We asked 14 startup execs to share how they communicate with and gather insights from their customers. Not just because "talking to customers" is a buzz phrase. But because if you really do it, talking to your customers can give you insight into who they are, how they work, what blogs and newsletters they read, and what other products they use. And armed with this knowledge, you can fine-tune your approach to sales, marketing, product, and ultimately growing your business. So from Mattermark to Mixpanel, here's what they had to say.

2. In order to truly understand what your customers
want, you need to hear their pain, and see their
frustrations, challenges, and desires first hand.

3. That means talking to your customers. Not just
digging through customer data, but actually having
real interactions with real people.

4. So, what does that look like out in the real world?
We asked 14 startup execs to share their secrets.
Here’s what they told us …

5. NICK FRANCIS
Co-founder & CEO, Help Scout
“It’s really important that we leverage a mix of qualitative
and quantitative feedback to make product decisions. We
do surveys, user research and a lot of calls with current/
potential customers, which balances out all the feedback
we get in the support inbox. Every time I travel, I put
together a dinner with customers and just listen for a
couple hours. A good mix of ‘all of the above’ is what we’re
shooting for.”

6. BENJI HYAM
Co-founder, Grow & Convert
“We encourage a feedback loop in all communication
channels. We continuously survey our audience via our email
list about the challenges they face in their business, and offer
suggestions and advice for dealing with those challenges. We
also ask people to share results that they've achieved from
advice in our content. Basically, we make it known to everyone
that we'll respond if they take the time to reach out to us,
which encourages people to communicate with us.”

7. CHASE GARBARINO
Co-founder & CEO, VentureApp
“Since VentureApp is a marketplace for startups to find solution
providers, our business is based on fulfilling the very specific requests
of unique startups. Ongoing communication is really critical. We kick
off our relationships with startups with a consultation, learning as
much about their business as possible so that we can tailor our
recommendations and interactions with them accordingly. We also
have a crew of business advisors that do a lot of handholding for the
startup: asking qualifying questions about their needs, making
personal recommendations and intros to solution providers, and
checking in to see if they are happy with that connection.”

8. DANIELLE MORRILL
Co-founder & CEO, Mattermark
“Listening to our customers happens in both support
and marketing channels, so there’s a constant flow of
feedback about what problems we’re solving for. We
have a vibrant and vocal community we’ve built
through the Mattermark Daily, so we’re in constant
conversation about what people want from our
product, and our space at large.”

9. TIM TREFREN
Co-founder, Mixpanel
“We decided to do customer support at Mixpanel in a
very different way: we actually teach our customer
support team to code! It’s not unusual for a customer
to send us source code and we'll install Xcode, run
their source code, and debug the problem for them.
Getting hands on and technical is a big hack for
customer happiness!”

10. MITCHELL HARPER
Startup Advisor & Investor /
Co-founder, BigCommerce
“I like to use both automated and manual approaches. You
can't go wrong with NPS as a measure of business health,
but I also just like to give my email address to customers. If
they have something they feel is important enough to
email to me personally then it's more than likely worth my
time. Being a CEO in an ‘ivory tower’ never works, so I try
to be as open and available as possible - both to my team
and to customers.”

11. JASON QUEY
Co-founder, Decibite
“I'm in community groups where my target
audience hangs out, particularly on Slack. This
enables me to have a consistent pulse on their
day-to-day events and challenges, even if not
directly related to my startup.”

12. “Building and maintaining a personal relationship with my
customers was the catalyst to my business success and I
always try to find time every week to stay connected. Using
social media and answering their questions on an open
platform helps promote other customers to engage in our
conversations. Listening and responding to their questions
and comments really help turned my business into a success
and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for their support.”
LISA CHU
Creative Director, Black N Bianco

13. JOSEPH SCHWENDT
Co-founder & CTO, ReferralMob
“At ReferralMob we use a combination of in-app feedback,
support email, website chat, polling our userbase, in-
person events, actively reaching out to our most active
users, focus groups, account managers, etc. We are big
believers in learning from direct customer feedback. Any
time anyone in the company hears any form of feedback,
they post it in a Slack channel so everyone can see,
regardless if it’s positive or negative.”

14. “I try to answer customer emails a few times a day
and take a few customer calls each week. This
enables me to understand what features our
customers are really using and what difficulties
they have with these features.”
NATHAN RESNICK
Co-founder, Sourcify

15. LANCE WALLEY
Co-founder & CEO, Chargify
“Not only do we use NPS surveys to keep in contact with
customers, I personally follow up with our promoters (to say
thanks) and people who gave lower scores to let them know the
status of any features they requested (often we’re already working
on adding the features). Recently, I also emailed everyone who
converted to a paid user in a specific month to thank them for their
business and ask if there were any additional features they would
like to see in our product. The responses give valuable insight and
help shape the product roadmap.”

16. “We collect customer feedback through NPS surveys and
distribute a weekly report to the entire company. It's
important that all of our team members maintain a
customer-first mindset, so we route all NPS feedback to
the appropriate internal teams on a weekly basis. The
Senior Leadership Team carves out time in our weekly
meetings to read through feedback, discuss trends, and
propose action plans if necessary.”
RANDY STOCKLIN
Co-founder & CEO, One Click Ventures

17. DEREK STEER
Co-founder & CEO, Mode
“I listen to customers through a bunch of channels:
our support, success, and sales teams chief among
them. The rest of the Mode team helps me figure out
which customers I should actually speak with, then I
try to meet them in person if possible. What that
won't work, I go for video or phone.”

18. “We stay close to our customers in multiple ways, but I
want to share the one way that has led to some of the
most meaningful insights: we visit our customers in their
offices. This is obviously a huge investment of our
resources each time we do it. But nothing else has
helped us gain such a thorough understanding of how to
better serve our ideal customers.”
STELI EFTI
CEO, close.io

19. Thanks for reading! Click here to learn how Drift
can help you talk to customers in the right place,
with the right message, at exactly the right time.