Cerebral’s Alex Stried on the importance of direct interaction with users

“I've always wanted to learn a little bit more about why something was happening. I wanted to dig into the data. I wanted to talk to users in real life.”

In this week’s episode of Building One, we explore the best practice of developing products designed specifically for distinct user segments. I had the opportunity to chat with Alexandria Stried , Chief Product Officer at Cerebral , a leading online platform for mental health that offers therapy and medication management.

Alex has honed her expertise in product leadership from her time at Weight Watchers to her role as CPO at Ellevest, a financial services company focused on women. She emphasizes the importance of deeply understanding users, beginning with their initial onboarding experience.

Here are some of my key takeaways from our conversation: 

The importance of early activation

“I think it is about finding that one thing to get folks in and ready and then putting a team on it and swarming it.”

Alex emphasizes first impressions and actions as critical factors for long-term retention. At Ellevest, she focused on encouraging women to start retirement planning right out of the gate, establishing a foundation for sustained engagement. Similarly, at Cerebral, she found ensuring users have three successful therapy sessions within their first month was key for retention. These examples highlight her strategy of not just acquiring users but actively guiding them through value-adding experiences early on, ensuring they receive immediate and tangible benefits right from the start. 

Building with clinician satisfaction in mind 

“We have our customers, our clients that are coming in to receive care, but we also have our clinicians and we have to build tools for them and we have to keep them happy because they, at the end of the day, are the ones that are servicing our clients.”

Making sure clinicians have a great experience, directly impacts the patient experience. It can be easy to only focus on building the product for the patient and not put much effort into making it easy for providers to do their work. Instead, Alex found that investing in a better product for clinicians was potentially even more worthwhile than adding more features for the patients. 

The value of directly engaging with users

“I work with my CX team and I say, please block off 15 minutes on my calendar for canceled users, because I want to have a conversation with them to understand why they're leaving.”

Alex emphasizes the value of direct communication with customers, specifically with those which decided to churn. At that point, it isn’t even about trying to retain each one but rather an invaluable opportunity to go beyond the data and draw insight directly by actively listening to what led them to leave. For Alex, there is no substitute for direct feedback.

When was the last time you spoke directly with a churned user? what did you learn that was different than what you expected?

🎧 Check out the full episode of #BuildingOne for more insights. Listen, follow and rate the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.