The document outlines establishing a customer experience framework for product teams. It discusses creating a customer experience team that is integrated with product teams from ideation through execution. The customer experience team provides research, data analysis, design solutions and tests outcomes to optimize the user experience. Partnering closely with product teams from the beginning allows the customer experience team to help craft strong hypotheses and ensure solutions are designed for optimal user outcomes. Defining responsibilities, benchmarks for success, and sharing successes are keys to a successful customer experience team.

1. A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
FRAMEWORK
FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
David Wertheimer, Vice President, Customer Experience, PR Newswire
david.wertheimer@prnewswire.com / @werty
UX STRAT USA, September 2015

8. ESTABLISHING A CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE TEAM

9. What is the PR Newswire Customer Experience team?
An internal service layer that provides a unified,
customer-centric approach to product development
• Horizontal
• Multi-disciplinary
• Partnered with product
• Shared ownership of outcomes

10. “But our company
already is
customer- focused.”

12. Idea + revenue projection = product

14. Idea + revenue projection = product

15. Idea
User research
Market assessment
Data analysis
Financial modeling
User experience design
+ Launch test
Product

16. ESTABLISHING A
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
FUNCTION

17. Customer Experience
is an integrated part
of the product team

18. Company
website
Member
center
Reporting
Subscription
products
Widget Shared
services
Databases
User
Experience
Design

19. Company
website
Member
center
Reporting
Subscription
products
Widget Shared
services
Databases
User
Experience
Design

20. Customer Experience
User Experience Design
Research & Strategy
User
research
Financial
analysis
Data analysis
Product
strategy
Front-end
development
Interface
design
User
experience
Product, Platform and Audience
Technology Marketing
Finance Operations

21. What does this team
do, exactly?

22. The Customer Experience team provides the
research, data and analysis behind strong
product hypotheses, then crafts solutions
designed for optimal end-user outcomes

23. PARTNERING WITH PRODUCT

24. We find success
by being involved
with product
from ideation
through execution

25. Situation analysis: Agility+
“We’re adding monitoring
to our targeting service.”
“We have four months
to optimize the platform
for the introduction.”

26. Concepting
• User testing
• Personas
• Data analysis
• Sketches
• Wireframes
26

27. UI updates: navigation

28. UI updates: information clarity

29. Outcomes
• Performance boost
– 40% increase in user sessions
– 20% increase in page views
• Increase in positive sentiment
– Users expressing satisfaction
– Positive sales feedback
– Strengthened pipeline

30. Situation analysis: multimedia
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Multimedia Volume
“We want to build on our
success with multimedia.”
“Let’s deliver increased
value to releases that
utilize photos, video
and other assets.”

31. Enhanced customer experience
The idea: strengthen
multimedia presentation
in the environments we
can control, provided to
customers at no expense

32. Concepting
• Data analysis
• Personas
• Sketches
• Wireframes
• Multivariate
test plan
32

33. Designing
33

34. Tracking results
• Strong feedback to our product and audience teams
• Positive impact on sales force
Template Adoption
Uniques/
Release
Page Views/
Release
Shares It
Likes/
Release
Multimedia
Clicks/
Release
Visits/
Multimedia
Click %
Visits/ Shares
It Links %
Default — — — — — — —
New A 11% +31% 16% +64% +89% +57% +50%
New B 4% +36% 14% +33% +77% +40% N/C

35. Try, learn, evolve

36. DEFINING A SUCCESSFUL
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TEAM

37. Understand the
organization

38. Define benchmarks for
successful outcomes

39. Share goals and
responsibilities

40. Share the success

41. THANK YOU!
David Wertheimer
david.wertheimer@prnewswire.com / @werty