Expedia Fmr. Product Lead On Managing Customer Feedback Loops (Part 2)
You can learn more about customer feedback loops by going to a user-centered workshop or through journey mapping. Specifically, this process focuses on talking about the experience of the user as they find and use your product. If you have a more of an intangible product, you can talk about customer intersects.
Ways you can use journey maps:
- Sending Out Surveys Before and After
- Meeting 1:1
- Taking Notes On User Feedback
- Create Sets of Tasks to Complete
- Have a Person Think Out Loud
- Watch How/Length of Time Person Takes to Complete
- Follow Up/ Reward
In essence, a journey map for me is a way to find the happy and unhappy paths. It lets me ask what is the expected behavior. I am able to ask what may or may not go right. No matter how you do it, take a path for the customers intersects.
Looking For Customer Voice
As your product grows there are some other mechanisms that come into play. First, you need to find the voice of the customer. Second, you need to understand where these customer intersects occur. Finally, make sure that you have a feedback mechanism at every one of those customer intersects, especially at the frontline.
Several months ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting Jim Donald, one of the former presidents of Starbucks. One of the first things he did at Starbucks is he went back to the front line. For example, he wanted to find a store where he could work in and interact with the customers and baristas. He understood that if we don’t get our core product to the consumers right, we’re not going to be successful. Above all, he learned that from Sam Walton directly. Sam used to work at Wal-Mart. In the same vein, Sam told him, you are never too small for the front line.
Using NPS Scores With Journey Maps
Now, I want to get into NPS (net promoter score). So, we’re starting to see some statistics about the efficacy and how well this works. Firstly, you get a lot more engagement because it’s so simple. Users just tell us what they are likely to recommend. Secondly, with a scale to zero to 10 and a comment box, we will know what users think.
When a person scores a 9 or 10 we can get 3 to 8 times the LTV from that customer. If they score a 7 or 8, they have a positive experience with the product. Finally, one through six are detractors here and indicate that something needs to change. Companies that have high scores tend to do two times the growth of their competition. So, when you have some feedback, act on it.
About the speaker
Anne Retterer is the Founder and CEO of Mindspand - an online community that enables organizations to list course offerings and provide access to services for local customers. Prior to starting Mindspand, Anne managed the product portfolio at Expedia and established an investment fund for tech companies in Chile with Hambrecht & Quest (now JPMorgan Chase & Co.). Anne holds an MBA from UC Davis and currently lives in Seattle.