I periodically attend leadership conferences, including the Annual Conference of the American Society of Association Executives. At this event last year, professionals in the field of customer experience reinforced why listening to customers – and then processing and applying the input received – is key to a great customer experience. FGIA recently put this premise into practice with respect to the development of a major technology project.
FGIA is in the process of launching a new website for the Association. But to give our members the best experience possible, we knew we needed to find out what their needs, current frustrations and other points of information and interest were. Here is the approach we took to listen to our customers and deliver an experience that meets those needs, including how the input was gathered, some key takeaways of what resulted from those conversations and what action we took as a direct response to that feedback.
1. Solicit Feedback
One key aspect of listening to customers is establishing intentional forums for soliciting feedback from a reasonably representative cross-section of your customer base. In preparing for the FGIA website redesign, focus group calls were held twice with members of our Marketing and Engagement Steering Committee (MESC) to ensure that our key stakeholders had the opportunity to communicate their vision for the project. Because the MESC has an appointed roster that represents all councils and member segments within our organization, we felt this committee was a good fit to represent the membership at large.
2. Quietly Observe
Another key component is being careful not to influence the discussion, so the feedback collected is genuine and meaningful. Though the FGIA Marketing team participated in the focus group to hear the discussion directly, they did not engage in the conversation thus avoiding skewing any of the ideas. By quietly observing, however, they were able to lend perspective on some of the feedback so the contracted creative marketing agency could take action and make recommendations.
To further encourage the conversation to develop organically and not be influenced by those running the project, an approach of open-ended questions in a variety of formats is helpful. The marketing agency provided a research moderator to lead the group through open-ended questions related to the project and engaged members for feedback, asking follow-up questions as needed. The group was asked for information about member experiences with the FGIA website, where members go for information within the industry, and how FGIA could better serve our members through the redesign. In addition to the focus group, MESC members completed an electronic survey with open ended questions related to the site.
3. Distill Answers
Distilling answers to open-ended questions can be challenging, but that’s the next step in the process. From our input collection forums, we determined that a key goal with the redesign was to provide a smoother member experience and more tools, which necessitated more interaction between our website and member database through application programming interface (API) endpoints. Hearing from members that a dashboard that was more unique to their engagement and interests was also a critical takeaway that is being implemented. And they asked for more detail in the respective certification lists, which is being addressed via additional API endpoints. Other takeaways were the need for robust searches to find information on the site and improving the FGIA Events area, so that all information related to a specific event is housed together.
4. Validate and Execute
When it comes to execution on the outcomes from the listening sessions, it is valuable to go back to the source to validate your direction. In our case, MESC members were asked to review prototype pages of certain areas of the site – including some of those discussed above – and offer feedback. This follow-up process provided refined direction to enhance aspects related to committee and task group engagement, dashboard personalization, navigation and the use of video content.
For this project, in particular, it was critical for the primary focus to be our customers’ experience. Identifying the right cross-section of people to solicit, listening without influencing, and applying our learnings served to guide our path. It’s a process that can be followed for any work you’re considering related to serving your customers more effectively and I’d encourage you to try it in your organization. We’re feeling great about the process we used and the outcomes we achieved which will be unveiled when the new website launches, currently expected in Q2.
