Mine Customer Support Data

We expand beyond metrics mapping and customer experience mapping by introducing additional, nuanced techniques to help us continuously refine our input metrics. These customer- and defect-driven approaches give us real-world signals that are often overlooked—but are rich with opportunities for improvement.

Key Takeaways:

• We believe customer and shareholder interests are aligned: At Amazon, we were driven by the conviction that obsessing over customers naturally serves the long-term interests of shareholders. This philosophy shaped our approach to metrics and improvement.
• We treat every customer interaction as a source of insight: Whether the "customer" is a buyer on Amazon or an internal team we support, we use their feedback to uncover meaningful input metrics that help us improve service and outcomes.
• We mine customer support data as a diagnostic tool: We tracked the top reasons customers contacted support—questions like “Where’s my stuff?” or complaints like “You sent the wrong item”—and used these to create new metrics such as “the switcheroo,” which measured item mix-ups.
• We made problem frequency visible and actionable: These contact reasons and metrics were reviewed weekly in our WBR, ensuring we remained focused on resolving the most impactful customer issues.
• We talked directly to customer-facing teams: We routinely engaged with customer support representatives to gather firsthand insights about recurring pain points by category—adding human intelligence to our data-driven approach.

These additional techniques may not generate as many metrics as mapping exercises, but they provide powerful context and depth to our understanding of what truly matters to customers.

To dive deeper into Input Metrics Mastery and learn more from Bill and Colin, follow these links:

• Take the full course at their website: https://workingbackwards.com/
• Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595
• Bill's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-carr/
• Colin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinbryar/