Why Great Products Start with Understanding Customers, with Gloria Osardu
July 17, 2026
What if understanding your customers was more important than perfecting your product?
In this episode of Getting to Aha!, Darshan Mehta speaks with Gloria Osardu, Senior Director and Global Head of UX Research and Consumer Insights at Yahoo, about what it takes to build products that genuinely solve customer problems. Drawing on her journey from software engineering to UX research leadership, Gloria explains why understanding people matters more than simply shipping features. She explores how stronger relationships between engineers, marketers, and insights teams lead to better decisions, and why the most effective leaders focus on a handful of high-impact priorities instead of chasing every metric.
What if understanding your customers was more important than perfecting your product?
In this episode of Getting to Aha!, Darshan Mehta speaks with Gloria Osardu, Senior Director and Global Head of UX Research and Consumer Insights at Yahoo, about what it takes to build products that genuinely solve customer problems. Drawing on her journey from software engineering to UX research leadership, Gloria explains why understanding people matters more than simply shipping features. She explores how stronger relationships between engineers, marketers, and insights teams lead to better decisions, and why the most effective leaders focus on a handful of high-impact priorities instead of chasing every metric.
The conversation also covers combining quantitative and qualitative insights to uncover the real story behind customer behaviour, using AI responsibly as a research partner rather than a replacement, and creating products that save time, reduce effort, and deliver meaningful value for users.
Gloria Osardu is the Senior Director and Global Head of UX Research and Consumer Insights at Yahoo!, where she leads the company's global consumer experience transformation efforts. With more than 20 years of leadership experience, she has driven research and experience strategy across Fortune 500 companies and startups spanning AI, SaaS, education, supply chain, fintech, payroll, and government contracting. Gloria is passionate about using durable customer insights to reduce business risk and improve decision-making. She is also a strong advocate for ethical, equitable, and accessible research practices, ensuring technology and innovation create meaningful value for everyone.
Key Takeaways
👉 Build Customer-Centric Products by Focusing Beyond the Feature – Gloria explains that successful products are measured by customer outcomes, not feature releases. Leaders should look beyond execution, prioritize strong relationships across teams, and focus on the highest-impact opportunities instead of trying to do everything. By validating solutions directly with customers and aligning messaging around real problems solved, businesses create products and marketing that resonate more deeply and drive sustainable growth.
👉 Unify Engineering, Marketing, and Research Around One Customer Story – Gloria explains that products, marketing, and customer insights are most effective when they work together instead of operating in silos. Engineers build solutions, marketers tell stories, and researchers uncover customer truth. By regularly aligning these teams around shared customer outcomes and data, organizations create messaging that reflects real user experiences and builds stronger trust with the market.
👉 Anchor Every Marketing Message Around Customer Outcomes – Gloria explains that customers ultimately want products that save time, save money, or make life easier. Features alone rarely inspire action unless they connect to these universal outcomes and the emotions they create. By framing marketing around practical value and emotional impact instead of technical capabilities, brands create messaging that resonates across audiences and improves engagement.
👉 Treat Customer Complaints as Your Greatest Source of Innovation – Gloria explains that customers who speak up are often the most invested in your product’s success. Rather than viewing complaints as problems, organizations should treat engaged critics as valuable partners who reveal opportunities for improvement. By involving these customers in product development and acting on their feedback, businesses strengthen loyalty while building products that better meet customer needs.
👉 Find Better Business Insights by Connecting Metrics, Not Chasing Them – Gloria explains that individual metrics rarely tell the full story. Instead of focusing on isolated dashboards, leaders should connect acquisition, engagement, retention, and business performance to understand what is really driving results. By interpreting metrics within the broader business context, organizations make more confident decisions and avoid being distracted by data that lacks strategic relevance.
👉 Use AI to Strengthen Thinking, Not Replace Human Judgment – Gloria explains that AI delivers the greatest value when it accelerates research, identifies patterns, and surfaces multiple perspectives rather than making decisions independently. By using AI as a strategic thinking partner while relying on human experience and judgment for final decisions, leaders can move faster, uncover deeper insights, and make more informed business and marketing decisions.
Listen Now!
Fame Host - https://podcasts.fame.so/getting-to-aha
Apple - https://apple.co/4nY56MS
Spotify - https://tinyurl.com/yzrxytn5
YouTube - https://tinyurl.com/c5sh2fmz
Episode Resources:
Darshan Mehta on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan--mehta/
iResearch Website - https://iresearch.com
Gloria Osardu on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaob/
Yahoo Website - https://www.yahooinc.com/
In this episode of Getting to Aha!, Darshan Mehta speaks with Gloria Osardu, Senior Director and Global Head of UX Research and Consumer Insights at Yahoo, about what it takes to build products that genuinely solve customer problems. Drawing on her journey from software engineering to UX research leadership, Gloria explains why understanding people matters more than simply shipping features. She explores how stronger relationships between engineers, marketers, and insights teams lead to better decisions, and why the most effective leaders focus on a handful of high-impact priorities instead of chasing every metric.
The conversation also covers combining quantitative and qualitative insights to uncover the real story behind customer behaviour, using AI responsibly as a research partner rather than a replacement, and creating products that save time, reduce effort, and deliver meaningful value for users.
Gloria Osardu is the Senior Director and Global Head of UX Research and Consumer Insights at Yahoo!, where she leads the company's global consumer experience transformation efforts. With more than 20 years of leadership experience, she has driven research and experience strategy across Fortune 500 companies and startups spanning AI, SaaS, education, supply chain, fintech, payroll, and government contracting. Gloria is passionate about using durable customer insights to reduce business risk and improve decision-making. She is also a strong advocate for ethical, equitable, and accessible research practices, ensuring technology and innovation create meaningful value for everyone.
Key Takeaways
👉 Build Customer-Centric Products by Focusing Beyond the Feature – Gloria explains that successful products are measured by customer outcomes, not feature releases. Leaders should look beyond execution, prioritize strong relationships across teams, and focus on the highest-impact opportunities instead of trying to do everything. By validating solutions directly with customers and aligning messaging around real problems solved, businesses create products and marketing that resonate more deeply and drive sustainable growth.
👉 Unify Engineering, Marketing, and Research Around One Customer Story – Gloria explains that products, marketing, and customer insights are most effective when they work together instead of operating in silos. Engineers build solutions, marketers tell stories, and researchers uncover customer truth. By regularly aligning these teams around shared customer outcomes and data, organizations create messaging that reflects real user experiences and builds stronger trust with the market.
👉 Anchor Every Marketing Message Around Customer Outcomes – Gloria explains that customers ultimately want products that save time, save money, or make life easier. Features alone rarely inspire action unless they connect to these universal outcomes and the emotions they create. By framing marketing around practical value and emotional impact instead of technical capabilities, brands create messaging that resonates across audiences and improves engagement.
👉 Treat Customer Complaints as Your Greatest Source of Innovation – Gloria explains that customers who speak up are often the most invested in your product’s success. Rather than viewing complaints as problems, organizations should treat engaged critics as valuable partners who reveal opportunities for improvement. By involving these customers in product development and acting on their feedback, businesses strengthen loyalty while building products that better meet customer needs.
👉 Find Better Business Insights by Connecting Metrics, Not Chasing Them – Gloria explains that individual metrics rarely tell the full story. Instead of focusing on isolated dashboards, leaders should connect acquisition, engagement, retention, and business performance to understand what is really driving results. By interpreting metrics within the broader business context, organizations make more confident decisions and avoid being distracted by data that lacks strategic relevance.
👉 Use AI to Strengthen Thinking, Not Replace Human Judgment – Gloria explains that AI delivers the greatest value when it accelerates research, identifies patterns, and surfaces multiple perspectives rather than making decisions independently. By using AI as a strategic thinking partner while relying on human experience and judgment for final decisions, leaders can move faster, uncover deeper insights, and make more informed business and marketing decisions.
Listen Now!
Fame Host - https://podcasts.fame.so/getting-to-aha
Apple - https://apple.co/4nY56MS
Spotify - https://tinyurl.com/yzrxytn5
YouTube - https://tinyurl.com/c5sh2fmz
Episode Resources:
Darshan Mehta on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan--mehta/
iResearch Website - https://iresearch.com
Gloria Osardu on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaob/
Yahoo Website - https://www.yahooinc.com/
Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.
Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes:
- Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
- Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
- [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
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