USERTESTING APPOINTS JANELLE ESTES TO CHIEF INSIGHTS OFFICER; DOUBLES DOWN ON THE FUTURE OF HUMAN INSIGHT TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER OUTCOMES

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif – December 18, 2018 – UserTesting, the leading on-demand human insight platform, today announced the addition of Janelle Estes to the C-Suite. Formerly VP of Strategic Research Services at UserTesting, Estes has been promoted to a newly formed role as Chief Insights Officer, where she will be responsible for stewarding the future of Human Insight and setting the tone for the company’s thought leadership. She will work closely with UserTesting customers to identify the key trends and best practices shaping the industry—and translate them into opportunities to evolve the company’s Human Insight platform.

Estes is a research practitioner fascinated by human behavior and intrigued by data insight. She brings over 15 years of experience to the Chief Insights Officer role and has conducted large-scale customer research initiatives for both B2C and B2B companies across a variety of industries to help them transform their customer, user, and brand experiences. An advisor to Harvard Business School Startup Bootcamp and a guest lecturer in Human Factors in Information Design at Bentley University, Estes is an influencer in the customer experience (CX) community. Prior to UserTesting, she held user experience (UX) research consulting roles at Nielsen Norman Group and Forrester Research.

“Listening to and understanding customer needs is the most critical activity in creating experiences that deliver positive business impact,” said Janelle Estes, Chief Insights Officer at UserTesting. “I look forward to working even closer with our customers in this new role and using the learnings to influence our internal strategies and channels that will allow us to more effectively leverage the voice of the customer throughout all stages of the decision-making process.”

“I’m excited to have Janelle step into the role of Chief Insights Officer to help us steward the future of Human Insight and enable us to further define the value customer empathy brings to a business – from revenue and retention through lifetime value,” said Andy MacMillan, CEO of UserTesting. “When companies truly embrace Human Insight at the core of their business, empathy becomes the outcome – and with empathy, companies can begin to deliver on the customer experience.”

CX continues to be a competitive battlefield as we move into 2019 – and those companies who are serious about the ‘experiences’ they provide will have the opportunity to differentiate against the competition. Differentiating through great CX means providing experiences that create the right emotional connection between the customer and the brand. In order for companies to create that connection with customers, they must be able to deeply relate to their challenges and understand their needs and desires across all stages of the customer journey – this means closing the empathy gap and building in the engagement strategies that delight and convert customers into advocates.

Drawing on her extensive research and learned customer insight, Estes predicts the following three CX trends for 2019:

1. Companies that prioritize ‘experiences’ both offline and online will continue to differentiate through exceptional CX, whereas some companies will make the decision to pull back on their investment due to lack of time, resources, and a delayed ROI. As a result, those companies who are “all-in” on CX can jump in and create experiences that drive acquisition and loyalty.
2. More companies will seek to bridge the ‘empathy gap’ in their experiences as heightened awareness for making the right emotional connection and its impact on customer loyalty grows. In order for companies to make that interpersonal connection, they must deeply understand and empathize with their customers by truly understanding their motivations, needs, desires, behaviors, and intent. After this deep understanding, they can then create and pivot offerings that tap into the needs of their customers.
3. Best-in-class brands will provide hyper-personalized experiences to meet the ever-evolving customer expectations associated with the feeling of a brand ‘truly knowing them’ – which translates to perceived value for the customer and loyalty to the brand. We can expect to see companies investing in people, processes, and technologies that drive hyper-personalized experiences as a differentiation strategy.