At a global service and tech company, product and tech team were constantly under high pressure from operational and sales team in requesting new features or enhancements. No matter how hard team worked, requests piled up faster than capacity could handle. Also, it’s often unclear of the necessity, impact, and whether it’s customer or team’s desire—priority was pushed by louder voice, larger account, or executive pressure.
The product VP and purchasing system lead wanted to change that. Purchasing system team did a NPS survey* with customers. Their question—how to go from there? They asked me to help figure it out.
What would you do if you were in similar situation?
I started with Why (goal) then determined Who and What’s important to achieve that.
- Why: To help purchasing system team better understand customers’ needs and experiences to enhance the system design and work prioritization & performance.
- Who:Product lead, design lead, sales and operational teams, and customers.
- What: A comprehensive plan of customer selection, interview, internal/ external coordination to turn feedback into actionable insight. Specifically:
- Formed a core team and aligned the responsibility: I met the product lead then the design lead; we agreed on the collaboration and each other’s actions. Product lead gathered the global customers’ data. I designed the process and artifacts, e.g. interviews, team guide, tracking, and communication templates, then explained and trained team to use them. 5 of us worked together on customer interviews, internal/ external communication, and result analysis & synthesis.
- Formed broader Alliance and aligned the process: We selected more customers who gave low or no NPR scores than high scores of a diverse representation of transaction and delivery types, industries, and geographics. We wanted to understand the pain points while hearing a broad point-of-views. We approached the corresponding sales and operational teams explaining our intent prior to engage customers—listen to understand, not to sell or make promise; we sought their alignment, insights, and if question or recommendation. Most teams welcomed the outreach and eagerly shared their experience with the customers and current status. 2 teams explained the business circumstances and recommended holding off the outreach; we understood and appreciated the awareness.
- Prepared ‘before, during, and after’ interviews: We mapped out the customer purchasing journey to get sentiment, use frequency, and perceived value on each step/ function. We did 2x rotating pair interview: one asked questions and the other took notes and shared screen as needed. The pair switched role in the next interview. After two interviews, we switched partners. This way, individual learned and practiced different skills and supported each other. After each interview, the pair discussed key takeaways and reflected what worked and not/ to adjust. We also had weekly team sync.
The result?
We helped the purchasing system (& design) team better understand customers’ needs and experiences—what (not) worked and why along with priority based on value to users and use frequency. At the same time, we helped upskill teams and build internal and external relationship forward.
- Upskill teams: Product team practiced interview & listening skills in addition to better understanding customers and sales & operational teams; design team learned about the system and customer needs/ behaviors to create better designs and work with product/ dev teams.
- Cultivate relationship: Internally, sales and operational teams appreciated product/ design teams’ efforts to understand customers and their work; externally, customers were thrilled being ‘consulted and listened’ and all agreed to participate in future design & user research projects.
Discovery with a goal isn’t just about outcomes—it’s about learning together and building lasting relationships.
* Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking how likely they are to recommend a company (0-10 scale).
Part of the Make a Positive Difference series — Thinking Differently, Acting Purposefully.