Case Study: Product Management + Voice of the Customer

Background:

ACAMS provides regulatory compliance technology to financial institutions worldwide. Because the regulatory landscape evolves constantly, customers need tools that not only meet today's requirements but also adapt quickly to tomorrow's challenges.

Problem:

The platform serves institutions of different sizes, geographies, and levels of compliance expertise. With diverse needs and regulatory obligations, customers often requested improvements to ensure the software fit seamlessly into their workflows. To maintain retention and deliver long-term value, it was essential to ensure product development priorities were aligned with what mattered most to customers.

Approach + Methodology:

Getting to the root of customer needs requires solid customer research skills. I developed a structured customer feedback process that captured insights during training sessions, support conversations, and advisory discussions. I applied product discovery and customer research techniques to identify recurring themes and critical pain points.

Key steps included:

• Conducting workflow walkthroughs with customers to understand how the platform fit into daily compliance tasks.
• Mapping feedback into clear themes around usability, functionality, and content needs.
• Translating findings into prioritized, actionable recommendations.
• Partnering with product leadership to incorporate insights into roadmap strategy.

I believe that customer success and product management skills go hand-in-hand. I think that very few people within the organization are in as strong of a position to really understand the customer's needs and pain points as the customer success team, which makes them the ideal people to be the voice of the customer, and communicate these needs to the product team.

Outcomes + Impact:

I became a consistent advocate for the customer voice in strategic conversations. By taking advantage of my unique role, serving on the product team and while being deeply involved in interfacing with and gathering feedback from customers, I helped ensure development resources were directed toward the updates and enhancements with the highest customer impact. Our product and engineering teams were able to focus on implementing the most crucial and effective updates to the tool, ensuring they aligned with our enterprise customer needs, ultimately driving increased retention and customer satisfaction.

• Helped strategize product updates that directly addressed enterprise customer needs.
• Contributed to sustained expansion of the SaaS platform, resulting in ~119% overall growth over a five-year period (about 21% CAGR). This growth was achieved by combining enterprise enablement, customer research and advocacy, and product management skills to ensure our SaaS continually met evolving customer needs.
• Strengthened customer trust by demonstrating that our team had a real understanding of their needs, and that their feedback was taken seriously and helped give shape to the product's future.

Takeaway:

This work highlights my ability to connect customer insights to product strategy. By combining customer success expertise with product management skills, I helped ensure the platform delivered long-term value in a dynamic regulatory environment.