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Building a Customer-Centric Culture
Gold
Monday, March 30, 2020 • Advancing Research 2020
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Building a Customer-Centric Culture
Speakers: Crystal Yan
Link:

Summary

When you’re building, not optimizing, you need everyone to learn from customers. But how do you build a team culture in which everyone, including backend engineers and compliance program managers, does research? I’ll share what I’ve learned so far on creative methods for how to coach, how to share insights, and how to impact company policies. You’ll walk away with a new approach to teaching non-researchers how to research, sharing insights from customers that get heard and impact decisions, and finally, ideas for selling your organization on policies that enable a more customer-centric culture.

Key Insights

  • Breaking research training into short micro lessons integrated into existing team rituals increases team engagement and retention.

  • Hands-on quests, such as visiting a bank to observe customer experiences, help non-researchers empathize and get practical insights.

  • People often forget research insights quickly unless they are repeatedly engaged through varied and frequent sharing methods.

  • Fear of doing research 'wrong' is a major barrier for non-researchers to engage with research activities.

  • Creative sharing methods, like daily ‘postcards from the field’ and Slack bots with customer quotes, stimulate team curiosity.

  • Leadership endorsement and permission are critical to empower employees to spend time engaging with research beyond their job descriptions.

  • Customer centricity must be embedded into company values, hiring, and performance reviews to sustain cultural change.

  • Inviting team members to debate and interpret customer insights together deepens understanding and drives better decisions.

  • Research office hours alone are insufficient as many stakeholders don’t feel comfortable approaching research teams without structured involvement.

  • Cross-functional participation in research—including compliance, engineering, and marketing—enriches customer-centered decision making across the organization.

Notable Quotes

"You need everyone to be learning from customers to make better decisions, especially when launching new products with big investment and risk."

"Democratizing research means offering transparency, actual insights, and permission for everyone to care about customers."

"I took long workshops and broke them down into micro lessons focused on specific research skills to make them approachable."

"One quote we heard was, if you don’t have a maintenance fee, how do you make money? That question revealed deep issues of trust in financial institutions."

"People often forget research the second they finish reading the report, so you have to engage them continuously."

"Sending teams out on quests to experience real customer contexts is a simple way to get them involved in research."

"Research office hours are a good start but intimidate those afraid of doing it wrong or not knowing why to participate."

"Sharing a small story from the field immediately after research sparks more curiosity than just a formal report."

"Having a leader publicly and privately recognize time spent on research engagement gives people the permission they need."

"If you can find an ally in leadership to encourage research participation, that’s often the most high-leverage action you can take."

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