High-impact insights teams use customer feedback to gain a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of customer needs and to spur decision makers to respond rapidly to changing customer expectations. The very best insights teams, however, do one more thing to produce greater customer value: they help their companies innovate.
In today’s market, there is significant pressure on brands to deliver more, faster, and with fewer resources. As a result, a prevalent challenge, as underscored by Forrester is that “teams rely on assumptions about users — what they want, how they want to interact, and what their problems and goals are — instead of findings from user research.” This is leaving much to be desired when it comes to UX which is in turn largely impacting companies’ ability to deliver on their CX promises. So, how can we bridge this gap?
First, Prioritize UX.
UX is the very first chapter of the customer story. Failing to address this in the beginning will make it virtually impossible to improve your overall CX. The very essence of any business is to identify a customer need and fill it. Is your service and/or product filling this need correctly? If not, how can you expect to build a good customer experience
Focus on User Feedback.
User feedback is quite possibly the most important asset you have to effectively improve your UX. Working off general market conditions or trends is a sure-fire way to subpar results. It is all about creating a custom experience and the easiest way to do that is by actually asking your customers what they think. Understanding how your customers are feeling while using your product or interacting with your service is what will ultimately help you unveil the changes required to turn your good UX into a great one.
While gathering quantitative customer data can be very helpful, click-through rates and other numerical proof points are difficult metrics to build a great user experience off of. You want to get to the gold: qualitative feedback.
Getting to Qualitative Gold.
The great news is that in today’s market, there are so many more ways to collect qualitative customer data. For those seeking a more cost-effective and simple deployment option, surveys are a good choice. On the other end of the spectrum, market research firms, though more expensive, can provide a comprehensive, full-service approach to gathering customer feedback. While both options are great for those beginning to explore the world of research, I would recommend considering customer communities. An approach I believe is the more modern way to deploy and scale market research.
Being agile, especially in research, is not a traditionally strong point for UX teams. It is oftentimes difficult for these teams to access customer data quickly and over longer periods. With a customer community, your team can recruit customers who are truly committed to your brand and access their feedback at exactly the right moments, facilitating the seamless integration of crucial feedback and helping inform research in a timely fashion. Communities also help UX teams facilitate strong relationships of trust with their customers, making the data collection process a lot richer than other methods. In my experience, this additional layer of establishing customer connections is what helps set companies apart in the CX race.
Canadian retail giant, Canadian Tire, established a user community as a way for customers to contribute their ideas towards product innovation. Beyond ideation, the community encompasses active involvement in prototype and beta testing phases, providing essential insights to the Canadian Tire research team. Over the years, this customer community has evolved into a key element influencing the company’s strategic direction and decision-making processes. The impact of this community extends beyond product development, including refinement of marketing messaging, enhancement of customer experience, and the cultivation of trusting customer relationships.
Bringing it all together.
Once UX research is completed via customer feedback and those insights are used to inform better product and/or service touchpoints, the journey to improving overall customer experiences becomes much easier. With well-informed UX, CX teams can now have access to the insights they need to create highly personalized customer experiences.
However, to ensure the success of this collaboration, your UX and CX teams must work closely together. It’s not uncommon for CX and UX experts to live on separate teams within an organization, leading to unfortunate silos. When both teams conduct independent research, it not only duplicates efforts and costs but also squanders a significant opportunity for collaborative sharing of customer insights, which is essential for enhancing the overall customer experience and creating consistency.
Healthcare technology provider, Experian Health, launched a user community dedicated to helping their product team gather user feedback to better their solutions. This community has revolutionized their process of gathering user feedback, fostering an ongoing, two-way conversation with users, and allowing them to access insights faster than ever before. Since its inception, the Experian Health user community has played a pivotal role in informing and validating the direction of seven different products.
The feedback obtained through this program has not only significantly improved user experience but has also become an invaluable asset in informing strategic decisions throughout the entire company including teams involved in product development, marketing, customer success, and customer support services. This collaborative approach allows the company to leverage user feedback for a wide range of strategic decisions, ensuring an aligned approach to experience delivery.
UX and CX add significant value to a product or service by providing a positive experience that fosters customer loyalty and drives revenue.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Kay Evans, CMO at Alida.
Mary Kay Evans has over 25 years of experience transforming the way companies engage with their markets, their clients, and their employees. As CMO of Alida, she is a passionate change agent focused on driving innovative marketing strategies and process improvements from ideation to implementation.
Evans has served as a leader, consultant, and advisor to many leading technology companies and has a long history of substantial contributions to high-growth ventures. Prior to Alida, Evans served in Chief Executive roles such as the CMO for Pymetrics, CMO for Verizon Digital Media, and also co-founded Radi8 Creative, an agency offering go-to-market strategy, PR and creative services. She is driven by an unwavering belief that marketing is more than a division of a company, it is the thread that weaves it all together.
About Alida
Alida believes in a world where customers are respected as the ultimate source of truth. Because knowing the whole truth about your customers—even the parts that are hard to hear—can help companies make better decisions that drive long-term customer loyalty and growth. That’s why Alida created its Community-centered experience research platform—a comprehensive CX solution powered by a highly-engaged, verified, always-on community of your most engaged customers. Leading brands like Warner Bros. Discovery, Adobe, lululemon and LinkedIn turn their customer truth into action with customer feedback powered by the Alida platform.