Research Case Study — Microsoft
Helping Microsoft support remote learning customers
How it started
When classrooms went online overnight, Microsoft became essential to how students learned, teachers taught, and families adapted. But even with the tools in place, trust in the remote learning experience was fragile. Educators questioned reliability, parents struggled to stay engaged, and students felt disconnected.
Microsoft didn’t need another campaign — it needed to understand where trust was breaking down and what people truly needed from a digital learning experience.
What we did
We began by studying the human side of remote learning — how people experienced it emotionally and behaviorally. Through national surveys and interviews with parents, educators, and students, we identified the moments where confidence faltered and support felt out of reach.
We paired these insights with an audit of the learning journey across Microsoft platforms — from first login to ongoing engagement — to reveal where the experience met or missed customer expectations.
Our analysis surfaced three core relationship gaps:
Clarity gaps — parents and teachers didn’t understand how the tools worked together.
Consistency gaps — support and messaging varied across channels.
Empathy gaps — communications focused on features, not the lived experience of remote learning.
We turned these findings into an experience framework designed to rebuild trust and relevance. We aligned product, content, and marketing teams around one shared goal: make every interaction clear, supportive, and human.
How it’s going
Our discoveries informed the evolution of Microsoft Teams and other software to support the needs of students who increasingly learned from home – including accessibility tools and features to better support different learners.
Internally, Microsoft Education kicked off a shared experience framework to stay aligned — ensuring every touchpoint reinforces trust, meets real needs, and strengthens the relationship over time.
And our “a-ha” moment? We uncovered that parents were supplementing traditional, academic learning with skills they believed their kids would need in life and in the workforce. This had a larger impact on Microsoft’s corporate responsibility program, which includes content, curriculum, training materials, and insights to help deliver digital skills to people around the world.
Our work culminated in a public relations push to all Microsoft employees, educators, parents and media. The goal? Amplify the work and the solutions to help remote learners around the world.
