Today, Microsoft's employees across every division are focusing more than ever on having empathy for, and learning from, their customers.
As Tracey Craft, Brand Content Studio Manager at Microsoft said, "In today's economy, if you're not learning from your customers, I assure you that you're not making the right decisions."
This broad focus on empathy is allowing Microsoft's brand marketers, for example, to fine-tune their messaging, which allows them to connect on an emotional level with their audience. Another example is how empathy allows Microsoft's developers to build greater confidence in their decisions throughout the product development cycle.
"There's such value in learning directly from our customers," said Tom Lorusso, Xbox Principle User Research Manager, Microsoft. "Now, we can get feedback within a couple of hours and at scale. Our learnings continue to compound and we get smarter and smarter and smarter. The more we can talk with them, the more we can drive empathy into the product teams, and the better our customer experiences will be."
The results include faster decision making, reduced risk of product failures, and market leadership. All this has helped play a role in increasing the value of Microsoft exponentially over the past several years.