Oji & Ezinne Udezue: Customer Listening – The Shift from Projects to Enduring Products

This episode features a dynamic conversation with Oji and Ezinne Udezue, both Chief Product Officers at Typeform and WP Engine, respectively. The Udezue’s draw from their extensive experience as product leaders to discuss the concept of customer listening and its role in full stack product management. They emphasize the shift from treating product releases as fixed-time projects to ongoing products that require continuous tracking, support, and market engagement. The discussion centers on the importance of balancing business demands with customer delight and the need to build a “listening machine” within organizations to continuously gather and integrate customer feedback into the product development process. Our conversation provides practical insights for product leaders on how to effectively listen to customers, drive product improvement, and enhance customer retention.

A few highlights:

1. Transition from Project to Product: The modern market expects products to be enduring concerns, rather than fixed-time projects. This shift necessitates continuous tracking, support, and market engagement for products, impacting the brand and its market approach.
2. Importance of Customer Listening: Oji and Ezinne emphasize the importance of listening to customers to refine products and achieve customer delight. They argue that delight leads to customer loyalty and retention, which are crucial for profitable growth. They also distinguish between listening (tuning into existing feedback channels) and discovery (finding new opportunities).
3. Building a Listening Machine: Product leaders should create systems within their organizations to continuously listen to customers and inform the product roadmap. This process involves collecting customer feedback, triaging it, and integrating it into the product development process. Our guests describe this as building a “listening machine” that operates continuously, much like a circulatory system in a body.

Episode Guests

Ezinne Udezue | Chief Product Officer, WP Engine

A multi-disciplined business leader and general manager with a unique balance of creative, technical and management experience. Extensive, hands-on experience in new product development for consumer and platform products. She has created and supported some amazing entrepreneurial /intrapreneurial ventures and built/mentored great teams along the way.

Ezinne’s LinkedIn

Oji Udezue | Chief Product Officer, Typeform

An innovation focused and multi-disciplined business leader and general manager with a proven track record for building products and bringing them to market, while managing and mentoring high performance teams.

Pragmatic, hands-on operator and an effective communicator with a cut through mindset; at the same time really good at using creative analytics to solve complex problems and develop strategic insight.

Known for: Strategic clarity, Customer focus, Engineering minded, Business focused, Leadership.

Oji’s LinkedIn

Episode Host

Zac Darnell | Host of Behind The Product & Manager at SEP

With his diverse background and expertise, Zac brings a unique perspective to discussions around innovation, leadership, and the ever-evolving tech landscape. His ability to bridge technical and business domains makes him a valuable voice in the industry.

Zac's LinkedIn