I like to cook. The image below is a letter from the founder of a chef’s products company. The note tells a brief story, communicates a sense of urgency around customer service and provides contact information. Technology companies should take note as the impersonal, generic emails that most Technology companies send post-purchase are a nuisance and add zero value in my book.

I expect Technology companies to invest extra effort in delighting customers as the current downturn gets worse. This was the case with the 2008-2010 downturn.

• Delighting customers includes everything from typical customer follow-up to investing in features and functionality where application usage is heaviest.
  • Invest first in “quick hit” (high value, low expense), product enhancements.
  • Leverage your application usage data to inform product road map decisions.
  • If you plan to spend less on customer events to save costs on travel, make sure to hold events online (my preference regardless of budget constraints), as well as Webinars tailored to functional groups.
  • Fix Software bugs. Re-deploy Product Development resources to clean up product code and make enhancements to existing products.
  • Don’t pepper users with ads and notifications soliciting donations (Signal).

• Asset Management
• Investing
• Software
• Strategy
• Technology