Understand your customers

Customers shows who pays your business, how each customer does, and what customers say. This guide tells you how to set Customers up, and how to use each of its tabs.

In this guide, a customer is one person: a person who pays your business, or a user of your product who never paid. A user is a person who uses your product.

Before you begin

• Customers is a part of the CRM. Open CRM, then Customers in the sidebar. The address is /crm/customers.
• You need the CRM product. If an owner or admin gave you only some products, ask them for the CRM.
• To see who pays, an owner or admin connects a payment provider in Settings > Apps. Troopy reads Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Paddle and Dodo Payments. A workspace can connect more than one.
• Without a payment provider, Customers shows only the users of your product, when Troopy knows them.

Set up Customers

Each step adds numbers to the pages. The pages work after each step.

1. Connect a payment provider

   An owner or admin opens Settings > Apps and connects a payment provider. Troopy then reads the plans, the payments and each cancellation, each hour. For Customers, Troopy only reads. It changes nothing at the provider.

2. Tell Troopy who your users are

   Use one of these three ways, or more than one:

   • The tracking script of Analytics. Call troopy("identify", { user_id, email, name }) after a user signs in, and send a goal for each key action.
   • Your backend. Send what each user did to POST /api/v1/customer-events, with an API key that has customers:write.
   • PostHog. Connect PostHog, then turn on Read what customers do from PostHog in the Settings tab.

3. Name the first key action

   In the Settings tab, write the name of the event that shows that a customer got value. A first project and a first invoice are examples. Then set the rule of steady use.

4. Ask your users the PMF question

   On the PMF tab, an owner or admin selects Start the PMF survey. You can also make a survey in Surveys.

The tabs of Customers

Read the list of customers

The Customers tab starts with This week. It compares this week until now with all of last week. A week starts on Monday at 00:00 UTC.

When Troopy knows the users of your product, a second row shows Signed up, First key action, Began steady use and Came back. Came back counts the customers with a first key action before the week who used the product in the week.

The money is in the currency that most of your customers pay in. Money in other currencies stays out of the totals.

Under the numbers, Needs a look names the 5 customers at risk who pay the most, each with its first reason. Then comes the list, 25 customers to a page:

• Find a customer by a part of its name or its email in the search box.
• Pick the order: Pays the most, Paid the most in all, Newest, At risk first or Left last.
• Pick a view: All, At risk, or one status. A status shows only when a customer has it.
• Each row shows the name, the status, the plan, since when, the last use and the first reason of its risk. The columns Paid in all and A month show the money.

Read the customers again

Troopy reads the payment providers each hour. To read them now, select Read again at the top of the tab. The read starts within a minute, and the pixel grid shows while it waits or runs. Beside the button, the time says when the last read ended.

The statuses

A trial that ends with no payment is not churn.

Why a customer needs a look

Troopy finds the customers at risk with fixed rules. No model decides. Each reason names a record of the payment provider or of the use of your product. A customer with no subscription that runs has no risk.

The colour of a reason shows its level: red for high, amber for watch. The two reasons of use apply only to a customer that Troopy saw use the product.

Open one customer

Select a customer in the list to open its page. The page shows these parts:

• Needs a look: each reason of its risk.
• Plan, Pays a month, Paid in all with the number of payments, and the next date. The next date is Renews, Trial ends, Access ends or Left.
• In your product: Signed up, First key action, Steady use and Last used. A square for each day of the last 12 weeks shows the days of use.
• Why they canceled, when the payment provider says it.
• What they said: the latest survey answer and the feedback of the customer, with a box to write down more.
• What happened: the events of the customer, the newest first.
• Latest emails: the subjects of the latest 6 emails between your mailboxes and the customer.
• The same person in Contacts, when the CRM has a record with the same email.

The page shows each word of a customer as text.

Draft a check-in

A customer who needs a look and has an email gets the button Have {name} draft a check-in. {name} is your Churn watcher. The button shows only when the troop has a Churn watcher.

The button opens the chat of the Churn watcher with a brief in the message box. The brief names the customer by its id only. Send it, and the Churn watcher saves a draft of the email. It sends nothing.

Keep what customers said

The Feedback tab is one list of what customers said. Each entry is a piece of feedback.

Write down what a customer said

1. In the box at the top of Feedback, write the words as the customer said them.
2. Pick A note, A request or From a conversation.
3. Select Write it down.

On the page of a customer, the same box ties the piece to that customer.

Sort a piece

A sorted piece has a type, 3 themes at most, and one line that says what it is about.

1. On the piece, select Sort it. For a piece that has a type, select Change.
2. Pick the Type: Request, Bug, Praise, Complaint, Question, Pricing or Other.
3. Write the themes, with a comma between them. Then write the piece In one line.
4. Select Save.

A piece that a teammate sorted waits until a person accepts it. To accept each suggestion at once, open its line in Needs you and select Accept all. The API does the same with POST /customer-feedback/accept.

The To sort view lists the pieces that no person sorted yet. What comes up most lists the themes that the pieces name most. Select a theme to see its pieces.

Accept what a teammate suggests

A teammate reads the pieces that wait, and suggests a type, themes and one line for each. Such a piece says Suggested by a teammate. Select Accept to keep the suggestion, or Change to say another thing.

• The Product analyst sorts the pieces. Without a Product analyst, the Churn watcher does. Without both, the Chief of Staff does.
• Before a teammate reads a piece, Troopy hides the emails, the long numbers and the secrets in it.
• One run sorts 20 pieces. A workspace gets 10 such runs a day, and a piece gets 2 tries. After that, the piece waits for a person.
• A teammate never changes what a person accepted.
• Owners and admins turn the suggestions off in the Settings tab.

Act on a piece

• Make a task makes a task of the piece, one time. The task starts in the backlog with nobody on it. Its title never holds the words of the customer.
• Tie to the roadmap says that the piece speaks for an item of the roadmap. A piece speaks for 5 items at most.
• Delete removes the piece. Owners, admins and the person who wrote the piece down can delete it.

Read the PMF score

The PMF score is the share of users who say that they would be very disappointed without your product. Your surveys ask the question, and the PMF tab shows the score.

• Pick the days: 30 days, 90 days, 180 days or 365 days. The default is 90 days.
• Each user counts one time, with its latest answer, whichever survey asked.
• A user who says that it no longer uses your product gives no vote.
• Under 5 answers, the tab shows no share. From 5 to 9 answers, the share shows only a direction.
• From 10 answers, the tab also gives the lowest share that the answers support, at 95% confidence.
• Customers who pay now and Everyone else show the score of each group.
• What they wrote shows the latest words of the users who answered the question.

Many teams take 40% as the sign that a product has its market.

Start the PMF survey

When no survey that shows now asks the question, the tab offers Start the PMF survey. Owners and admins can select it.

• The button shows the last survey that asked the question.
• If no survey asked it, Troopy makes a survey from the Product-market fit template.
• That survey takes the place of the survey that shows now, because one survey shows at a time.

To change the questions, open the survey in Surveys.

Compare groups with Segments

The Segments tab shows which customers get the most from your product.

1. Pick the days: 30, 90, 180 or 365. The default is 90.
2. Under Split by, pick Plan, Status, Came through, Came from, Country or a trait.
3. Read the table. The group that the survey ranks highest comes first.

Each group shows Customers, Pay now, A month, First key action and Very disappointed without it. Came through is the channel of the first visit, and Came from is its source. Troopy knows them and the traits only for users that the tracking script identified.

Save a segment

A segment is a group of customers that some rules pick. A customer is in the segment when each rule is true for it.

1. Select New segment, and give the segment a name.
2. Under Pick customers by, choose a field. Then select one value or more.
3. To add a rule, choose a field under Add a rule. A segment has 6 rules at most.
4. To keep the segment for you only, clear Everyone in the workspace sees this segment.
5. Select Save the segment.

A rule can look at the status, the plan, the risk, Pays now, Did a first key action or Uses it steadily. It can also look at where the customer came from, the country, or a trait. You can also select Save as a segment on a row of the table.

Compare a segment with all customers

Under Your segments, select Compare on a segment. A table puts the segment beside all customers. It compares the money, the risk, who left, the first key actions, who came back, the score and the themes of the feedback. Select Customers on a segment to list its customers.

• A share shows from 5 customers, and it is firm from 10. Under 5, the table says Not enough yet.
• Who came back counts the use in week 1, week 4 and week 8 after the first key action. A week that is not over counts nobody.
• You see the shared segments and your own, 50 at most.
• Owners, admins and the person who made a segment can delete it.

Plan with the roadmap

The Roadmap tab holds what you consider to build. Only your workspace sees it. No customer sees it.

1. In the box at the top, write what customers ask for. You can add a note.
2. Select Add to the roadmap.
3. On the Feedback tab, tie each piece to its item with Tie to the roadmap.

Each item shows who asked: the customers, what they pay a month, and the pieces of feedback. The items are in groups by status: Building now, Planned, Ideas, Shipped and Declined. In a group, the item that the customers who pay the most asked for comes first.

• Change the status of an item in its menu.
• Make a task makes the task that builds the item, one time. The task quotes the words of the customers.
• An item with a task follows the task. It is building while someone works on the task, and shipped when the task is done. A status that a person picks stays until the task moves again.
• Select the title of an item to open it: its note, Who asked, and the pieces that speak for it.
• On a shipped item, Have {name} draft a note to them asks the Churn watcher for one note to the customers who asked. A person sends it.
• Owners, admins and the person who added an item can delete it.

The settings of Customers

The Settings tab says how Troopy learns what customers do in your product. Owners and admins change it.

• Goals that your script sent lists the goals that you can add to the first key action with one click.
• With no names for steady use, the first key action counts.
• A rule takes 10 event names at most.
• After a change of a rule, Troopy works out the use again within a minute.

Teammates and Customers

• The Churn watcher and the Product analyst read the customers, the feedback, the score and the roadmap. The Product analyst also compares groups of customers. No teammate changes a customer, a segment or the roadmap.
• Customer brief is a routine template of the Churn watcher, on Monday at 8:00. It gives the week in numbers, who needs a look, who left, what customers say, and three things to do.
• Churn report is a routine template of the Churn watcher too. It ranks the customers at risk, and checks in with 3 of them at most. An owner or admin approves each email.
• A trigger can start a teammate when something happens to a customer, or when a customer says something. See Start work when something happens.
• Needs you shows a line for the customers who became at risk in the last 7 days. The line goes when a person opens the customers at risk.

Who can do what

Limits

Problems

Related

• Ask your users with surveys
• Answer payment disputes
• Stripe
• Set up website analytics
• Start work when something happens