Feedback Loop

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Customer Feedback & Organisation Decision Power Network Map

When I initially joined as a UX designer at my company, I was taken aback by the minimal interaction our function had with end users of the applications under design. Access to customers was restricted, mainly channeled through sales teams who tightly controlled the questions and presentations permitted. Customer feedback streamed into the organisation through various avenues, but siloed teams hoarded information. Complaints were funneled from sales and customer success directly to engineering, morphing into directives for designers by the time they reached us. Digital feedback was swiftly transmuted into Jira tickets, adding to an ever-growing backlog. Decision-making often favoured the loudest voices, resulting in tailored engineer-led solutions for isolated cases.

It became evident that feedback flowed into the organization but rarely trickled down to the design teams, leaving most design efforts reliant on assumptions due to a scant understanding of the actual problem and bound by pre-existing engineering decisions.

To address this, I embarked on mapping the organisation's feedback flow. Analyzing all stakeholders and their interconnections, I traced the pathways of decision-making authority. Recognizing the map's inevitable gaps, it nevertheless served as a foundational tool to pinpoint relationships that could be fortified or established, facilitating improved sharing and targeted direction of feedback to the appropriate stakeholders.

Zooming in...

I identified key stakeholders on the map, conducted interviews to delve into their daily routines, their interactions, the sources of their information, their actions with it, and the underlying motivations. My objective was to trace the trajectory of information flow, identifying bottlenecks and understanding their causes.

Additionally, during these interviews, I requested each participant to sketch their section of the map as they perceived it. This research proved invaluable in refining my initial map, allowing me to zero in on improvement opportunities within the flow.

How different functions saw their place in the flow of information & decision making power

Now equipped with a comprehensive understanding of the information flow within the organisation and the people and relationships involved, I pinpointed several areas with opportunities for improvement.

To address these areas, I designed and initiated a series of Co-design workshops involving cross-functional colleagues. Together, we examined the entry points of information, the types of information, and the desired outcomes. Through collaborative brainstorming, we generated several robust ideas aimed at strengthening relationships and streamlining the flow of information to the right people.

Eager for quick and tangible results from this initiative, I pragmatically assessed the proposed ideas, which would have the most significant impact? And, which ones were the easiest to implement?

Customer Design Storm...

Facing pushback from sales and a culture of engineering led practices, many of the ideas we had were hard to put into action. Only our design teams truly saw the value in these ideas, while the usual way was just to prioritise customers requests via the sales team.

But even with these big challenges, I saw a chance to team up with the customer success team. They had close relationships with customers using our apps and dealt with their problems every day. They really understood what was bothering customers and what they wanted. They reached out to me because they were fed up seeing their feedback ignored and wanted things to change.

Collaborating with the EMEA success team, I set up a string of in-person workshops with representatives from our top 5 customers. During these sessions, we explored the challenges they were encountering, mapped out their current situation, crafted enhancements, put solutions to the test, and pinpointed future needs for their ever evolving businesses.

The Story of a Human who had a problem

Summary...

The culture surrounding customer engagement and feedback sharing remains a persistent challenge. Our organization hesitates to collaborate with customers and exchange ideas due to the apprehension that immediate demands will arise.

Currently, we're grappling with firefighting existing applications, struggling with resource constraints to address bugs across multiple instances. This constant struggle leaves little room to explore and define new features. Consequently, any implementations tend to be reactive, hurried, and often result in a subpar user experience.

Reflecting on this, I reassessed the objective of our newly established customer partnership. I shifted the focus slightly beyond immediate concerns, concentrating instead on the future. By doing so, customers no longer harboured the same urgent delivery expectations, and our organisation felt reassured that this exploration wouldn't disrupt ongoing development or sales efforts.

Despite these challenges, we've achieved notable successes:

Developed enduring relationships with customers, positioning them as vital contributors to the solution design process.

Consistently gathered invaluable insights into upcoming trends, directly from customers' perspectives. This deep understanding encompasses their expectations, desires, and apprehensions regarding future developments.

Proactively designed future experiences to stay ahead of the curve, ensuring that when the organisation is ready to implement, they do so with a well-defined solution. These solutions are thoroughly tested and endorsed by customers, effectively addressing their genuine needs.

The Customer Design Storm sessions have played a pivotal role in providing our organisation with a clear vision of our customers future technology and software expectations. This foresight has, in turn, steered and redefined our strategic direction down new pathways.