Tips on understanding customers’ core needs

Prior to her five years at Pinterest, Kitty Zhe Xu spent more than a decade doing neuroscience research in academia, exploring what happens in the brain when decision making takes place. Working as a quantitative user researcher at Pinterest, Xu’s main focus is on helping make data-driven, user-centered product decisions that improve end-user experience on Pinterest. 

Using empathy to improve user experiences

Xu says: “My job is to use data (survey data and log behavioral data) to build a deep understanding of people who use PInterest (which include Pinners and business users), and work with the product, design and engineering [teams to] directly to apply these findings to improve the end-user experience on Pinterest.” 

In CX Network’s Digital Customer Experience Report that is launching in August 2021, 37 per cent of the 190 CX experts surveyed admitted they struggle to understand customer behavior across digital channels and products. Xu’s experience has taught her that empathy and understanding are vital ingredients for building user-facing products.

She notes: “A line of code or a design prototype might feel intuitive to you as the engineer who built it or the designer who designed it, but it might not be intuitive to a user at all.” Xu adds: ”It's critical the individuals involved in product development spend time with the users, observing how people use the product, and why they want to use it in the first place.”

Source: Pinterest Newsroom Press Center

When it comes to observing customer behaviors through data analysis, the perspectives of multiple departments will be vital to reaching accurate explanations for user actions and decisions. 

Xu explains: “You need to rely on multiple sources of data and multiple departments in your business, because every methodology has its pros and cons but when you have multiple sources of data collectively telling a coherent story, that’s when your data becomes compelling and your story is more valid and trustworthy.”

To effectively communicate the data’s findings to colleagues and fix any misconceptions around customer perspectives and behaviors, CX and UX professionals should avoid bombarding stakeholders with mountains of data. “When it comes to sharing raw customer data, sometimes a sentence, a word or a quote is worth more than a whole presentation deck,” says Xu. Share the findings using language and media that will resonate with the stakeholders and be easy to understand.

Picking up new signals and customer preferences 

To understand emerging customer signals or habits, Xu notes that the answer lies in conducting research that directly asks customers for their opinions. 

“Maybe you notice a sharp increase or decrease in usage with a certain service. Ask the affected customers why. They may let you know there has been a key life event which is changing their behavior or they are simply running into issues with your service,” Xu advises.

CX professionals need to ensure researcher bias is not skewing observations. When a new signal is noticed, brands should dig into their data to deduce how representative this trend is across customer base or whether it only affects a small segment of users.

Creating an omnichannel experience using customer centric service design

Before limited engineer resources are absorbed by building an omnichannel model, Xu advises brands to first assess if channel integration is even a priority to address a key customer need. Insights from conducting user research may show that in fact channel optimization is more important to customers. 

“You might learn from user research that you have to think about the environment your customers are in, the tasks they need to complete and the challenges they are facing in using your service,” explains Xu. 

“Most consumers are experiencing things on mobile, but then in countries where internet is slow or expensive via mobiles they may prefer to access your service via desktops.” Xu notes that in this case rather than focusing on smoothing the integration between channels, it would be more worthwhile to invest resources into building a best-in-class desktop experience so customers feel their interactions with the brand are valued, ensuring customer relationships are strengthened. 

Xu adds: “Channel integration is still an option, but first of all you need to understand your user’s perspective and how can you best optimize your service design to help their experience.”

To hear more from insights from Pinterest’s Xu, save your slot at CXN Live: Customer Data and Analytics.