User-Centric Product Dev: Cobalt’s Approach

Cobalt is an industry-leading FinTech company for more than just its technology. At Cobalt, we believe that when we listen to our clients and put their feedback first, our product will be the best in the industry. Our client-centric approach to product development is our product strategy. We take action on client feedback and implement it on our platform as efficiently and effectively as possible. 

Cobalt’s Customer Success and Implementation teams are hands-on with every client starting on Day 1. These teams, in addition to our Product Development team, solicit client feedback on an ad-hoc basis to continually improve the user experience on the Cobalt platform. We conduct research and discovery calls with everyone on the team, not just senior leadership. 

In addition to the ongoing ad-hoc feedback, there are many other ways that Cobalt looks to garner all-important client and partner input.

“Our goal is to improve day-to-day efficiency for every user at the firm”, explains Ashley Smith, Head of Customer Success and Implementation at Cobalt. “We conduct regular feedback sessions with clients and partners to identify opportunities for improvement, and we even run ‘a day in the life’ work sessions to support development of new workflows and products”.

The feedback loop is always alive and well at Cobalt with its Live Chat function and regular “office hours” for clients. While much of the feedback that has been received is applied throughout Cobalt’s products and workflows, it is also on full display within an additional unique Cobalt resource, the Knowledge Base. This application allows clients to access real-time support through step-by-step guides, how-to videos, and detailed descriptions of the most-utilized features on Cobalt’s platform. And “Tip of the Week” emails curate and share the most timely and useful updates as well.

“Some of the most successful organizations (think: Apple) employ a user-centric approach, and the way we build our platform is reflective of that,” says Emily Monaghan, Chief Technology Officer at Cobalt, “Cobalt’s Customer Success and Design Teams gather feedback from all of our clients and then incorporate that collective insight directly into our product roadmap.” 

Regular client and partner design sessions for UX enhancements are another example of a forum in which Cobalt designers are able to garner feedback efficiently and apply it to the interface to make it even more user-friendly.

Through all of this, an ancillary yet significant benefit to Cobalt clients is that each of these sessions also provides a forum for private market firms to be able to network with one another – it is a platform to discuss and implement best practices and solutions that ultimately drive performance. By providing clients with connectivity across the top PE and VC firms globally, Cobalt enables a secure and essential space for knowledge sharing.

Have questions? You can reach out to our Customer Success Team at customersuccess@cobaltgp.com.