In 2023, the FYERS app’s rating fell to approximately 2.4. A product problem had become a trust problem. We brought Support, Product, Design and Technology into a regular listening-and-response rhythm, with a dedicated recovery team. The rating recovered above four; a later 28-day average reached approximately 4.8–4.9.
For customers, the app was FYERS.
I had helped recruit the mobile engineering capability. When execution came under pressure, I spoke with the team, worked through gaps with Yashas and eventually took responsibility for the organisation and delivery.
This needed more than another design review. Design and engineering had to work together differently, and the experience had to become something customers could depend on.
The succeeding FYERS app established a stronger customer-rating baseline than FYERS Markets, sustaining ratings above four. Then, in 2023, its rating collapsed to roughly 2.4.
At 2.4, the problem was bigger than the product.
It was tempting to explain why the rating didn’t represent the work we’d done. But someone looking at the store didn’t see our explanation. They saw uncertainty: should I install this, depend on it, trust this company with my money?
Customers don’t experience our organisational boundaries. Whether a problem belongs to Experience, Product or Engineering matters much less to them than whether it gets resolved.
We couldn’t recover trust by arguing with the public signal, or by improving the product and simply waiting.
We shortened the distance between hearing and acting.
We created Voice of Customer, or VOC. Every alternate day, Support, Product, Design and Technology came together around problems customers were reporting.
Support brought the customer’s experience into the room. Product and Design helped interpret the problem. Technology could determine what needed to change and move technical issues into the pipeline.
A dedicated recovery group concentrated on those issues. Separate designers and developers continued working on new products and innovation. Repairing the present couldn’t mean abandoning the future.
- ListenSupport surfaces customer problems
- Interpret togetherProduct, Design and Technology assess them
- ActThe recovery team addresses the issues
- ReturnCheck with the customer, then listen again
Fixing the issue wasn’t the end of the conversation.
When a reported problem was addressed, we contacted the customer again. Was it working now? Were they happy with the improvement?
When they were, we invited genuine feedback, including reconsidering an earlier rating. Some changed their ratings because the experience had changed, and we had returned to check.
We later introduced an in-app satisfaction mechanism to surface dissatisfaction and invite satisfied customers to share their experience. The important work remained understanding and resolving the problem, then checking whether the customer agreed.
Closing a ticket isn’t always the same as closing the customer’s problem.
The rating recovered. The listening system mattered more.
The public rating moved back above four. Later, the app’s 28-day average reached approximately 4.8–4.9. These signals belong to different stages and measurement periods; they aren’t one uninterrupted upward curve.
FYERS also grew from roughly 100,000 customers towards one million during my CXO years. I don’t attribute that growth to the redesign or ratings. This episode shows more specifically what leadership during that growth required.
A public rating is a lagging signal. The better question is what customers were telling us before it fell, and whether the organisation could respond without stopping everything else.
VOC began as a crisis response. Customer listening, shared interpretation and capacity to act shouldn’t require a crisis.
The product was what we built. The experience was what customers encountered. Trust was what the organisation had to continuously earn.
Read where I first learnt to design for trust