Candid customer

The process of capturing customer feedback should be baked into your business.

This is an extract from this week's IMTW.

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Issue № 133 | London, Sunday 13 April 2025Read on to learn why:

① You can’t have enough honest customer feedback.

② There is nothing more valuable than understanding your customers.

③ Wall Street CEOs are brushing up on their diplomacy.

④ AML checks are fundamental yet many fintechs are still too lax about them.

⑤ AI skills are now essential for marketing career growth and acceleration.

⑥ Psychological safety, one of the most critical determinants of success, is at risk.

⑦ It’s hard to lead effectively without understanding history.

📸 But first, flashback to last month when we talked about the AI debacle at Apple and I told you that the line between preview and misrepresentation is razor thin. And just as dangerous. This week, The New York Times has an in-depth look behind the scenes. The Apple PR team aren’t going to be giving this story pride of place in their cuttings though: it’s called What’s Wrong With Apple?

What's new

This week, Stripe’s CEO said company management regularly asks customers for ‘candid feedback’, TechCrunch reports.

In short:

• “Digital payments platform Stripe invites customers to join its management team meetings on a bi-weekly basis so it can get ‘candid feedback,’ according to co-founder Patrick Collison.
• “In an April 8 post on X, the fintech giant’s CEO said the company has a customer join for the first 30 minutes of the meeting, which is attended by about 40 leaders ‘from across Stripe’. ‘Even though we already have a lot of customer feedback mechanisms, it somehow always spurs new thoughts and investigations,’ he wrote.”
• “It’s an interesting strategy from Stripe , which was founded in 2010 and is considered to be the highest-valued private fintech in the world (its most recent valuation was $91.5 billion).”

Why it matters

① When I worked at Swift many years ago, we used to host a three-day internal sales convention in Sorrento every year. Far and away the most valuable part of those three days was the 30 minutes of keynote by the one client we invited to tell us truthfully and behind closed doors what it was like to deal with us as a company. This story about Stripe matters because it reminds us that you can’t have enough honest customer feedback - and that if you think you already have the mechanisms in place to capture it, there is always room to add more.

Imagine working for a firm that didn’t have customers. That’s suffocating for a marketer. Without customer feedback, you’re flying blind. Or, worse, relying on expensive and time-consuming market research from prospects who can’t really understand the product you’re describing to them because they haven’t actually used it.

What to do about it

Take action

② You should be building customer feedback loops into as many touch-points as possible. Think of the three Ts:

1. Timeless: Systematically gather customer feedback. Annual NPS surveys still have value but with the proliferation of digital channels, it’s easer than ever to ask customers for ‘one click’ feedback every time they interact with your brand.
2. Triggers: Did you win some new business? Lose it? Did a customer decrease their spend or upgrade to a new plan? Whenever a significant interaction with a customer occurs, institutionalise the notion of asking them why - what is driving that decision for them? This doesn’t have to be - I’d argue shouldn’t be - a formal survey or process. Simply ensure that their account manager has a conversation with them and logs the feedback. There is nothing in marketing more valuable than understanding your customers’ buying process.
3. Tentpoles: Take a page out of Stripe’s (and SWIFT’s) book. Be sure to invite customers to engage with your senior team on a regular basis. Yes, there’s always the risk that their voice is outsized compared to your customer base as a whole but that’s a risk worth taking to capture candid, valuable guidance on how you can improve.

Get help

Two ways I can help you: 1) hire me as a full-time member of your team; or 2) use InMarketing, an advisory service for senior leadership teams in finance and tech.

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To learn why:

③ Wall Street CEOs are brushing up on their diplomacy.

④ AML checks are fundamental yet many fintechs are still too lax about them.

⑤ AI skills are now essential for marketing career growth and acceleration.

⑥ Psychological safety, one of the most critical determinants of success, is at risk.

⑦ It’s hard to lead effectively without understanding history.

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About

Written for senior leadership teams in financial services and technology, InMarketing This Week is a showcase for news likely to impact you - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it. It’s published every Sunday at six to give you a head start on the week. Read extracts here on LinkedIn, or subscribe to have each full issue delivered straight to your inbox, before it's available anywhere else.