Recent studies on money and happiness have analyzed how the allocation of funds can best sustain personal well-being. Dr. Thomas Gilovich, psychology professor at Cornell, determined that money spent on experiences — rather than physical objects — creates more sustainable happiness in the long run.
This theory is also prevalent in the business world, as a study by Walker predicted that by the end of 2020, customer experience would overtake price and product as the key differentiator of brands.
Now in 2021 — with a challenging pandemic in the mix — maximizing customer experience and happiness is more important than ever. But how do companies find out what customers really need to make them happy? Furthermore, in what ways do the very real demands of product and price intersect with the ever-evolving customer experience?
To learn more, we sat down with Sprig Product Lead Rachel Wang and kea National Account Manager James Neiweem. They discussed not only the tools they use to get highly-valued feedback from their customers, but also how they use two important human skills: the empathy to understand others and the honesty to deliver the truth — particularly when it counts.
What tools do you use to get customer feedback? Are there ways to drill down and better understand what users are looking for?
At Sprig (formerly known as UserLeap), we’re building tools that help product teams understand in real time what their customers think about their product, so that they can use those insights to build the best user experiences. We love using our own product to learn more about our customers. It allows us to ask users questions as they’re taking actions in the product, giving insight into the “why” of their behavior throughout their user journey. We recently added the ability to conduct asynchronous video interviews and concept testing within Sprig, and are improving on those new features by using those very same features with our beta customers.
How do you put yourself in the mindset of a user, given all the extra knowledge you have about your product?
To tease out deeper insights, we regularly engage our customers in novel and open-ended ways like product salons and podcasts centered around the industry’s latest trends.
There’s no replacement for hearing from our users directly, which is why we run continuous in-product research in addition to live working sessions to make sure we are always in step with our customers. One of my favorite parts about working at Sprig is that our customers are product professionals who speak the language of product. This makes the discovery process with our customers incredibly insightful and rewarding. Being in the rare position of being able to use our own product to gain customer insights, we’re careful to avoid the trap of designing and building for ourselves. We’ve also learned over time that sometimes the best learnings come when we are not actively asking for product-specific feedback.
To tease out deeper insights, we regularly engage our customers in novel and open-ended ways like product salons and podcasts centered around the industry’s latest trends.”
How do you distinguish between what users want and need when there’s a conflict between the product output and the overall goals of your company?
If you examine the most successful companies in our industry, you’ll find an intense focus on building products that meet the wants and needs of their customers. At Sprig, we’re on a mission to help the world's most innovative companies build products that their customers love.
For any feature we could build, we’re always asking questions to ensure that we really understand customers’ needs. Example questions include: Is the customer’s feature request something that applies more broadly to other customers? What are the pain points we’re trying to solve, and why are they important to figure out now? While on any given day our roadmap might reflect needs beyond a single customer’s requests, we believe that in the long run the way to building a sustainable company is to align with what your users want.
Sprig is an all-in-one research platform focused on customer insights, and they deliver the three pillars of product research — video interviews, concept testing and microsurveys — so teams can view all their customer insights in one place.
What tools do you use to get customer feedback? Are there ways to drill down and better understand what users are looking for?
We schedule and organize periodic metrics review meetings. Surveys can be somewhat helpful in the macro, but generally speaking when a lot of people open a survey, their primary goal is to complete that survey rather than to provide the feedback. By having a metrics review meeting, we have a framework to initially review how the product is performing, but ultimately my goal for those meetings is to provide a forum where the customer is compelled to give us honest feedback on our product. People want to feel heard — not just given acknowledgement that their responses have been recorded. Perhaps most importantly, having metrics review meetings holds us accountable to making the product better by using that feedback and sharing with the company more broadly so that we can improve.
People want to feel heard — not just given acknowledgement that their responses have been recorded.”
How do you put yourself in the mindset of a user, given all the extra knowledge you have about your product?
I think that one of the most fundamentally important steps for anyone in a customer-facing role to take is to become an expert in the field they work with. What that means is figuring out what keeps your customers up at night, and how they define success. Once you understand those two things, it becomes much easier to help tailor your solution to address customer needs.
Active listening is something that is often discussed, but easily overlooked by both salespeople and account managers. Active listening means asking questions, clarifying what problems the customers have and addressing those challenges head on. It’s not uncommon that you’ll get on a metrics review call and a customer will want you to make an inadvisable change or ask for a specific feature that will cost too much time and money to build. When clarifying why they are asking for this change or feature, we need to clarify the problem they are attempting to solve. Oftentimes, using our internal expertise of the product, we can propose a solution that is much simpler than the customer originally thought.
How do you distinguish between what users want and need when there’s a conflict between the product output and the overall goals of your company?
I think this question ties into the previous one: The customer may ask for the product to do a certain thing that will take months to build, and cost a lot financially. It reminds me of an adage often attributed to Henry Ford: “If I would have asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses.”
First and foremost, you have to do what’s best for the company, but customers will understand that, so it’s OK. Clarifying the challenge the customer is facing will oftentimes allow you to provide a better solution that the customer may not have even considered. In the event the customer is asking for a product that doesn’t exist or is flat-out impossible, it’s important to be empathetic and understanding towards them. If the answer needs to be “no,” then communicate this in addition to the reasoning. While in the moment, it can feel uncomfortable to have to tell someone that what they’re asking for isn’t possible, they will always appreciate the candor and it will build a trusting, long-term partnership.
As the company that built a SaaS voice product that takes calls and orders on the behalf of restaurants, kea is an AI-driven platform that likes to call itself the “Cashier in the Cloud.”
