How to leverage trust to future-proof retention? — Elize Bosker @ Deezer, Spideo and Hotjar
Introduction
Elize Bosker is a former Product Leader at companies such as Hotjar, Spideo and Deezer.
Her talk was focused on Trust: trust between a product and its users, but also trust between coworkers inside the company.
TL;DR
Product Workflows that enable Trust:
- Level 1 — Measure Impact: HEART metrics
To define health metrics and measure the impact of your actions on the customer experience - Level 2 — Take the Transparency Test
To provide the right level of information to build trust - Level 3 — Establish Ethical Product Principles
To ensure inclusive design and decision-making processes - Level 4 — Reduce Risk through Check-lists
To anticipate unforeseen issues and avoid unintended consequences
Explore core elements of trust
Let’s start by defining what is trust: Trust is the combination of Authenticity, Logic, and Empathy.
Elize walks us through an example where she had to work on a Design System restructuration that was painful because her coworkers felt she was not empathizing, nor understanding their needs.
When such a situation happens, you will probably ask yourself: how to rebuild trust? The most important is:
- Being open about your mistakes
- Involve and understand specificities
It is also important to be consistent: consistency in behavior is key to creating a trustful environment.
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Level up on trust-building
Understand trust and create awareness
There are three core elements to build trust between your product and your users:
- Ask permission to use their data
- Give them control of how their data is used
- Be open and transparent
The customer trust funnel can be seen as a four-step funnel. Establishing a trust funnel can help you systematically build and strengthen your customers’ trust and loyalty to your product.
- Privacy
We’re now all familiar with GDPR and cookie policies. They can be pretty boring or excessively detailed, like the one you cand find on Forbes.com.
This is usually the first touchpoint you have with your future users, so be careful to have the right level of information to encourage users to trust you when it comes to their data. - Pricing
Transparent product pricing will always make you look more trustworthy. You’re not trying to earn money on your user’s backs, but instead, you’re showing them exactly what they will pay for, what is included and what is not. - Satisfaction
Radical transparency can be a source of satisfaction. The fashion industry has seen the birth of many young brands that have been very transparent about their production costs and profit. This is obviously good marketing, but it is still interesting. - Impact
Honest truth can also be interesting to build trust between a company and its customers/users. One famous example of this honest truth is Patagonia which didn’t hesitate to advertise “Don’t buy this product” to be aligned with their principles.
Personalization is also a good way to build trust… but only if it works well!
We all have examples in mind of bad recommendations in e-commerce: you just added a pair of jeans to your cart, and you are recommended a pair of sneakers that has nothing to do with your tastes.
On the contrary, in recent years the entertainment industry (products such as Deezer, Netflix, Spotify) has been very relevant in recommending new artists to listen to, a new series to watch right after finishing watching Game of Thrones, etc. This leads to a better stickiness to those products.
Measure impact: HEART metrics
One of the ways to measure your level of trust is to use the HEART framework designed by Kerry Rodden, Hilary Hutchinson and Xin Fu, from Google’s research team
The most important to build trust is to focus on retention.
Streaming industry leaders like Netflix, Disney+, Prime, etc. are facing more competition than ever, this is the streaming wars. To try to win this battle, HBO led an experiment to improve retention
One good example here is the streaming wars that all content platforms are currently experiencing. To try to win this battle, HBO Max led an experiment to improve retention: recommendations were shown to the audience, after having watched Game Of Thrones, based on the core pillars of the show (fantasy, romance, etc.). Users had a better experience on the platform and as a result, it improved loyalty and retention.
Take the transparency test
To know if your product is a trusted place, you can take the Transparency test, which consists in asking yourself those two questions:
- Are we withholding information to maximize understanding — or to obstruct it?
- Would more information, for this audience, at this time, on this medium, aid or hinder their understanding?
Establish ethical product principles
Ethical decision-making
When building products, everyone should ask themselves the question: How can my product negatively impact society?
Indeed, it is important to remember that the products we create sometimes have unexpected consequences. Probably one of the most popular examples is the ‘Like’ button on social media. For many people, it has had a huge personal impact: many studies have shown that when people receive less engagement on their posts, they are more likely to be depressed or suffer emotional distress.
To avoid those unforeseen consequences, you should:
- Write down a product code or ethics or principles
- Identify the ethical shortcomings of your product
- Bake ethics into the product development process
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Designing for the edges
A common assumption in Product teams is to use the Pareto law (80/20 rule) when building products in order to serve most of the users.
But truly inclusive design focuses on the 20% outliers.
It’s this kind of attention that will help you build trust with your users.
At Yousign we’re currently investing in making our signature product more accessible. Our vision is to take our signature experience to the level AA by the end of the year 2022.
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Reduce risk with a checklist
Product Workflow: Product Risk Check-list
For each type of risk (PII data, Transparency, Data Integrity, Accessibility, and Unforeseen consequences) you should evaluate the risk level (Low, Medium or High).
At Yousign we use a similar framework to allow each product squad to assess the level of risk before releasing a new feature. It helps us share a common definition and understanding of the risks.
Conclusion
Users are increasingly demanding. What was ok for them yesterday is not anymore.
Your product must be trustworthy so that your users remain loyal to it.
It is also true for your company and your employees: building trust in the relationships between your employees is a key to success.
