Customer Obsession Flashcards
QUESTION: Tell me about a time when you declined a customer requirement.
Title: So you’re saying no, but really saying YES!
Situation:
Provided a customer a design review of an upcoming custom report builder
Introduced the concept of user “templates” to save reporting layouts
Predefined templates for which the user could choose
Charts + tables, tables only or charts only
Users could also create and save their own templates inclusive of the charts, tables and layout based on user preference
Obstacle/Task:
Customer asked to support a share feature on the template to extend to others users in the org/account
Action:
I asked questions to better understand what the customer wanted to accomplish
I identified the objective was to ensure that every user defaulted to the company configured template as part of its standardization efforts (all reports to look the same)
It’s incumbent on an “owner” to share the desired template
Who has the template and who doesn’t?
How does the user know which template to select out of the options (predefined vs. org preference)?
What about new users? It becomes a maintenance issue
I proposed and designed a more optimal solution that allowed the admin to specify what templates were available org wide as well as set a “default template”
Results:
Although the customer didn’t get its share template feature it was delighted with the alternative approach and better solution
It alleviated the on-going maintenance concern while satisfying the customer’s objective of customization and standardization
Other customers benefit for the initial customer ask
As a data point, no other external customers requested shared templates
What this story demonstrates (skills, principles):
Customer obsession
QUESTION: Tell me about a time when a customer gave you critical feedback.
Title: Don’t deprecate PPT reports
Situation:
Antiquated reporting solution in my application that provided PDF and PPT downloads
Inflexible and didn’t allow users to customize chart and graph selection
Download data (per Pendo) showed 70% of users generated PDF
Stylistically, PDFs were a prettier form of reporting
Difficulty maintaining PPT format and more prone to bugs
Assumption that PPT configurability (removal of charts/tables/slides) could be replaced with a custom report builder supporting optionality
Planned to deprecate PPT
Obstacle/Task:
Beyond the data favoring PDFs and my working hypothesis, I solicited customer input for validation
Action:
I worked with Design on creating high fidelity mocks showcasing report builder functionality
I conducted 3 customer design review sessions for input
2 out of 3 customers were fine with fine with eliminating PPT given custom report builder would provide the desired flexibility and satisfy their needs
However, one customer valued the ability to supplement PPTs with inline, contextual notes and liked augmenting PPT charts with additional data dimensions
Learned that customer liked the ability to integrate PPT slide into overall client facing decks
I interviewed additional customers and found others that also valued PPT for the same reasons
Despite data favoring PDF, I adjusted the requirements based on user feedback
Results:
In conclusion, I continued to support PPT in addition to PDF in the new report builder to address a customer need augment insights and integrate slides
What this story demonstrates (skills, principles):
Customer obsession
QUESTION: Tell me about a time when you developed something for a customer that they did not ask for.
Title: Broadcaster metadata delivery goes programmatic
Situation:
While with my current employer, I launched an offline-to-online attribution solution 2 years ago
Required broadcaster’s to provide advertising metadata to power solution (ad event timestamps used to measure impact and response)
Customers manually provided this type of data
Required operations/traffic team to prepare CSV with contents and send to a specific email address
Data freshness and quality suffered
Candance; delay in file delivery (vacation, competing workload, staffing issues)
Human error/mis-matched property headers mapped to Veritone’s schema
Obstacle/Task:
Even though customers didn’t ask for another way to send data, my objective was to identify whether automation could alleviate the manual burden/data issues
Action:
Interviewed customers to understand their challenges (short staffed, additive to workload, forgetfulness, different templates user by user)
I inquired about existing systems used by broadcaster that housed the information they were extracting as a CSV to send to us
Identified several metadata vendors that served as data repository for clients
Only one had commercially public APIs
Negotiated pricing model with vendor and broadcasters
Led integration efforts with vendor (understanding data makeup, fields of interest, mapping, request method (pull vs. push) and operationalize the process
Results:
Reduced cases of rejected files due to header issues from 10% to 0% for those leveraged
Drove onboarding time down from 4+ weeks to <2 weeks
Mutual customers accounted for 40% overlap so was able to extend offering to other customers
Increased customer retention by ~20% (2/10 cancellations reported data delivery challenges)
Improved customer satisfaction by eliminating human involvement
What this story demonstrates (skills, principles):
Customer Obsession.
QUESTION: Tell me about a time when everything was going well on a project, yet you worked on an improvement that no one had asked for.
What was the improvement?
Why did you think it was important?
How would you measure success?
Title: Search previewer enhancement
Situation:
Campaign setup included a search preview that provided estimated results based on the user’s search terms and criteria
Previewer intended to provide user with feedback and confidence that the search inputs aligned with expectations for the campaign
Applied search terms would preview a list view of up to 10 of the most recent results
Results based on campaign criteria; a bug didn’t respect the campaign date range
Previewer showed most recent results that sometimes didn’t align with the campaign dates making it hard for the user to discern whether inputs matched expectations
Obstacle/Task:
Addressing the bug allowed me the opportunity to improve its value as well
Limited value in providing the user with a holistic view of what’s expected over the campaign period
Action:
Evaluated campaign parameters that could be useful to the user when previewing output from search query
Identified aggregated est. ads, # of markets, and # of stations along with a trend line graph of ads per day as beneficial
Worked with Design to create various layouts
Worked with search team to ensure aggregated data could be supported and returned from the API in a timely manner
Showed designs to internal and external customers to influence layout selection
Led development and oversaw QA
Launched with in-app announcement of the new enhancement and release notes
Results:
Recognized and thanked by customer success team during cross-functional meeting
Third highest viewed release notes (out of 20) or in the top 15%
Success was measured by a) resolving a timeframe bug and b) reducing post-campaign support tickets by 15% related to incorrect setup.
What this story demonstrates (skills, principles):
Customer obsession
Insist on High Standards
