04 May Netflix Admits Its Customer Obsession (And We Do Too!)
I have a short list of brands that I associate with being ahead of the curve when it comes to knowing what makes their customers tick and I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to learn from someone doing research for one of these brands. Netflix is solidly on my list. So, as I was recently cruising through my Medium feed, this amazing article by Gibson Biddle, former VP at Netflix, caught my eye. In it, Biddle goes in-depth (because it’s Medium and he can!) on how he and his team implemented a “customer obsession” driven research approach that took the concept of “customer focus” to a whole new level. Here’s how Biddle described it:
For me, customer obsession means a healthy preoccupation with customers’ unanticipated, future needs through a mix of research techniques that put the customer in the center of everything you do, so that you begin to see the product through their eyes.
Love how Biddle describes this, and how, in the article, he delves deep into the techniques and science they used to achieve this goal. It also struck me how closely Biddle’s customer obsession approach aligns with how we talk with our partners and clients about what we can do for them here at Engagious. Biddle’s “customer obsession” and Engagious’ science-based research approach are close cousins both in description and in practice. Both approaches are driven by the goal of understanding the holistic view of the customer. Take, for example, how Biddle details how the qualitative techniques he and his team employed supported their approach and helped them gain a better perspective on their customers.
The focus groups helped us mitigate our “curse of knowledge.” By this, I mean that we knew our product so well that it was hard for us to think like normal customers.
There was also nuance around language and visuals that we could only evaluate via qualitative. Some examples:
– In the early years, the most effective way to position ourselves against Blockbuster was through the phrase, “No Late Fees.”
– The “happy family on a couch” communicated compelling emotional benefits.
– In the early digital delivery days, the word “streaming” did not exist and was misunderstood as “streamlining” — a bad thing. We used the phrase “Watch Instantly” to describe our nascent service until “streaming” was broadly understood.
All of these insights were formed in qualitative, then tested and affirmed in A/B tests.
We learned to organize focus groups around the country, and as a team, we listened carefully, learned from our customers and slowly shed our Silicon Valley “freakdom.” The result was a product team that had a much stronger “voice of the customer” in their heads.
Mitigating our clients’ “curse of knowledge” and possessing them with a “much stronger ‘voice of the customer’ in their heads” is the Engagious end game as well. If that means we have a diagnosis of customer obsession like Biddle’s team at Netflix, then so be it.
Want to learn more about the Engagious approach? Give this a look or get in touch.
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