for product and Development Teams on interpreting and acting on feedback.

5. Leadership Support and Metrics: Ensure leadership actively supports and promotes the integration of Solution Engineering feedback. Here executive sponsorship of initiatives, inclusion of feedback metrics in performance reviews, and public recognition of successful collaborations are great ways to do this. Establish metrics and KPIs to track the impact of feedback on product development, including customer-requested features, time to market, and customer satisfaction scores.

6. Pilot Programs: Implement pilot programs to develop or enhance features based on Solution Engineer feedback. Share Alpha and Beta builds with Solution Engineers for testing and feedback.

Key take away

Regular, structured collaboration between the teams is essential for leveraging frontline experience and building more customer-centric products. By implementing best practices for feedback integration, companies can enhance their product development processes, address customer needs more effectively, and stay ahead of market trends. Leveraging the insights of Solution Engineers not only bridges the gap between sales and product development, but also drives innovation and competitive advantage.