Building Community Around Customer Experience

🔮 Four Levels Of Customer Understanding (https://lnkd.in/eCKkGdHp), how to think of underlying reasons for user behavior, hidden motivations, root causes and the different layers of reality that are often overlooked in product design — from what people say to what they think or feel to what they actually do to reasons why they do it. By Hannah Shamji and Helio. 🤔 What people do, say, think and feel are often different. 🚫 Assumptions and hunches rely on most obvious reasons. ✅ But most obvious reasons rarely paint the full picture. ✅ People don’t always cancel because they actually want to. ✅ Pricing is never the only reason why people don’t buy. 🤔 Customers often don’t realize why they made a decision. ✅ We built understanding by studying 4 levels of reality. ✅ Level 1: “What we tell others”, unreliable, opinions, hearsay. ✅ Level 2: “What we tell ourselves”, interviews, debrief, surveys. ✅ Level 3: “What we actually do”, task analysis, observation. ✅ Level 4: “Why we do it”, task walkthroughs, context, interviews. Level 1 is most unreliable, and barely brings good insights. Often people imagine and say things that don’t necessarily represent real reasons for their behavior. They rather explain behavior through the lens of how a customer perceives it, or wants it to be perceived. The real magic happens on higher levels. But they require right questions, interviews and observations and, most importantly, user’s trust. So ask people to walk you through their daily routine. Explain to you where your product fits in their life. Observe how they complete their tasks in their environment. Study where they lose time, repeat actions, hover but don’t click, or click and then go back. Don’t ask them to speak loudly. Pay attention to when they scratch their neck, or raise their eyebrows. Smile, or laugh, or look worried. Many companies speak about “validation”. Yet validation often means accepting and confirming existing assumptions. As Hannah Shamji writes, instead, we should diagnose existing behavior without any preconceived notions or affiliations. So don’t validate — research instead. The hardest part is understanding customer’s real motivations — and the only way to get there is by building a sincere, honest and trustworthy relationship that feels right and that customers can wholeheartedly engage in. Once your customers really care and want to help, getting to real understanding will be much easier. Useful resources: 60 Ways To Understand User Needs, by David Travis https://lnkd.in/eUXJqX6B People Don’t Always Cancel Because They Want To, by Emily Anderson https://lnkd.in/eMXZWiyT [continues in the comments ↓]

How to choose the right brand ambassador? Last year, we charted our course to select a brand ambassador for Noise. We wanted the #1 person whose life narrative speaks volumes about health, fitness and the relentless pursuit of excellence. There was only one name on our mind: Virat Kohli. In a country, where 9 in 10 Indians watch cricket, Virat is more than a cricketing legend, he is a role model for life itself. I remember watching him in a match where despite the gruelling heat, he kept his cool and delivered, showcasing the stamina we dream of instilling in our products. His lifestyle - rigorous training, disciplined diet and mental fortitude - is what Noise stands for. In fact, on the shoot with him, I saw his attention to detail - every pose, every shot had to tell a story. He was extremely focused in sculpting the brand’s message with his ethos. 5 lessons from our search for the #1 brand ambassador: ➤ Opt for someone who genuinely resonates with your brand’s identity. ➤ The values of your brand ambassador should reflect your brand’s core. ➤ Look for broad influence that cuts across demographic and geographic barriers, amplifying reach. ➤ Your ambassador's public and private persona should align with your brand over the long haul. ➤ They should be willing to engage with the brand beyond mere contractual obligations. Selecting Virat Kohli as our brand ambassador was not a decision made lightly - it was a strategic choice, driven by our brand’s mission and his undeniable synergy with our ethos. He wasn’t just the best option. He was the only option that made sense. #brandstrategy #marketing #ViratKohli #noise #healthandfitness

Sometimes suffering needs a companion, other times it needs a solution. A community can help you get both. Bad puns aside, if you are a D2C brand focusing on niche solutions, you need to build community as a part of your offering. Let me explain why with example of a IVF clinic. We'll call it Beyond The Stork aka BTS. Let's understand the user PoV first! Imagine this - you are one half of a couple who is struggling with infertility issues. It's mentally exhausting, financially draining and definitely doesn't make up for a great tea time conversation. You are visiting doctors, trying all sorts of treatments but it's taking longer than you would want. You feel lonely and helpless and even though your inner circle is empathetic you don't have a support system because they can't relate to you. Cue: A community of people who share your pain, your struggles and have found success through the same doc/clinic/offering as the one you are being recommended now. Would you prefer BTS or rely on the ads that started showing up to you thanks to the non-stop intrusive listening of social media platforms? Quite a picture eh? Let's look at how you can utilise this behavioural insight and create communities with very specific biz objectives, without diluting the humanity of your customers!! 👉 Acquisition - Word of mouth is the most reliable source followed by user generated content (UGC) including reviews, tips and tricks to make the journey more bearable and a general support system who won't judge your users' 3am rant. 👉 Content & information distribution - A community, specially if it's a private kind is a safe space for people to open up and discuss things that matter. It also provides a venue for anyone in a fix trying to navigate the complex journey to parenthood. The same content may be utilized to create awareness on more public platforms across formats such as website articles, podcasts, social posts and success stories. 👉 Product and feature request - Building is hard, getting real insight into user behavior is harder. Communities allow you to get the pulse of users because of the pull mechanism. You can analyse data, understand patterns in the discussions and interactions. An already engaged person will have a higher motivation to share feedback than whatever controlled group study you conduct.While I have taken an example of a fertility clinic, the fundamental idea will apply to everything niche. What do you think? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, I am Nipun - a lifelong community first founder with a successful exit to my name. If you are exploring communities for your app, want to understand the right use case or want to figure out community strategy, slide into my DMs. We can help you integrate social community features in your app in way lesser time than it takes to determine if IVF is a suitable solution for someone or not.

70% of our trial users are becoming paying customers. Here's why. In the past 6 months, I’ve conducted 100+ user interviews. From the start, it was crystal clear: 𝗪𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱. ➡️ To truly get their needs, I had to talk to them. Turns out, mastering user interviews 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘀𝗸, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗶𝘁. Here are my 3 tips to ask the right questions: - 𝘽𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙛𝙞𝙘 Instead of asking, "What do you like about our product?" I ask, "What part do you really like about our product?" This small change reveals specific features users love. - 𝙐𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙀𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 I ask questions like, "What feeling does using our product give you?" ➡️ Emotions drive decisions. - 𝘼𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙙 𝘽𝙞𝙖𝙨 I don’t lead users to a specific answer. Instead of, "Does our product save you time?" I ask, "How much time do you feel you have to complete tasks each week?" This helps get honest feedback. By following these tips, I uncovered valuable insights and truly understood our users. And it seems like we did something right because, in our invite-only prelaunch, 70% of trial users became paying customers, although we are far from perfect 🫠. Have you already tried these techniques? How did it go? #ProductDevelopment #CustomerFeedback #Startups

There’s a difference between customer advocacy and collecting logos. Too many early stage SaaS companies still think the game is: ☑ Get a big name logo ☑ Put it on your homepage ☑ Job done (Dare I even say one of our competitors' site has quite a few logos that aren't their customers, some are even ours 🤷 ) ...and I think buyers are wising up to this... Same goes for influencers. If they’re not using the product or if they’re not mentioning you without being paid to, you’re not building brand. You’re renting inauthentic attention. At trumpet 🎺 we’ve started leaning heavily into real advocacy. The kind that isn’t bought, briefed or branded. What it looks like: → Users looping in colleagues offering great case studies → Our Slack channels getting DMs oh how users are getting results and telling us excitedly → Prospects mentioning us before we’ve even reached out → Champions posting about us unprompted on LinkedIn → Customers recording walkthroughs for their wider team → Referrals landing in our inbox with a one-line intro That’s the gold. It doesn’t just drive pipeline. It compounds. If you want to actually use advocacy beyond a throwaway customer quote on your site, here’s what we’ve found works: 🔁 Give them a reason to share. Make the product so damn useful (or delightful) they want to talk about it. Most advocacy is a reflection of product quality, not just marketing effort. 🧠 Involve them early. Co-create features, roadmap check-ins, share sneak previews. People advocate for what they help shape. 📦 Re-Package the advocacy. Turn casual quotes into killer social proof. That Slack comment? It can become a slide. That LinkedIn post? It can become an ad. But only if it’s genuine. 🙋 Celebrate the humans, not the logos. Spotlight your champions. Not the company they work for, but the person who took a bet on you. They’re the ones who’ll take you into their next company. We're not perfect at this yet - but it’s the main kind of “marketing” that doesn't need large budgets and that everyone can do. Logos are easy. Advocacy is earned.

Meta creative fatigue is killing your ROAS. Here's how we're helping DTC brands deploy 50+ new whitelisting ads monthly for zero dollars. Growth and performance marketing teams face a constant challenge: the need for a higher volume of good influencer creative at a more affordable price. Traditional content production methods simply can't keep up with this demand. Enter the solution: Creator communities that function as ad content engines, producing 50-100+ assets monthly that allow you to test hooks, angles, and concepts. Our process to solve the content volume problem: 1. Implement scaled creator recruitment across multiple platforms. We cast a wide net to find the right creators that want to create content for your brand on a performance basis. 2. Establish content creation systems with clear, performance-oriented briefs. We develop creative briefs that align with brand goals and performance metrics, ensuring creators understand exactly what's needed to drive results. 3. Create competition through challenges and leaderboards. By gamifying the content creation process, we motivate creators to produce their best work and maintain high engagement levels. Example attached of our creative brief with weekly hook challenges. 4. Test and improve content over time by looking at performance and coaching creators through 1:1 comms or group calls. We closely monitor which creatives perform best and use these insights to guide future content production, constantly improving our output. But how can you unlock 50+ whitelisting ads for zero cost? Get the community to breakeven by generating enough creator affiliate revenue to offset the cost of the entire community, including the ability to run top content as whitelisting ads. This approach allows brands to deploy a constant stream of fresh, high-quality content without the need for increased production budgets. The result? More influencer ad content that improves ad performance, reduces creative fatigue, and achieves a better ROAS. Don't let expensive and outdated traditional ad content strategies hold you back. Build a creator community to fuel your content engine while saving ad production dollars.

Last week, I coached a product team through a user interview debrief. They were excited! Users had shown enthusiasm for a new feature! 🎉 But when I asked, “What problem does this solve for them?” the room went quiet. 🫣 This happens more often than we’d like to admit. 🧠 The Trap: Mistaking Enthusiasm for Validation When users say, “That sounds great!” we often interpret it as validation. But here's the catch: - Users want to be polite. - They might not fully understand their own needs. - As product teams, we may hear what we want. This is why relying solely on user enthusiasm can lead us astray. 🔍 The Solution: Semi-Structured Interviews We need to dig deeper to understand our users truly. Semi-structured interviews strike the right balance between guidance and flexibility. Key practices include: - Start with hypotheses: Identify what you believe to be true. - Ask open-ended questions: Encourage users to share experiences, not just opinions. - Listen actively: Pay attention to what’s said—and what’s not. - Probe for underlying needs: Seek to understand the 'why' behind their behaviours. This approach helps uncover genuine insights, leading to solutions that truly resonate. 🌟 Imagine the Impact By adopting this method: - Teams build products that solve real problems. - User satisfaction increases. - Resources are invested wisely, reducing wasted effort. It's not just about building features—it's about delivering value. 🦾 Take Action Next time you're planning user interviews: - Prepare a set of hypotheses. - Design questions that explore user experiences. - Remain open to unexpected insights. Remember, the goal is to understand your users, not just confirm your assumptions deeply.

When communities form around a brand, they naturally evolve into powerful brand ambassadors, often without any direct influence from the brand itself. These passionate groups, like the dedicated Harley-Davidson riders or Lego enthusiasts, embody the spirit of the brand in their everyday lives. They share their love, stories, and experiences with others, amplifying the brand’s reach and impact far beyond traditional marketing. These organic connections are invaluable, turning customers into advocates who spread the brand’s message with authenticity and enthusiasm, making the community an essential part of the brand’s identity.

Let's face it: most user interviews are a waste of time and resources. Teams conduct hours of interviews yet still build features nobody uses. Stakeholders sit through research readouts but continue to make decisions based on their gut instincts. Researchers themselves often struggle to extract actionable insights from their conversation transcripts. Here's why traditional user interviews so often fail to deliver value: 1. They're built on a faulty premise The conventional interview assumes users can accurately report their own behaviors, preferences, and needs. People are notoriously bad at understanding their own decision-making processes and predicting their future actions. 2. They collect opinions, not evidence "What do you think about this feature?" "Would you use this?" "How important is this to you?" These standard interview questions generate opinions, not evidence. Opinions (even from your target users) are not reliable predictors of actual behavior. 3. They're plagued by cognitive biases From social desirability bias to overweighting recent experiences to confirmation bias, interviews are a minefield of cognitive distortions. 4. They're often conducted too late Many teams turn to user interviews after the core product decisions have already been made. They become performative exercises to validate existing plans rather than tools for genuine discovery. 5. They're frequently disconnected from business metrics Even when interviews yield interesting insights, they often fail to connect directly to the metrics that drive business decisions, making it easy for stakeholders to dismiss the findings. 👉 Here's how to transform them from opinion-collection exercises into powerful insight generators: 1. Focus on behaviors, not preferences Instead of asking what users want, focus on what they actually do. Have users demonstrate their current workflows, complete tasks while thinking aloud, and walk through their existing solutions. 2. Use concrete artifacts and scenarios Abstract questions yield abstract answers. Ground your interviews in specific artifacts. Have users react to tangible options rather than imagining hypothetical features. 3. Triangulate across methods Pair qualitative insights with behavioral data, & other sources of evidence. When you find contradictions, dig deeper to understand why users' stated preferences don't match their actual behaviors. 4. Apply framework-based synthesis Move beyond simply highlighting interesting quotes. Apply structured frameworks to your analysis. 5. Directly connect findings to decisions For each research insight, explicitly identify what product decisions it should influence and how success will be measured. This makes it much harder for stakeholders to ignore your recommendations. What's your experience with user interviews? Have you found ways to make them more effective? Or have you discovered other methods that deliver deeper user insights?

How to build a value-driven community from scratch: (lessons from Europe’s fastest-growing, *community-led* media company) 1. Define your mission: 👇 What problem is your community trying to solve? Make it clear, make it compelling, make it known. 2. Build trust through transparency: 👇 Communicate openly about goals and decisions. Always align your actions with your core values. Trust is earned. 3. Give value - all. the. time: 👇 99% of your initial work should be about delivering value. Selling < serving. 4. Mass ownership: 👇 Turn your early members into partners. Have them share stories, experiences, feedback. Make them owners - as much as you are. 5. Be where your audience is: 👇 Engage on platforms where your audience is most active. Think Reddit / X / LinkedIn. 6. Mix your media: 👇 Not everyone likes the same content. Mix it up - videos, podcasts, short posts. Keep it fresh. 7. Meet people IRL: 👇 This one’s self-explanatory. And, no, a Zoom call won’t always cut it. Try and engage in person if you can. 8. Offer exclusive content: 👇 Exclusive resources should be next-level. Get constant feedback and keep raising the bar on this. Paying members should feel like insiders. 9. Make yourself visible: 👇 Answer questions, respond to comments, and engage as much as humanly possible. 10. Find your niche, but make it inclusive: 👇 Go deep into your niche but stay open to diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. 11. Partnership = power: 👇 Build an ecosystem of collaborators. Team up with experts who can offer what you can’t. Lean into this (and throw ego out the window). 12. Recognize and reward members: 👇 Shout out your MVPs. People thrive on recognition. 13. LISTEN to feedback: 👇 The community isn’t yours - it’s shared by every active member. Use their feedback to shape its future. 14. Continue to evolve: 👇 A static community is a dying one. Stay agile. Stay relevant. Always be providing value. Anything else I missed?