The Journey: #31 Product Perception Penalty

In Customer Success, we spend a lot of time talking about value realization. But over the years, I’ve come to realize something just as critical, yet often overlooked:

Value is subjective.

Perception is everything.

You can have a powerful product, deep functionality, and an incredible roadmap but if your customers perceive the product as broken, limited, or hard to use, their truth becomes your problem. And the penalty can be steep: stalled adoption, renewals at risk, and long-term damage to trust.

This is what I’ve come to call the Product Perception Penalty. The cost of a disconnect between what a product can do and what the customer believes it can do.

And unfortunately, I’ve lived this lesson firsthand.

A Lesson in Due Diligence

Several years ago, I was interviewing for a VP of Customer Success role. As part of my interview process, I made a point to evaluate the product from every angle I could.

I did what I thought was thorough due diligence:

• Reviewed their website and messaging

• Watched their webinars

• Studied customer case studies

• Participated in a live demo

I walked away feeling like I had checked every box. I saw promise in the product, confidence in the team, and what seemed like strong customer stories.

I accepted the offer.

I was excited to get started.

But as I settled into the role, a very different reality began to emerge.

The Cracks Beneath the Surface

It started small, my review of support tickets revealed a steady stream of bug reports and enhancement requests. Then, as I worked through CS risk accounts, I noticed a pattern: product gaps and usability concerns were common themes across the entire portfolio.

Digging deeper into sales data, I found a significant percentage of closed-lost deals were due to competitive product comparisons.

And then, something I hadn’t done earlier: I checked G2.

That’s when the picture came into sharp focus. The reviews were split, passionate fans on one end, and deeply frustrated users on the other. It wasn’t just a few isolated problems; the product had become polarizing.

It wasn’t broken. But it was bruised. And it was clear we had a perception problem.

Course Correction

To their credit, the product leadership team was open and receptive to feedback. We met, mapped out what we were hearing from customers, prioritized fixes, and even spun up a dedicated team focused on enhancements and bugs.

Together, we made meaningful progress. We realigned roadmaps. We improved internal feedback loops. We invested in proactive customer communication. And slowly, we rebuilt trust.

But I couldn’t shake one lingering thought:

I wish I’d known this before I took the job.

Not because I wouldn’t have taken it, this was an amazing experience with great people. But because I would’ve walked in with better context, clearer expectations, and a more strategic plan.

Lessons for Future Leaders

If you’re considering a leadership role in Customer Success or any post-sale function, here’s what I recommend adding to your diligence process. These go beyond the surface and help you evaluate how the product is truly experienced.

1. Talk to 2–3 current customers.

Get unfiltered feedback. Ask what they love, what’s missing, and what they’d change.

2. Review support ticket trends.

Look for recurring issues. Are bugs resolved quickly? Do enhancements stall out?

3. Analyze G2 and review platforms.

Look past the star ratings. Read the language customers use. Are their expectations being met?

4. Ask Sales about closed-lost reasons.

Which competitors are winning and why? If product gaps are common, dig deeper.

5. Request a walkthrough of the product backlog.

What’s on the roadmap? How is customer feedback prioritized? Is the roadmap reactive or strategic?

Final Thought

The Product Perception Penalty is real and expensive. It doesn’t just show up in NPS or renewal rates. It shows up in morale, in team credibility, in the uphill battle CS has to fight when perception precedes reality.

So whether you’re onboarding into a new role, evaluating your current one, or advising a peer, ask the hard questions early. Challenge the narrative. Verify the story.

Because once perception takes hold, changing it isn’t just about improving the product, it’s about restoring trust. And that takes time.