How Customer Focussed Are You Really?

How to implement customer obsession in your optimization process

These are the slides from my keynote on customer obsession at the growth marketing SUMMIT 2018 in Frankfurt, Germany.
In it, I share my perspective on the importance of customer obsession for every business out there and which action items you can tackle to change your company's DNA tomorrow.

More details about the talk can be found at herbigt.com/speaking.

Sources:
https://www.nirandfar.com/2018/04/customer-obsession.html
https://www.slideshare.net/RebeccaMosner/netflix-from-product-strategy-to-execution
iridion.com/gms18
bit.ly/DigitalGrowth2018

Transcript

1. How Customer Focussed Are You Really? How to implement customer obsession in your optimization process. Tim Herbig @herbigt
2. Key Takeaways
3. Bonus: No Animations
4. “I already know what customers need. I am one myself!”
5. @herbigt
6. Everybody is dying... 1955 2015 + Countless Startups every day
7. Customer Centricity Caring about your users because you have to.
8. Customer Obsession Caring about your users because you want to.
9. Transformation through Customer Obsession
10. Focus on Method-Problem Fit Problem Cons Pros Method Quick-Start for new hypotheses Can lead to over-optimization Measure behavior change Requires scale Untestable projects Customer has "seat at table." Customers “lie”
12. @herbigt Pillars of Customer Obsession PROCESS STRUCTURE ATTITUDE
13. STRUCTURE Democratize Access to User Feedback
14. User Research Product Marketing Design Analytics Engineering Sales
15. PROCESS Embrace Uncertainty while Planning
16. NOW NEXT LATER Theme 1 Theme 4 Theme 3 Theme 5 Theme 6 Theme 7
17. ATTITUDE Unlearn Successes from the Past
19. @herbigt 3 Things to do on Monday.
20. Start to Monitor Customer Access Metrics 1
21. Trend Prev. Month This Month Share of employees which have direct access to customers x% x% No. of steps it takes to talk directly to a customer for any employee x x Share of employees who responded to customer support tickets themselves within the last month x% x%
22. Switch Incentives to Customer Metrics 2
23. Customer Metrics Business Metrics Release Dates No. of Features Shipped Sprint Velocity Generated Revenue for Customer No. of Support Requests for Features Cross- or Upsell within Product
24. Establish Direct Access Channels for Employees 3
25. Shared Feedback Source User Feedback Coffee Teams own Support
26. Where’s the Proof? Source: konversionskraft.de/e-commerce-conversion-benchmark-report-preview
27. Where’s the Proof? Source: konversionskraft.de/e-commerce-conversion-benchmark-report-preview
28. Keep in mind
29. Thanks! @herbigt herbig.blog/gms-slides iridion.com/gms18 tim.herbig@iridion.com bit.ly/DigitalGrowth2018
30. Trend Prev. Month This Month Share of employees which have direct access to customers x% No. of steps it takes to talk directly to a customer for any employee Share of employees who responded to customer support tickets themselves within the last month x% x% x% x x warz/weiß
31. Netflix Story I WIP • We used existing data to understand past and current behavior. • We did qualitative — focus groups, one-on-ones, usability — to hear how people think and react to our work. • We executed surveys to capture who the customer is and how to think about them — by demographics, by competitive product usage, entertainment preferences, etc. • Then we A/B tested the hypotheses formed via the above inputs to see what worked.
33. … and everything’s speeding-up. People Process Product
34. “One thing I love about customers is that they are divinely discontent. Their expectations are never static – they go up. [...] People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary’. I see that cycle of improvement happening at a faster rate than ever before.” -Jeff Bezos
35. @herbigt Predictability is a thing of the past.
36. @herbigt Your only chance: Hold on to customer needs
37. Customer Centricity Caring about your users because you have to. Customer Obsession Caring about your users because you want to. Customer Obsession größer
38. Focus on Method-Problem Fit WIP Present piece b piece
39. “Based on consumer insights and learnings, do you have a product strategy that defines your hypotheses about what you hope will fulfill the trifecta of delighting customers in hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways?” -Gib Biddle, former VP Product @Netflix
41. • Example in Org Shifts from LL slides → Customer Feedback was given top to bottom and became a siloed piece of wisdom • Self-functional teams not only need to get access to the river - They need to be able to build their own river and democratize it!
42. • Example in Org Shifts from LL slides → Customer Feedback was given top to bottom and became a siloed piece of wisdom • Self-functional teams not only need to get access to the river - They need to be able to build their own river and democratize it!
43. Focus on Method-Problem Fit Problem Cons Pros Method Existing Data Good for quickly developing new ideas/hypotheses Describes today's data; can lead to over-optimization No idea where to start A/B Tests Test balance of customer/shareholder value. Measure behavior change. Requires scale & resources. Can lead to local optimization. Untestable projects. Prove ‘which design works better’ Qualitative Data Fast, easy source of ideas. Customer has "seat at table." "What customers say." ("They lie") No insight into user’s struggles Replace Methods & Problems Text with icons One Word per cell? Simplify Messaging
44. • https://pca.st/DV9p • Example drift: Incentive teams around customer success metrics, not business kpis • “A week from now, you’ll be smarter about everything — about what your users want, how to monetize it, the expectations of your investors,” Conrad says. “You absolutely can’t commit to long-term roadmaps. A lot of people will ask you for one, and they have good reasons — people who have given you money, advisors, employees, Customer centric vs customer focussed
45. • Transition to Customer Obsession as success factor • Example Netflix • Differentiation between customer centricity and customer obsession
46. • Customer Focus or Centricity: Caring about users because you have to • Customer Obsession: Caring about users because you want to https://www.nirandfar.com/201 8/04/customer-obsession.html Still unedited original, focus on 2-3 points and modify Should become a photo chart
47. Incorporate Content from https://www.slideshare.net/sachmonkey/developing-a-continuous-feed back-loop-102471360 Photo chart
48. We used existing data to understand past and current behavior. We did qualitative — focus groups, one-on-ones, usability — to hear how people think and react to our work. We executed surveys to capture who the customer is and how to think about them — by demographics, by competitive product usage, entertainment preferences, etc. Then we A/B tested the hypotheses formed via the 4 Pillars of Customer Obsession at Netflix Remove focus group shit Add “be data-informed instead of data-driven” evtl. Photo chart
49. Many of the A/B test results were non-intuitive. In building the site and TV-based experience, we repeatedly found that simple trumps complete. But there was a notable exception: our non-member site. Every six months we A/B tested a simpler non-member experience but the more complicated control kept winning. Our theory: strong value messages improve conversion, and one way to communicate value is to put lots of “stuff” on the page. Pick one of the Pillars for Detail (AB Test) Confirmation Bias in the word “finally” Point out necessary persistence and patience and repitition for applying tactics until they have been able to confirm first assumption
50. Does your company have a well-developed set of “e-staff metrics” that helps you form hypotheses, but also educates your team about the balance of delight and margin? Do you have surveys, indicating the demographics of your customers, why they leave, as well as a Net Promoter Score? Do you have the ability to gather “sample data” from customers to build a trend line and identify mistakes quickly? Do you have ongoing focus groups, one-on-ones and usability sessions with customers? Does your team meet and talk with customers to develop the “voice of the customer” within your organization? Do you have an A/B test capability that allows you to measure the trade-off between delight and margin, and develop your team’s intuition to form stronger hypotheses in the future? Based on consumer insights and learnings, do you have a product strategy that defines your hypotheses about what you hope will fulfill the trifecta of delighting customers in hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways? Customer Obsession Checklist/ToDos Still unedited original, need modifies for uniqueness an it “my” own - Only borrow Photo chart Gemünzt auf gn % of Employee Ideas for unique How many step employees to ta to a customer? When was the l an incoming su When was the l dismissed an A it ‘didn’t work in