6 Tips For Being A Customer-Driven Designer

When I was 16, I started waiting tables at a breakfast joint down the street from my house. Really I only worked 2 mornings a week — but — in those weekly 18-ish hours, I figured out ways to make almost 20% more in tips than my fellow wait-staff.

Every single trick I stored up my sleeve included going above and beyond for my customers. My section always had the freshest coffee, the hottest food, the best jokes (up for debate), and when something wasn’t right — I fixed it. Even if it meant picking up a portion of their meal out of my own pocket. Those customers came back and they tipped more, because they knew I was going to take care of them.

That’s called the “Service Mindset”, and it is the most important ingredient in being a customer-driven designer. This whole concept sounds obvious, but there are so many things that get in the way of actually serving the customer.

Let’s talk about a few things that can go wrong, and ways to fix them.

1. Listen, don’t assume.

This is the bread and butter of being a designer. But there are still so many of us that struggle with the golden rule: listen.

The worst thing you can do is assume what you customer wants or needs. And truthfully, there is only so much you can speculate from a survey. You need to talk to your customers. Get out of the building! Meet your customers/prospects for coffee. Understand how they are doing things now and what they wish they could be doing.

Listen to their pain. And then take that pain back to your product team and solve it.

2. If you have to assume, assume you are wrong.

Sometimes you just need to find a place to start in order to keep the train moving. If you are guessing, then guess! And then assume that your guess is way off.

Now it’s your job to prove or disprove that hunch by — you guessed it — talking to customers!

3. Vet your workload, don’t just default to what is asked for.

A few months ago my PM came to me and said “Elyse, we only need XX — can you design it?.” My reply: “Sure! I can do that.”

After I spent some time putting it together AND our dev team implemented it, we realized something wasn’t right. To cut to the chase, we built the wrong thing because we assumed (see the pattern here) what would work for our customer! If we had spent 30 minutes doing a little research with 1 or 2 customer calls, we would’ve known that!

The next day, we immediately changed our work-flow to be even more customer-driven.

4. Test, test, test.

Test everything and test it often. At Drift we take testing seriously. We only care about building the thing that is going help our customers the MOST. So we listen, and then we test.

My PM probably has 15 calls a week with customers. This gives me plenty of opportunity to sit in, show what I’m working on, and understand how (or if) our solutions are “the right thing”.

5. Honor your testing findings.

I’m still surprised when designers use “Well.. WE are the UX experts, right?” as an excuse for not delivering what the customer needs.

Sometimes customer feedback can conflict with what we designers define as “good design.” When this happens the worst thing to do is dismiss the customer and their feedback because it complicates our beautifully designed interface. That’s not being customer-driven. That is being stubborn!

We are “UX Experts” because we know (should know) how to understand our customer and design for them, not ourselves.

6. Iteration is key.

We can listen, we can test, but we aren’t fully doing our jobs if we stop there!

Iteration is the key to going above and beyond. So don’t let your design process stop after your first round of testing or once your solution is implemented into the product. Iterations are the sprinkles on top that allow you to optimize the product and amaze your customers.

When I think about putting all these concepts to work at Drift, I remember what I knew when I was waiting tables in high school: go above and beyond. Any breakfast can fill a customer up, but it’s the great service and attention to detail that keeps them coming back for more.

Want to see what we’re building at Drift?