In the arms race for the most talented developers, fanciest offices and catchiest slogans, tech vendors may neglect one crucial ingredient for success: the voices of customers. We spoke to a VP of sales who said his company owes its impressive growth to its willingness to stay close to customers and humbly listen to their opinions.

Talend Inc. recently reported its third quarter earnings, which revealed a 40 percent total growth year-over-year and revenue from cloud and Big Data solutions up 100 percent year-over-year.

Talend’s VP of sales, Shane Kent, stated it’s all down to staying as close to customers as possible through localized marketing. “We’ve got a lot of demand from the customers reaching out wanting to share similar use cases, stories about how they’re getting the best value out of their solution,” he told Sam Kahane (@Sam_Kahane) of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team.

Boston Talend party

Doubling down on this strategy, Talend operates a Boston outpost to keep in close contact with customers there.

“There’s a lot of customers that are moving into the Boston area,” he said, noting GE for example. “To be able to be onsite, local, and available is really important.”

Two ears and one mouth

Kent said that the company will continue to use customer feedback in the development of future products.

“We’re very concerned and focused on listening to the customers and incorporating their needs back into our solution so that ultimately we can help them drive more value,” he said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Talend Beer and Big Data 2016. (*Disclosure: Some segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE are sponsored. However, no sponsorships have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo by SiliconANGLE