One of the biggest takeaways of the inaugural INMA Roundtable at Vail event was that companies need to shift the viewpoint from the company value chain to the customer value chain. 

Yes we have been talking about customer centricity for a while, but honestly I have never seen it hit home as I did during one of the talks in Vail. 

What publishers used to do has shrunk enormously. We used to be the main channel for the majority of news and information. It’s where we would find jobs. And buy and sell through the classifieds. It’s the OG of dating (something I ran at the Mirror Group in the UK 20 odd years ago).

But that value chain has eroded. We are no longer the top of funnel. 

We talked a lot about customer value chains (CVC), which map out the steps customers go through to become aware of, acquire, use, and dispose of products. Innovation involves creating more value, reducing costs, or eliminating eroding activities in the chain.

For this, we need to identify and fix customer pain points and find opportunities to eliminate frustrations. A practical idea that really stood out to me is using NPS scores in a more productive way (an HBR article with more on this here).

Right now, we get a sense of how much our customers like us, but we often don’t know much more. However if we use NPS scores at different points in the customer journey, we can see where we are strong and where we are weak. For example, is it when they are browsing, buying, using, or leaving your product?

At a past INMA event, Riske Betten, head of B2C at Mediahuis Netherlands, pointed out that one of the best places a product person can start looking for areas to improve is customer service. By being on the front lines, they know our weak points better than anyone else. That is where we get bang for buck. This is where we will see the most opportunity for growth. 

Possibly controversially, I also think we as an industry are not the best at offboarding people. Many make it hard for people to leave. Which I understand, but don’t agree with. 

At a previous INMA Product Initiative event, we had the former vice president of product at Netflix, Gibson Biddle, run a workshop during which he asked if Netflix was crazy to tell people they hadn’t used the service in a certain time frame so their subscription would be canceled. My answer was no, because it keeps the relationship and leaves the door open for when they want to come back. 

The more I think about this the more I agree with it. And this will be controversial no more as regulation around dark patterns will obligate many companies to make it as easy to leave as it is to subscribe. As a side note, this already exists in India; more on that in a future newsletter.  

Ultimately we need to go back to something simple: Are we making content and products worth paying for? From a CEO point of view, they need to create a company-wide obsession around this. There need to be internal structures to intensify a core focus on innovation, change, and growth — where the company is going, not where it’s been.

One way of doing this is through squads focused on specific goals. The New York Times is an excellent example of this. Hannah Yang, chief growth and customer officer, gave credit to this structure more than anything else for their impressive growth in a fireside chat with Greg Piechota at the INMA World Congress in May. 

Side note: If you are interested in more on this, I highly recommend the book Unlocking The Customer Value Chain by Thales Teizeira and our very own Greg Piechota.

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