How And Why We Use Data To Build Better Products Around Our Customers
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my own experience starting a business, it’s that you have to focus on solving a problem for your customer. That has to be the basis of your business. You need to think about who your customer is and what their pain points are. How does your product solve their problem? How can you create a better customer experience that what currently is offered?
To really solve a problem for your customer, you have to understand what their needs are in order to help them: and you can’t do that by just relying on what you think. Although your gut feeling is important, it’s not always right. That’s why you have to use data to backup any critical assumptions you make about your customer’s needs.
Insights Through Data
Effectively using data will help you build better products, and do it more efficiently. When we first started ThirdLove, we put together focus groups with hundreds of women in San Francisco who came to our office, tried on prototype bras, and shared their experiences with us.
For our first focus groups, we had developed an algorithm for finding the bra size that fit each woman best. What we learned was that a lot of the women in our focus groups were in between cup sizes, even though our algorithm projected that they would have a good fit in one of our whole-cup sizes. We’d found our problem. So, we set out to solve it by creating half-cups for those in-between sizes.
Once we had the half-cup sizes ready, we asked all the women who had been “in-betweeners” to come back to the office and try them on — and their reactions were amazing. I got to watch their faces light up because they had finally found a bra that really fit them. That was the moment the light bulb really turned on, and we realized that if we just listened to the customer and focused on building better products to solve their problem, we’d be successful. Half-cups are a huge part of our business now, and it was all because we took the time to learn about our customer and then focus on solving a problem for them.
Finding The Perfect Fit
As we’ve grown, we’ve continued to collect data on our customer’s needs and issues through the Fit Finder on our website. Over five million women have used it so far, and that provides us a constant stream of data that we use for product development. It’s really an amazing process when you break it down — a customer tells us about problems she’s having with her bras, and we recommend a size and style for her. But at the same time, we’re feeding that information back to our product development team, so that we’re always developing new products based around solving our customer’s’ problems.
Continuous Evaluation Through Data
We didn’t stop there — we compiled those millions of Fit Insights from women and used them to create an even better version — the Fit Finder 2.0. The second version of our Fit Finder Quiz collects even more data points to recommend an even more accurate size. The insights include everything from breast shape and height, to the age of your favorite bra. Using all of those data points, we can find the best size and silhouette for any woman’s body. It’s changed the way we think by leading us to test additional questions and data points, and then assess how they affect each woman’s best bra fit.
We also know that no matter how much work we do on our Fit Finder, there will still be the occasional return. We don’t let that data go untapped, though. Instead, we use the return data to improve future product iterations. We look to see if a certain style, or a certain size in a style, has an above average return rate. That data helps us tweak a particular style or size in the future.
Our data is so valuable because it comes to us directly from our customers. It gives us a way to continuously learn more about their needs and tweak or change our products accordingly. Using data isn’t cold or impersonal, either. It’s the best way to get to know your customer and figure out how you can give them exactly what they want.
