Unlocking Customer Insights: How Spotify's Survey Strategy Transformed User Engagement
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Complete interview transcript & analysis below
Enhanced transcript with interviewer insights
INTERVIEWER
Uh, so I'm curious to, for you to walk me through, uh, the most interesting growth or customer acquisition campaign run by someone else, not by any company you've worked at, or, or specifically not by any team that you've been a part of, um, that taught you something in the last 24 months. OK. You know, something you read about, something you saw, whatever, or something that, you know, specifically targeted you, whatever, but something that stood out is you learned something and it was interesting, and it was fascinating in the last 24 months.
CANDIDATE
Mhm. Um, so something that I saw in the last 24 months was, uh, Spotify's, um, What's it called? The, uh Um, it, it's like the, uh, their mood playlist. So what they started doing is, uh, sending out surveys to, um, customers, uh, as well as, I think it was like publicly available, um, and what they started asking were, hey, uh, what type of music do you listen to when you work out, and who do you listen to it, uh, to this music with, like, are you by yourself, are you with friends, um, are you in a studio setting, etc. Um, and after you answered all these questions, they would create a curated playlist for you. Um, and the surprising thing to me was, um, whatever team was running this experiment, what they were doing was they were extending the existing data set they have on a customer just by using, um, Like a survey, and they were Um And to me that that was exciting because it says um the possibility of like everything so you might be limited on like the existing data set that you have on your customer's behavior but if there's additional questions that uh. You have about your respective customer. Um, Um, sending the survey out, um. Could could extend that, uh, data set so you get more insight into um. That respective users' behavior without you know having that data in your data warehouse.
Interviewer Insight
[note during interview: candidate is floundering a bit with this one.]
INTERVIEWER
OK, uh, let me, let me kind of reframe the question. I, I was trying to get at specific tactics or strategies, and so what you're telling me is that the most interesting thing you've seen, and, and I'm just, you can clarify this if I'm wrong, but the most interesting thing you've seen is you got sent a survey, um, as far as a, a customer growth or a customer acquisition campaign. In the last 24 months.
CANDIDATE
Um, OK, let, I, I understand your question. Give me a moment to think about that. Sure. Yeah, so, um, I, I guess the reason I'm getting stuck is, um, the things that have been standing out to me in the last 24 months, I guess they, they have been email survey related, um, or discount related. Um Something. Oh, so, Um, the thing, another thing that comes to mind is, um, how shareable TikTok videos are. Um, so I'm not on TikTok, but I have, uh, a couple of friends who are on it and, um, I'm just surprised uh with uh TikTok's interface in terms of like, when my friend sends me a link to share a TikTok video, it said, like it shows the respective content, uh, but it also says, hey, um so and so is is on TikTok, you should get on too. Um, so, the two things that stand out for me for Uh, you know, why this is. Uh, a powerful growth acquisition tactic is one, it doesn't block the content for me from seeing their respective content through being required to be signed up, and then two, it also mentions uh. Like my respective referr's name in the um like below the the content that I'm looking at, so it makes me feel that um I guess it creates like this uh fear of missing out um when I arrive on uh the refers page.
Interviewer Insight
[note during interview: running clock on candidate's answer pause was very long. Candidate needs to be aware of this timeline and consider vocalizing thought process instead of such a large gap in time.]
INTERVIEWER
It's a much better example. Um, so, how would you take what you could learn from that and apply it in a future role? What, what is the key takeaway there for you?
CANDIDATE
Yeah, um, So the key takeaway, um, There, there's two, so one is. Uh, reducing friction in terms of like being able to share something. Um, so a, a parallel example, um, but in the opposite direction is, uh, when a friend shares a tweet with me, I'm often blocked from viewing like the underlying comments or, uh, what they were actually trying to share. Um, so I have. Um, So TikTok is providing uh By being more open, um, TikTok is creating like a more inviting atmosphere, and then the second thing in terms of uh Going back to like the idea of being personalized, it's referencing like a personal connection, even though I don't even have the app installed or anything like that. Um So when I think about future growth acquisition tactics, um, it's like while you do have like cold, uh, approaches, if I'm able to, uh, reference an existing user that has a relationship with who I'm trying to, uh, Uh, a choir, I think that would be, uh, have like a, a, a positive. Impact on the respective campaign.
Interviewer Insight
[note: this was a slightly better answer. The nuance of the latter point is a good insight.]
INTERVIEWER
OK,
CANDIDATE
and so they, yeah, yeah, mhm, sorry.
INTERVIEWER
Sure,
CANDIDATE
uh, and
INTERVIEWER
so, given that as a, as a tactic apply, how would you know that what you were doing was working?
CANDIDATE
Mhm. Um, So Uh, I would look at this campaign as, uh, in comparison to existing, um, marketing campaigns and understand like what the, uh. Eventual act like. Through being a lead to the uh signing up what that conversion generally looks like and then I would baseline uh compare. This campaign towards those historical campaigns, um. As well as, like, I guess think about the the quality of Uh, that user over time. So, um,
INTERVIEWER
sorry, which user, the new one or the existing one?
CANDIDATE
Uh I guess both, but, um, so, and what I mean by that is seeing if whoever is sharing out that information. Uh, or the referral link, so seeing if they stay on the platform longer if, uh, when they're sharing out links because their other friends are also on the platform, uh, and then similarly looking at the retention rate for someone who comes through this, uh, channel versus, uh, one of the other marketing acquisition channels. So that's how it, uh, those are some of the measures that we use to gauge the efficacy of this campaign. OK.
Interviewer Insight
[note: surface level discussion of metrics. Level appropriate but could use work.]
Expert Assessment
Interviewer assessment - would be used in a hiring meeting
There was an interesting insight surfaced by the candidate regarding the nature of the sharing of Tik Tok videos which was a good one. Overall the candidate presented a level appropriate answer, but there was little in the way of demonstrating that the candidate was going out of their way to learn something new. They are admittedly not a Tik Tok user and only have discovered this item because of content being shared with them. The core of this principle is demonstrating a lifelong commitment to learning new things from new sources, and being able to teach that within an org (or to a group) for their benefit.