Product team at Netigate
In a matter of months, the team have already created an impressive new reports feature that will be rolling out later this year (read more about that here). The product team sits right at the heart of Netigate, connecting the creators behind-the-scenes in the tech team to the marketers at the front of communications. Everything at Netigate revolves around how to make our customers as satisfied as possible, and it all starts with great products. ‘The product team will always put the customer first,’ commented Peter. ‘We succeed when the customer is happy.’
End-to-end understanding
Previously, the product team seamed operations between the technical team and the marketing team with help from Panos Charalambidis. Before the formation of the new team, Panos split his time between marketing and technology tasks. With a broad understanding of the company’s operations, Panos gets to enjoy seeing the product development from start to finish. ‘I take different roles, but most interestingly, different mindsets,’ Panos explained. ‘In tech, you need a more introverted focus on problem-solving; while marketing is an extrovert science to bring customers in. It’s helpful to have those two sides together, and it’s great to have a picture of where products begin and where they end up.’
Now part of the new product team, Panos explains that they fill an important role in the company. ‘Product brings all the teams together. Sometimes it’s not easy for both ends to understand each other. For marketing to understand the product, or for tech to understand the needs in marketing.’ With a product team, communication channels are open and focus is defined.
The product life-cycle
The team works with a clear journey. ‘It starts with an idea,’ explains Peter. ‘Then we create a prototype, do internal and external user testing, set the specification and hand it over to tech to develop and test it. We iterate it, and finally hand it to marketing when it’s time for release.’. With the customers at the core of everything we do, the product team ensures that Netigate users have their say on new technology, tools or features. The idea at the very start of the process could be something innovative that the team have created themselves. Or something observed from users or in testing.
‘Everything we build, we user-test. We talk to people who have never used Netigate before. As well as those that have been with Netigate for years. We want to get a wide picture of how people perceive the product – experienced or not,’ said Peter. But it’s not just creating new ideas and listening to feedback – it’s also watching existing users and taking initiative. ‘Our role is both to listen to what the customer says, but also to analyse how they’re using the products, and then try to improve Netigate accordingly. We always want our products to be as intuitive and smart as possible.’
Netigate is one of the leading European providers of cloud based services for online surveys that are primarily used for customer feedback, employee feedback and market research. We help organisations gain valuable insights, make better business decisions and improve processes. Our clients range from small organisations to global companies in all industries, including many leading companies around the world such as Electrolux, Ericsson, Vodafone and E.ON.
