Feedback-driven Innovation in Ecommerce

There is only one type of company that will survive in the future. And no, this has nothing to do with AI. It’s the companies that collect, manage, and act on customer feedback. A few years ago, I was preparing to roll out a new program focused on enablement, education, and engagement. Instead of building it in a vacuum, I interviewed 20 different customers to get their feedback on what I was planning. Not only did this shape the final design, but when I rolled it out, I shared back with the broader customer base how their peers’ voices had directly influenced what we built. That one decision did three things instantly: 1️⃣ Showed we cared. 2️⃣ Illustrated that we listen. 3️⃣ Encouraged even more customers to share in the future. And the program? It became one of our most successful launches. Feedback isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s your survival strategy. Because when customers tell you what’s working and what’s not they’re giving you a free roadmap to: ❗ Fix broken experiences before they become deal breakers. ❗ Double down on what’s driving loyalty and expansion. ❗ Spot emerging needs before your competitors do. But here’s the part most leaders miss: every team in the business can tap into customer feedback and act on it. ✅ Marketing can refine messaging by listening to how customers describe their wins and struggles. ✅ Sales can tailor discovery questions based on feedback about what attracted (or repelled) prospects. ✅ Support sees trends in recurring tickets that point to product or education gaps. ✅ Services hears firsthand how onboarding and implementation shape customer confidence. ✅ Product can prioritize the features that customers say would truly move the needle. ✅ Customer Success uncovers both risks and expansion opportunities through ongoing conversations. ✅ Finance can better forecast retention and growth by understanding feedback-driven health signals. The insights are everywhere. The real power comes when companies can connect the dots across all teams and turn feedback into coordinated action. And this is where I see the biggest roadblock: Companies struggle to manage feedback across the business in a meaningful way. It’s siloed, scattered, and often disconnected from strategy. So let me ask: Is this a challenge you’re seeing in your organization too?

Your landing page converts at 8%, but 70% of customers never buy again. So you should optimize your digital experience for checkout, right? "Experimentation can't just be focused on that immediate conversion experience." This insight from Matthew Bass, our Director of Optimization, cuts to the heart of why so many testing programs fail to drive meaningful business impact in eCommerce. During our recent conversation, Matt shared a powerful example: We're working with a Personal & Beauty brand that sees considerable churn in the first month because they don't properly set expectations for when customers will see results from their products. The issue isn't their conversion rate – it's that they're optimizing for the wrong moment in the customer journey. Smart experimentation considers: • What happens after customers take the product home • How to set proper expectations during the purchase process • The relationship between brand and consumer beyond that first transaction • Long-term retention, not just immediate conversion As Matt puts it: "If you're trying to innovate and stay ahead of where things are going, it takes consideration for the user experience and relationship beyond that first conversion." This shift from conversion-focused to relationship-focused optimization is what separates brands that grow sustainably from those chasing vanity metrics. Check comments for our full conversation! #ecommerce #customerexperience #optimization #retention

All eCommerce retail businesses complain about the cost of returns, yet almost none have introduced anything even remotely innovative to try and solve the problem. In this example, Amazon, as always leading the way, uses data from: a) Myself and the sizes of a particular product (footwear) that I have bought in the past. b) Other customers and their feedback on this product, specifically whether the size is true to size or tends to be smaller or larger. Using this data, it can then recommend the size that I should buy. I am actually a size 8.5 so I often struggle with this when the manufacturer doesn't make half sizes. Should I buy 8 or 9 OR... buy both and send one back! This recommendation is telling me that I am probably better off with the size 9, and I am pretty trusting of this information, so I'm willing to only purchase one pair. #cro #experimentation #ecommerce #digitalmarketing #ux #userexperience #retail

The latest edition of my newsletter, "Insights at the Intersection", focusing on Customer-Centric Innovation: Leveraging Feedback for Product Development is here. In this edition, I dive into: - The importance of customer feedback. - Methods for collecting direct and indirect feedback. - Innovative tools for deeper insights. - Analyzing and categorizing feedback effectively. - Implementing feedback into product development. - Measuring the impact with key metrics. I invite you to read and share your thoughts. Your feedback is invaluable as we strive to create more customer-centric products. Let's drive innovation together! #CustomerFeedback #ProductDevelopment #Innovation #Newsletter #CustomerCentric #Insights

Innovation within an organization is tough—it doesn’t just happen by accident. You have to be intentional about how you collect and apply insights, whether they come from market research, customer feedback, or even new R&D in areas outside your core market. The real challenge lies in figuring out how to take those insights and spread them throughout the rest of the organization in a way that drives meaningful change. At ZoomInfo Labs, one of our core frameworks is built around this very idea. Our job isn’t just to innovate in a vacuum. 1/ It's about going out into the market. 2/ Listening to our customers. 3/ Exchanging best practices. We want to hear what’s working for them, what isn’t, and how they’re going to market alongside us. But here’s the key: it’s not enough just to gather these insights. We need to bring them back into our organization and use them to drive real progress. That could mean pushing our product innovation and roadmap forward, or it could mean applying those insights to fuel our own internal go-to-market strategies. At the end of the day, what we’re really doing is creating a continuous loop—an innovation flywheel. We gather insights from the market, feed them into our product development, and then use those improved products to deliver even more value back to the market. It’s a constant cycle of innovation, ensuring that we’re always improving both for our customers and for ourselves. The takeaway? Innovation isn’t a one-time event; it’s an ongoing process. You need to keep that flywheel spinning, making sure that you’re delivering maximum value to your customers while constantly evolving in response to what you learn from them. That’s how you stay ahead—by ensuring that every insight, every piece of feedback, and every bit of innovation gets fed back into the system to create something even better. 💡 How are you doing this at your organization today?