Collette Johnson

11 November 2020

Riding the wheel of Redgate customer research

If you’ve ever been on the London Eye, you’ll probably be one of those people wanting to see the 360⁰ view of London from the top of the wheel, which is the main purpose of the attraction. But as you’re approaching and descending from the peak point, you start to notice things around you that you hadn’t seen before, such as marketplaces and quiet backstreets that pass you by in your normal daily routine.

These are the things that, to me, make the journey exciting, unveiling the hidden secrets, revealing how they fit into the landscape and the role they play in the lives of people in London. However, the more rides you take on the wheel, the richer the experience and the more detailed the landscape becomes.

If you’ve shared a pod with others, you also get to appreciate the view through their perspective, giving insights that may not have been apparent at first glance, or engaging with a different part of the city, widening your knowledge of London. You alone can only absorb and understand so much, but together you can explore the whole landscape in detail.

You may wonder why, in a blog about customer research, I’m talking about the London Eye and the excitement of that 360⁰ view, but when I’m engaging in customer research the feeling is the same. I’m taking in the perspective of others to enrich my knowledge, understand the subtleties of their daily working lives, and ultimately offer customers the best experience possible.

So hold on tight as I take you on a journey around the Redgate wheel of customer research.

Starting the journey

The beginning of my research journey was no different than any other. I was looking where to board the ride to understand buyers involved in the data protection and privacy market globally and the roles they play in decision-making.

I set out by exploring who I needed to speak to within organizations to kickstart my experience, and looking for what research and insights already existed. I wanted to use this to accelerate my learning and see how I could build on it to gain a deeper knowledge of the buyer group.

Initially, I was pointed to Redgate’s online customer research and insights library. This is a phenomenal resource which contains every customer interview and all of the insights gained in conversations with them. Even better, it’s fully searchable and within an hour I had a comprehensive list of relevant interviews and was able to go through each one to give myself the facts I needed to help decide my next steps.

This was, if you like, that first broad landscape view of some of our customers but at this point I already knew I was on a very different journey compared to what I’d experienced before.

Welcoming fellow travelers

I expected to be riding the journey solo, but that’s not the case at Redgate. There were several internal stakeholders who were willing to come on board and were key in providing further insights and ensuring I was adding value across the data protection and privacy portfolio and beyond.

They included commercial, user experience and product colleagues who talked to me about their perspective, the viewpoint of our customers, and what the landscape looked like for them. They wanted me to experience this firsthand and quickly connected me to key customers they thought would be excellent candidates for research calls, adding a richness and depth that I had never expected. This ensured we understood complex buyers and what we needed to do as an organization to support them through their Redgate journey and beyond.

That first ride on the Redgate wheel was exciting, insightful and far richer than I ever could have imagined. The biggest highlight was when I shared with the wider organization the insights we’d discovered in terms what we needed to do to support customers, and how we should reposition our messaging to engage such a complex buying group.

This resulted in the integration of two key products for improved usability which, in turn, led to increased client satisfaction by transforming their approach to data privacy and protection. The collaborative effort on this journey of creating a stronger positioning in the market and a more focused UX approach has been absolutely key to its success in such a short amount of time.

Continuing the journey

I now ride part of that journey every day, my insights are becoming richer and more detailed, and I’m exploring subtleties and insights I never expected at the start. But for me the best part of this is that I ride the wheel to enable customers to have the best Redgate journey possible. Being able to get the perspective from their viewpoint is the most powerful tool we as product marketers have. It ultimately helps them to achieve their end goals much quicker and kickstarts the start of their journey in compliant DevOps.

But the experience doesn’t end there. The richness of this customer research has enabled me to explore and develop our positioning and messaging. It’s given a depth to my go-to-market strategies that’s resulted in growth and success far quicker than expected, allowing me to react and pivot to the market. It’s also given me the ability to develop a sales enablement focus that really helps customers to understand the depth and breadth of where Redgate can support some of their more significant pain points.

Redgate’s approach to customer research really is a 5-star experience and is a journey where everyone is involved and, more importantly, where product marketing is highly valued. It is most definitely the best 360⁰ view in Cambridge.

To find out how you could enrich your own product marketing career at Redgate, visit our recruitment pages online.