6 ms·

Having worked on b2b software for a while, targeting users rather than buyers really resonated with me. A lot of b2b software is quite simply garbage. None of t

by pm90 5y ago

Having worked on b2b software for a while, targeting users rather than buyers really resonated with me. A lot of b2b software is quite simply garbage. None of the amazing UX patterns that we have come to accept as baseline for b2c are present in b2b software (for the most part). User feedback is rarely solicited; if it is, it’s not prioritized by product teams. And the reason is very simple: users don’t matter. Unlike b2c users who can just leave, b2b users are being paid to use the software as a tool to get something done. They often have very little say over what product needs to be purchased. Even if there might be outliers, the industry as a whole doesn’t prioritize users so the market is also pretty small. The decision makers are executives who are weighing a list of (supposed) features, integrations etc. and price. It’s good to see freshworks use a different approach and succeed with it, I wish them the best. P.S: I’ve used Zendesk a lot and it ranks among the worst tools I’ve used (a few rungs above JIRA). I hope I get to use Freshworks equivalent at some point.

tshanmu 5y ago
not sure if people realise it - Freshdesk grew out a comment around how bad Zendesk is on HN right here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358398
bberenberg 5y ago
The teams at Zendesk and Atlassian also think they’re building for users. I doubt Freshworks is any different other than this being their marketing.
- stymaar 5y ago
  Atlasian, really?
  - pm90 5y ago
    Having worked at shitty organizations, it is possible that front line workers care deeply about the product users but they’re not being heard by those who prioritize what should get done. Not saying that’s necessarily what’s happening at Atlassian; just want to point out the complexity of the situation. What I found nice about FreshWorks is the leadership is aligned (or at least says they are) with that goal.
- joe-collins 5y ago
  It's nice that they think that, but whether they believe so or not, I have never heard any user speak well of Zendesk.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    How much of that is because people often aren’t excited about the work you do in Zendesk even if Zendesk was a good tool for getting the job done? I’ve never heard anyone speak well of a particular model of plunger either.
    - smichel17 5y ago
      Allow me to be the first. Okay, not a plunger, but a very similar product: After using a litter-lifter scoop (for cleaning a cat's litterbox), I placed a bulk order so I'll have a lifetime supply (plus extras to give as gifts), even if they go out of business, because they really are just that good. No affiliation, just a happy customer. https://litter-lifter.com/ https://litter-lifter.com/
    - pm90 5y ago
      This is a fair question. Bad tooling does exacerbate already difficult or unlikable tasks though. You don't have to be excited about using Zendesk; but if it gets in your way rather than making it easier to get tasks done, that's when it leads to hate.
  - theonemind 5y ago
    Zendesk is pretty good for a ticketing system. I don't generally speak well of ticketing systems, but I do speak badly of them, except for Zendesk!
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      I don't know if it's still this bad, but, last time I used Zendesk, it was alright, until you had to search for anything. I was never able to find anything using the builtin search functions.
  - 5y ago
- naravara 5y ago
  It’s less about the teams and more about who calls the shots structurally. What’s the balance of power between by engineering, product owners, sales, etc. in setting features and priorities? How are they planning for design and rollout of new features? It’s not enough for all the individuals in the company to think or want to do things a certain way. Leadership has to be very intentional about making sure decision making and priority setting come out that way on balance.
nine_k 5y ago
I suppose that tools which are painful to use must lower the users' performance. Why is this not a visible metric for the buyers?
- civilized 5y ago
  Because executives at Generic BigCo don't understand or care about their employees' productivity.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    This is my question: why this disconnect? The employees' productivity should be exactly what puts money into the executives' pockets. I suppose that halving productivity won't go unnoticed. Why smaller wins like 10% don't matter to them?
    - xxpor 5y ago
      People who study the US economy have been asking this for over a decade now https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/the-us-productivity-slowdown-the-economy-wide-and-industry-level-analysis.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/the-us-productivit...
    - lazide 5y ago
      Too much noise frankly, and often actual output, let along profit, has little to do with any individual employees productivity. And most employees are part of a relatively small silo which would require extensive work to really figure out how to make them productive, and if they got more productive, the rest of the organization is likely to tarpit them. Think of it as an army - infantry may be visible on the ground, but no matter how awesome an individual infantry person is, their transport folks, logistics folks, planning folks, etc. have a far more important role in winning the war. And everyone has to be effective, or that war won’t be won.
    - solveit 5y ago
      > I suppose that halving productivity won't go unnoticed. Perhaps if the halving was instantaneous. Over any substantial period of time? I have my doubts.
Elof 5y ago
For what it’s worth, I’ve implemented Freshworks and while their customer service is excellent their software is meh. Moved to Zendeak and very happy
dqpb 5y ago
> A lot of b2b software is quite simply garbage Netsuite is so terrible it boggles the mind.
- doublescoop 5y ago
  ERP systems like Netsuite may or may not be good, but a huge portion of the bad experiences most users have with them has to do with configuration rather than the system itself. There's an argument to be made that great systems can't be misconfigured, but the "everything and the kitchen sink" attitudes most of these business back-end systems are built with isn't really conducive to opinionated expertise driving product design.
  - thwarted 5y ago
    I had this experience with Salesforce. People without any actual software creation/maintenance or system administration experience having administrator rights in Salesforce ends up being a mess and a nightmare. Data hygiene ends up terrible, because you can add any fields you want anywhere, you end up with fields named customer, customerid, customername, customer_name, cust, custid, with none of them being canonical, or validated, of different types. And people end up having put a bunch of data in a field named "cutsomer", with a misspelling that everyone just accepts. I'm not a big fan of Salesforce in general (did they add, uh, XREF support in validators yet? Sorry, I'm forgetting the terms) but I do think it gets a bad rap mainly because a bunch of non-technical people are often tasked with setting it up and there's no discipline in it's configuration or use. It can be made to work reasonably well, but it rarely gets to that point.

by pm90 5y ago

tshanmu 5y ago

not sure if people realise it - Freshdesk grew out a comment around how bad Zendesk is on HN right here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358398

bberenberg 5y ago

The teams at Zendesk and Atlassian also think they’re building for users. I doubt Freshworks is any different other than this being their marketing.

stymaar 5y ago
Atlasian, really?
- pm90 5y ago
  Having worked at shitty organizations, it is possible that front line workers care deeply about the product users but they’re not being heard by those who prioritize what should get done. Not saying that’s necessarily what’s happening at Atlassian; just want to point out the complexity of the situation. What I found nice about FreshWorks is the leadership is aligned (or at least says they are) with that goal.
joe-collins 5y ago
It's nice that they think that, but whether they believe so or not, I have never heard any user speak well of Zendesk.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  How much of that is because people often aren’t excited about the work you do in Zendesk even if Zendesk was a good tool for getting the job done? I’ve never heard anyone speak well of a particular model of plunger either.
  - smichel17 5y ago
    Allow me to be the first. Okay, not a plunger, but a very similar product: After using a litter-lifter scoop (for cleaning a cat's litterbox), I placed a bulk order so I'll have a lifetime supply (plus extras to give as gifts), even if they go out of business, because they really are just that good. No affiliation, just a happy customer. https://litter-lifter.com/ https://litter-lifter.com/
  - pm90 5y ago
    This is a fair question. Bad tooling does exacerbate already difficult or unlikable tasks though. You don't have to be excited about using Zendesk; but if it gets in your way rather than making it easier to get tasks done, that's when it leads to hate.
- theonemind 5y ago
  Zendesk is pretty good for a ticketing system. I don't generally speak well of ticketing systems, but I do speak badly of them, except for Zendesk!
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    I don't know if it's still this bad, but, last time I used Zendesk, it was alright, until you had to search for anything. I was never able to find anything using the builtin search functions.
- 5y ago
naravara 5y ago
It’s less about the teams and more about who calls the shots structurally. What’s the balance of power between by engineering, product owners, sales, etc. in setting features and priorities? How are they planning for design and rollout of new features? It’s not enough for all the individuals in the company to think or want to do things a certain way. Leadership has to be very intentional about making sure decision making and priority setting come out that way on balance.

nine_k 5y ago

I suppose that tools which are painful to use must lower the users' performance. Why is this not a visible metric for the buyers?

civilized 5y ago
Because executives at Generic BigCo don't understand or care about their employees' productivity.
- nine_k 5y ago
  This is my question: why this disconnect? The employees' productivity should be exactly what puts money into the executives' pockets. I suppose that halving productivity won't go unnoticed. Why smaller wins like 10% don't matter to them?
  - xxpor 5y ago
    People who study the US economy have been asking this for over a decade now https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/the-us-productivity-slowdown-the-economy-wide-and-industry-level-analysis.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/the-us-productivit...
  - lazide 5y ago
    Too much noise frankly, and often actual output, let along profit, has little to do with any individual employees productivity. And most employees are part of a relatively small silo which would require extensive work to really figure out how to make them productive, and if they got more productive, the rest of the organization is likely to tarpit them. Think of it as an army - infantry may be visible on the ground, but no matter how awesome an individual infantry person is, their transport folks, logistics folks, planning folks, etc. have a far more important role in winning the war. And everyone has to be effective, or that war won’t be won.
  - solveit 5y ago
    > I suppose that halving productivity won't go unnoticed. Perhaps if the halving was instantaneous. Over any substantial period of time? I have my doubts.

Elof 5y ago

For what it’s worth, I’ve implemented Freshworks and while their customer service is excellent their software is meh. Moved to Zendeak and very happy

dqpb 5y ago

> A lot of b2b software is quite simply garbage Netsuite is so terrible it boggles the mind.

doublescoop 5y ago
ERP systems like Netsuite may or may not be good, but a huge portion of the bad experiences most users have with them has to do with configuration rather than the system itself. There's an argument to be made that great systems can't be misconfigured, but the "everything and the kitchen sink" attitudes most of these business back-end systems are built with isn't really conducive to opinionated expertise driving product design.
- thwarted 5y ago
  I had this experience with Salesforce. People without any actual software creation/maintenance or system administration experience having administrator rights in Salesforce ends up being a mess and a nightmare. Data hygiene ends up terrible, because you can add any fields you want anywhere, you end up with fields named customer, customerid, customername, customer_name, cust, custid, with none of them being canonical, or validated, of different types. And people end up having put a bunch of data in a field named "cutsomer", with a misspelling that everyone just accepts. I'm not a big fan of Salesforce in general (did they add, uh, XREF support in validators yet? Sorry, I'm forgetting the terms) but I do think it gets a bad rap mainly because a bunch of non-technical people are often tasked with setting it up and there's no discipline in it's configuration or use. It can be made to work reasonably well, but it rarely gets to that point.