UserTesting's Estes: Conquering Customer Experience Nightmares

In a CMSWire Q&A, Janelle Estes, chief insights officer at UserTesting, discusses why companies over-index on customer acquisition while neglecting the post-purchase experience. She argues that maintaining customer trust requires regular 'health checks' of key interaction flows, such as onboarding, support, and problem resolution. Estes recommends evaluating these flows at least annually, ideally quarterly, and monitoring data for signals like funnel drop-offs or call-center spikes. She also advises studying competitors and examining the full experience across touchpoints over time, rather than point-in-time interactions. Finally, Estes emphasizes humanizing customers by bringing their stories to life inside organizations, saying people connect more with narratives than with dashboard data. She believes companies that do this will differentiate themselves. The conversation was hosted by CMSWire managing editor Dom Nicastro and drawn from Estes' column 'The Long Tail Effect and What It Means for Customer Experience.'