Customer Stories
Automate Triaging
Accelerated Analysis
Enhanced VoC Culture
Gathered a group of enthusiasts for fostering customer insight within the organization.
Approach
Based in San Francisco, Figma began as a web-based design tool. Figma's goal is to democratize design for everyone, and they have since broadened their reach to audiences such as engineers and product managers. One of the secret codes that companies all around the world have been trying to understand is: how does Figma make sense of large-scale user feedback?
As Head of User Insights at Figma, Michael Nguyen's role is to make sure the pipeline of user feedback is built and scaled constantly so that the product, engineering, and design teams can have the strong muscle to drive insights from customer feedback.
"At VoC (Voices of Customers) at Figma, we are constantly trying to scale how customer feedback is integrated into how we build products. It's an integral part of how we build what we build. "
Testing and rolling out Monterey AI
Michael first tested Monterey AI with Lawrence Luk, Head of TPM at Figma, to confirm that it would significantly reduce the workload of triaging. He then deployed Monterey AI on top of other data sources, from analyzing support tickets submitted from Figma users, to one-time feedback from Config conferences, to the continuous bug reporting pipeline for engineers, and internal feedback from sales teams.
Michael then shared light training and documentation with the team to try Monterey AI. Because of Monterey AI's user-friendliness, different teams across user research, product, marketing, sales, and engineering quickly find the best way to fit into their specific needs and workflows.
The team has been able to cut down their triaging time by 90%, saving six hours every week, and they no longer need to manually go to Asana and pick the project area that each feedback belongs to. Instead, the whole meeting is spent solving exciting challenges together.
Building trust through transparency and accessibility
Customer intuition and visibility are baked into Figma. There is no one-size-fits-all solution or product development process that every team follows, but every decision is paired with a comprehensive look at data from both the qualitative and quantitive sides.
" I think what's interesting at Figma is like what I've learned is qualitative data here is valued just as much as quantitive. And I don't think I've worked anywhere where that was the case, yet. "
Every year, the leadership sets company priorities to guide key strategic investments. Product teams have full control over designing how to reach the goals, but also the flexibility to adjust the roadmap based on new information (market change, customer feedback, and team changes). During the planning process, Michael would go to Monterey AI, look at the feedback that has been auto-triaged to each project area, and then form product opportunity areas within each.
As work progresses, Michael initiates the opportunities with product and user research teams, using Monterey AI as a detailed record of customer artifacts, to find the evidence to support the ideas, and most importantly, find the right cohort of users to do follow-up interviews.
One of the reasons why VoC at Figma is so successful is Michael is the organizer of VoC instead of the gatekeeper. Using the "Ask Monty" functionality provided by Monterey AI, everyone in the company is able to interact with the data in the easiest way. Questions that have been asked include: "Top pain points on the editor experience from users in the San Francisco area in Q3 2022", or "What is the connected account value that we can unlock if solving the issues".
Finally, the crucial step of effectively communicating feature deliveries is frequently overlooked. When introducing new changes, it's essential to visit Monterey AI and identify individuals who have previously requested similar features, then craft personalized emails for communication purposes (using AI again, of course).
The Next Frontier: Democratizing User Insights Further with AI
The first time Michael met ChatGPT. He knows things will be forever different. No one would need to manually read through data anymore, nor spending hours putting together a time report that has a small portion of data tailored to a small group of audience. With Monterey AI's Ask Monty function, Michael has seen team members across departments dive into data with a passion that he has never seen before. It's the starting point of seeing how roles would evolve with the help of AI.
" Product function is, should not only belong to one department. So building VoC, elevating this new data infra, making it like accessible, making it like delightful to use, that's my thing."
What’s next for Figma? They will continue on their vision of making design accessible to more people, and empower everyone to unleash their creativity. Meanwhile, Michael is working tirelessly to ensure the customer voices are accessible to everyone within the organization. As Figma and Michael venture into new territories, they will experience a new wave of growth, with Monterey AI supporting and scaling up alongside them.