The Customer-Driven Culture: A Microsoft Story

Chapter 7. Make Data Relatable

As teams in DevDiv began employing our customer-driven methods, we found there were times when they would become frustrated by the lack of action in response to their discoveries.

For example, I’d work with a team and they would do a fantastic job of identifying their assumptions, formulating them into hypotheses and running round after round of customer interviews. They were doing all the right things, yet it would be difficult to move the project beyond just data collection. These teams would become frustrated, wondering why their validated or invalidated hypotheses weren’t enough to move their teams into action.

If you’re an organization that is suffering from low customer satisfaction scores, a decline in product engagement, or customer indifference toward new products and services, these situations can be very urgent. In the face of those issues, it can be incredibly frustrating when you’re met with inaction or apathy.

In this chapter, we explore the power of generating data that is relatable. This is an incredible hack that, when applied correctly, can inspire people to change their behavior in positive ways.

We cannot influence change with data and numbers alone. You need stories to bring that data to life in a way that captures people’s attention and compels them to action. In a customer-driven culture, your customers’ stories are what keep your employees connected to the company’s mission. Your customers must become more than a set of numbers ...