If you’re on a customer success team, you know the “fun” of product update emails: endless drafts, last-minute changes, and the nagging feeling nobody reads them anyway. If your company’s growing, keeping everyone in the loop—without flooding inboxes or missing key updates—is a real challenge.
This guide is for folks who want to automate and improve how product updates reach customer-facing teams. We’ll walk through how to use Spekit to make this less painful, more effective, and—dare I say—almost automatic. No magic, just practical steps and some honest advice on what to skip.
Why bother automating product update comms?
Let’s be blunt: Most customer success teams waste too much time chasing down release notes, tweaking endless Slack threads, or dealing with confused users who “never heard” about last week’s new feature. Here’s what usually goes wrong:
- Updates get buried in inboxes
- Teams use outdated info with customers
- “Official” docs live in a maze of Google Docs or Notion pages
- Everyone wastes time repeating the same answers
Automating this doesn’t just save time—it means customers get clearer, more consistent info. And your team can spend more energy actually helping people, not playing telephone.
Step 1: Get Clear on What Actually Needs Communicating
Before you even open Spekit, ask: What product updates do customer success teams really need to know? Don’t just copy-paste every Jira ticket. Focus on:
- New features that impact customer workflows
- Changes to UI or navigation
- Bug fixes that customers have complained about
- Policy or pricing changes
Skip the “internal only” stuff or backend tweaks nobody outside engineering cares about. If you try to automate everything, you’ll just create noise.
Pro Tip: Start with the last 3 months of update emails. What did people actually ask about? That’s your starting list.
Step 2: Set Up Your Sources—Where Do Updates Come From?
Spekit can only automate what you feed it. You’ll need to nail down:
- Who owns the release notes? Usually product or engineering.
- Where are they published? (Confluence, Notion, Google Docs, Slack, etc.)
- How often do they go out? Weekly, biweekly, “whenever someone remembers.”
The less manual copy-pasting you do, the better. If your company doesn’t have a single source of truth for updates, pause and fix that first—even if it’s just a shared Google Doc.
What works: Weekly or monthly “digest” notes work best. Daily updates are overkill and just annoy people.
Step 3: Structure Your Spekit Content for Clarity
Now we get to the guts of it. Spekit is basically a digital wiki/enablement tool that pushes knowledge to where people work—think “explainers” that pop up in Salesforce, Slack, Chrome, etc.
Here’s how to make your product updates useful inside Spekit:
- Create “Topics” or “Collections” for Product Updates: Group by release, feature, or customer impact.
- Write in plain English: Skip the formal release note language. Use short, direct sentences.
- Add visuals: Screenshots and GIFs help, but don’t overdo it. One or two per update is plenty.
- Tag by audience: Not every update matters to everyone. Use tags like “CS Team,” “Support,” or “Sales” so people see what’s relevant.
What to ignore: Don’t just dump PDFs or giant copy-pasted emails. Spekit works best with concise chunks, not walls of text.
Step 4: Automate the Flow—Connecting Updates to Spekit
This is where the “automation” actually happens. There are a few ways to get updates into Spekit without manual effort:
Option A: Use Spekit’s Integrations
- Slack integration: Push updates from a release-notes Slack channel straight into Spekit as new cards or notifications.
- Salesforce integration: Surface updates contextually inside Salesforce, so CS reps see what’s new while working on accounts.
- Browser extension: Updates show up when folks use web apps—no extra logins needed.
Reality check: Integrations are only as good as your source data. If your release notes are scattered, you’ll spend more time fixing mistakes than you save.
Option B: Automate with Zapier or Similar Tools
If your updates live in Google Docs, Jira, or Notion, use Zapier to:
- Watch for new release notes
- Create a new Spekit “Spot” or update an existing one
- Notify the right teams in Slack or email
This takes a bit of initial setup, but once it’s running, you can move updates with almost zero clicks.
What doesn’t work: Don’t try to automate updates that require heavy editing or rewriting. Automation can’t fix bad content.
Step 5: Push Updates to Where People Actually Work
Spekit’s whole point is knowledge where you need it—not buried in an intranet. You’ve got options:
- In-app notifications: Updates pop up in Salesforce, Zendesk, or wherever your CS team lives.
- Slack digests: Weekly or monthly roundups sent to the team.
- Searchable sidebar: Let people pull up updates on demand via the browser extension.
What works: Multiple touchpoints. People miss stuff—don’t rely on a single Slack message or email. But don’t annoy everyone with constant pings, either.
What to avoid: Don’t set it and forget it. Ask for feedback on what’s working and what’s just noise.
Step 6: Measure What’s Actually Being Read (and Used)
It’s easy to assume automation = success, but if nobody’s reading your updates, you’re back to square one. Spekit gives you some basic analytics:
- Which updates get viewed?
- How often are updates searched for?
- Where do people get stuck or ask for more info?
Use this data to trim the fat. If nobody reads certain types of updates, stop sending them. If confusion spikes after a big UI change, double down on explainers.
Pro Tip: Run a quick poll every quarter—are people getting the info they need? Any gaps? Don’t wait for complaints.
Step 7: Close the Loop—Make It a Two-Way Street
Automation’s great, but real communication is two-way. Make sure your team can:
- Ask questions or leave comments on updates in Spekit
- Flag confusing or missing info
- Suggest topics for future explainers
This keeps your comms from turning into “just another ignored notification.”
What works: Quick, anonymous feedback options. Not everyone wants to speak up in a big group.
Pitfalls, Myths, and What to Ignore
Let’s be honest: No tool is going to “revolutionize” your customer comms overnight. Watch out for these common traps:
- Automating chaos. If your source notes are a mess, Spekit will just spread the mess faster. Clean up first.
- Thinking more notifications = more awareness. People tune out spam.
- Overcomplicating structure. Simple collections and tags beat endless nested folders.
- Assuming everyone wants the same info. Segment by role or team where possible.
And if anyone promises “100% adoption” or “zero manual effort,” be skeptical. Automation reduces grunt work, but it won’t fix unclear messaging or company silos.
Real Talk: What Actually Works (and What Doesn’t)
What Works:
- Short, clear updates tied to real customer impact
- Pushing info to where teams already work (like Salesforce and Slack)
- Using tags and collections to keep things organized
- Regular feedback loops—don’t guess what people need
What Doesn’t:
- Flooding everyone with every product change
- Long, jargon-filled release notes
- Ignoring the analytics (or never looking at them)
- Treating automation as a one-time project
Keep It Simple—And Iterate
Don’t get fancy. Start with the biggest pain points: what updates get missed, and where do reps get tripped up with customers? Automate just that. Once people trust the process (and actually use it), you can expand.
Set a calendar reminder to review what’s working every quarter. Trim what’s not. Keep asking your team what’s missing.
You don’t need perfection—just a system that saves time and keeps customers better informed. The rest is window dressing.