PostHog Handbook Library / Engineering

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# Visiting customers as an engineer

As a product engineer, you’re encouraged to visit customers at their offices to gather feedback and ship features or improvements on the spot.

While PostHog is fully remote - we optimize for async work, write things down, and talk to users remotely – the reality is that occasional in-person time with customers is highly valuable. Some products are hard to dogfood properly, and it can be tricky to fully grasp specific workflows or see how high-scale users actually operate.

In-person visits let you notice things that don’t surface on calls: team dynamics, tools they rely on day to day and small but important friction points that get lost in remote conversations. People also tend to hold back or polish their feedback when writing it down – they might dismiss a detail as unimportant, or assume you already know something when you don’t. Seeing it all unfold in real life can surface insights you’d never get otherwise. All of this makes a customer visit time well spent.

Which customer should you visit? Sometimes, when interacting with a customer on Slack, you’ll notice an obvious click with someone. You’ll know when this happens – they’re friendly, proactive with feedback, and genuinely interested in making the product better. They might also be driving heavy usage, with multiple power users, or even adoption across different teams. If you come across a customer like this and feel curious to dig deeper into how they use PostHog, that’s a strong sign they’d be a good candidate for a visit. Of course, this makes the most sense for customers whose teams are at least partly in-office – otherwise you won’t get the real benefit of seeing how they work together day to day.

Here’s one way to organize a great customer visit. None of this is set in stone, so feel free to adapt, and pay attention to what the customer is comfortable with.

#### 1. Identify the biggest areas for improvement

Review the customer's Slack channel and pull together a list of the most pressing issues from the past few months. For larger customers, there may also be lots of context in BuildBetter and past recorded calls, as well as information from their sales or CS person. Focus on understanding what they’re struggling with most and which upcoming features matter the most to them.

#### 2. Lock in dates and the point of contact

Find a single point of contact to help organize the visit. Share with them the list of topics and pain points, and explain that you’d like to meet in person to get a deeper understanding. Don’t underestimate this step – even if the company is very engaged on Slack, people are busy and organizing something optional like this isn’t always their top priority. Having one person on their side makes it much easier to get dates confirmed, which is the main thing you need at this stage. You can sort out the details and a more precise agenda later.

As for the duration, two to three days is usually a sweet spot – enough time to spend quality time with the team without overstaying or being a distraction in their office. Use your best judgment here and agree on the timing with your point of contact. A nice option can be to tie the visit onto a small-team offsite – if the team is already traveling, extending for a couple of days can allow some extra time for this.

For large customers with an account manager assigned, it’s super valuable to bring them along. They often already have a strong relationship with the customer, can ask additional questions you might not think of, and can keep things like scheduling, follow-ups, and expectation-setting smoother.

#### 3. Book the travel

Book flights and tickets as early as possible to avoid high prices. Reach out to the People & Ops team to get a budget approved.

#### 4. Plan the agenda

Work with your point of contact to set the agenda. Aim to get dedicated time with several people who use the product. A one-hour session is usually enough to go deep and uncover useful insights. Also offer other formats, like a company-wide training or Q&A session, and let your POC guide you on what’s most valuable for their team.

#### 5. Deep prep

A few days before traveling, take a deep dive into how their users are actually using the product. Watch session recordings, look at the kinds of records they create, and try to spot patterns. For example, in the case of experiments, check which types of metrics they use most often, how many they create per week, and whether there are obvious points of friction. Alongside this, prepare a list of questions that can help uncover deeper insights during the sessions.

### At the onsite

Run the sessions! Let users show you how they use the product in real time and as naturally as possible. Give them space to talk, ask questions to dig deeper, and don’t be afraid to let the conversation go off on tangents, as those often reveal the most interesting insights.

In between the sessions you’ll have opportunities to code. It makes sense to prioritize small improvements you can ship and demo on the same day – this kind of quick turnaround leaves a strong impression. It’s also common for team members to approach you with questions, sometimes even unrelated to your product area. Be ready for this and go out of your way to help. Solving problems in real time is one of the best parts of being there in person.

### After the onsite

Revisit the transcripts of all sessions – you should record everything in Buildbetter or a similar tool. Share what you’ve learned with your team and discuss if any quarterly goals need to be re-prioritized based on the learnings. Summarize the features or improvements you shipped during or right after the visit and send a thank-you message to the customer's Slack that lists them clearly.

It's important for visibility to notate on the account that a customer visit took place. We can do this in Vitally, by creating a new note on the account, with the "On-site" category and copying any known people on the account to be aware of the note content. This can be helpful in many ways even if no primary person at PostHog is managing their account today. BuildBetter calls should automatically attach to the account along with any existing email conversations.

Just as important is following up in the weeks after. Customers should feel the visit was worth their time, and a big part of that is quickly actioning the items they raised, even if it’s just small fixes or clear updates on progress. This builds excitement and goodwill, shows immediate impact, and shows them it was worth investing their time with you. Most importantly, you’ll walk away with a much deeper understanding of how your product is really used.

Canonical URL: https://posthog.com/handbook/engineering/visiting-customers

GitHub source: contents/handbook/engineering/visiting-customers.md

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