Geologists from Stanford University recently made an astounding discovery. Drilling core samples in Palo Alto, a thousand feet below Sand Hill Road, they discovered the fossils of an ancient civilization. Their excitement grew as excavation revealed a Neanderthal community with complex tools, written language, and a primitive subscription economy.
A paleo-forensic team pieced together the daily life of one adult Neanderthal that lived there 40,000 years ago. They’ve published his narrative below, and titled their work the Tales of Groc, the Customer Success Caveman. Read Chapter 2 here.
Chapter 3: New Customer Onboarding
Every new customer at StoneHenjj went through onboarding. The Cart technology fundamentally changed customers’ workflow, so a high-touch implementation was required. A poorly trained user could damage Cart, their own goods, their professional reputation, or even hurt themselves.
Groc helped guide customers through many implementations. The later versions of Cart were more friendly to new users, but there were still countless ways that customers found themselves in trouble. StoneHenjj was diligent to track these problems and their fixes, so they could easily resolve the same problem if another customer experienced it. Some problems Groc had helped solve were:
Error Encountered: 404.2 — Improper Input for Acceleration Integration
Systems Involved: Cart Cavemaster and Horse 2.0 integration
Cause Identified: Customer placed Cart in front of the Horse
Fix: Configure thrust inputs to reorder Horse in front of the Cart
Notes: Horse was injured when user activated Cart with incorrect config. Customer asked we pay for Horse subscription fees to compensate. Request denied
Error Encountered: 306.7a — System Overload & Workflow Stoppage
Systems Involved: Cart Millennium with Basket add-on
Cause Identified: Customer placed all their eggs in one Basket, causing Basket to break
Fix: Allocate eggs to multiples Carts, each equipped with Basket add-on
Notes: Customer lost majority of their Dodo egg supply with this breakage. Upsell opportunity since their usage is maxed, but may be wise to wait till their sentiment improves
There was a common denominator that many customers with onboarding troubles shared. They were eager to do too much, too quickly with Cart. Groc recalled the logistics division of StoneCold Creamery that wanted Cart to pick up mammoth milk in the morning, pick up ice by lunch time, and then freeze the milk en route to their retail stores and deliver by the time cavekids got out of school. This required zigzagging across the Valley and crossing several big rivers.
Groc was skeptical. He was a proponent for the “tap, hit, smash” approach and wanted to be very clear with the customer. “This is an ambitious plan,” Groc said. “Maybe we should focus on just one part of this route for now? Then we can iterate, move forward and try more. Cart isn’t optimized to carry liquids anyway so I think we’ll run into some challenges.”
The customer pushed back. “We really need this now. We’re going to push forward and roll this out.” Of course, it wasn’t long before Groc was recording another new customer problem:
Error Encountered: 121.1 — Cargo Stability Malfunction Leading to Pilot Error
Systems Involved: Cart Millennium with Barrel add-on
Cause Identified: Cart collided with tree while pilot’s vision was impaired. Pilot had been crying over spilt milk
Fix: None available yet
Notes: Splash-guard enhancement requested with Product team. Will be released with Millennium 2.0
It took a while for StoneCold to regain their trust in Cart. It caused all parties a considerable amount of frustration. The “tap, hit, smash” approach wasn’t always glamorous and sometimes it took a while to realize the full vision. But Groc knew it was a reliable way to get rolling with Cart and gain long term traction.
