Strategy

We design an environment for barrier-breaking creativity

The mission of Customer.io is to get more companies sending relevant, helpful, delightful message - breaking the status quo of the current state of messaging automation. In order to get people do that, we need to ignite their imaginations and give them the tools to create without bounds.

How?

1. Forgettable baseline experience

Peak-End research tells us that people have a hard time overcoming negatively charged moments during an experience. However, once most of the moments reach a threshold of neutrality (not good or bad), they are able to focus on and remember the positive, peak moments.

If we translate this idea to designing an environment for barrier-breaking creativity: in order to reach those moments of imagination and flow, people need the rest of the experience to feel safe and forgettable.

Dragged down by cockroach moments

Non-CIO example: if you are staying at an Airbnb and find cockroaches, it doesn't matter if the bed is the softest mattress in the world. You will judge the experience by that egregious moment.

However, if you never found a cockroach, you would remember your stay by the most positively charged moment, the great sleep you got.

2. Meet people where they are

The most common feedback we get from target customers who aren't thriving in the product is that they struggle to understand our more advanced functionality and how everything works together. When they don't understand a piece of it, they are abandoned with no path to understanding.

When there's a gap between their understanding and what it takes to be successful in the product, they are trying to survive day-to-day use instead of using the product in new and interesting ways.

We should bridge the gap, giving people more resources and guidance to understand how everything works together. The areas most ripe for these bridges are:

1. Understanding where to get the data you need and how to manage it in CIO.

2. Understanding how to use data for logic and personalization.