Archive for the ‘research’ Category

« Older Entries

Capturing the real customer experience

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

Yesterday I spoke at an event organised by the very nice people at Hard to Measure. Great turnout of interesting people from different backgrounds, but all interested in how we can capture the (real) customer experience.

Here’s the blurb…

In the Experience Economy, capturing the real customer experience is more important than ever. But the proliferation of digital technology has both multiplied and changed the nature of customer touchpoints, making this task more complex.

In addition, recent thinking from behavioural economics tells us it is not always straightforward to get to a true understanding of our customers’ experiences. The reasons people do things may be a mystery to themselves, let alone market researchers.

In this talk I look at the shift in the customer landscape and our understanding of ourselves, before looking at practical ways to capture the real customer experience with examples from the nativeye insight platform.

Posted in customer experience, insight, research | No Comments »

Always-on insight

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

‘Innovation is hard because “solving problems people didn’t know they had” and “building something no one needs” look identical at first.’

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box (via Bokardo)

That’s taken from a post by Joshua Porter called, “Don’t design blindly”. Rather than guessing what people need, do some simple research and observation. Here he gives some clues of what to look for:

  • Where are the pain points?
  • Are people already trying to solve the problem?
  • Are they already spending money on it?

You can commission formal research for this but you have to be careful not to be too focused or closed. Another way is to open up a channel to let the ideas and insights come to you. The advantage of this is:

  • Makes unknown unknowns known (!)
  • Does this quickly
  • Highlights areas for further exploration
  • Means you are always plugged into your market
  • Fuels agile and continual innovation

 

 

 

Posted in innovation, research | No Comments »

Research kills creativity and other innovation myths

Thursday, February 7th, 2013

We tend to mythologise the lone creative genius. The lone genius doesn’t need to do market research – they just know.

The reality? Sorry – the stats say that you’re probably not a genius. It is, however, your job to innovate.

How research helps:

1. It FUELS your creativity

Far from blocking your creativity, research gives you the raw material it needs. And this is perhaps where this whole misunderstanding arose – for good or bad, research isn’t going to give you the answer in 20ft tall pink neon letters. It will give you clues that you then must take and perform dazzling alchemy with in order to turn them into a great product, advertising campaign, fashion line, whatever.

2. Gives you EMOTIONAL FUEL

Research helps you empathise with your subject. If you can feel their pain as well as see it, then it’s more likely you will have the motivation to care and to persist long enough to crack the right solution.

3. Gives you FOCUS

Constraints set you free. So having the insight that your communication will be most relevant in a particular context or that customers only care about particular features lets you focus your efforts. This will make your creativity relevant.

4. Lets you ITERATE

With the proviso that you don’t chuck out early ideas too quickly (remember – research doesn’t give you the answer in 20ft tall pink neon letters) customer research lets you test and refine your early concepts with your audience. And then iterate again and again until you have to ship.

And what does the genius have to fear from all this? That they might be proved wrong?

Posted in innovation, research | No Comments »

5 benefits of mobile research

Friday, January 25th, 2013

Mobile is set to overtake PCs for Internet access. Mobile research – market research using mobile phones as capture devices – is riding this wave. So what are the benefits of this approach to gathering customer insight?

1. It’s in the moment
Behavioural Economics has taught us we are much less rational beings than we liked to think. As Rory Sutherland has pointed out, anything that helps us get closer to the point of decision will better inform us as to why people do the things they do.

And at a more basic level – people forget! Asking them why they did something 2 weeks ago is prone to hazy recollection as well as any post-rationalisation.

2. Understand the context
Being in the moment means we can get more clues about the context of people’s experiences. The same message to someone when they are stressed out as when they have free headspace will yield very different results.

This is why some have claimed that there is no such thing as channels; only interactions, which are dictated by shifting contexts.

3. Link emotions to events
Emotions are a great predictor of behaviour. Knowing what events precipitate what emotions (e.g. during interactions with customers, in the workplace) can help us design better for them.

4. Empathy drives great innovation
And this emotional content is an aid to better innovation. Being able to feel people’s pain as well as see it makes people care enough (as well as know enough) to want to do something about it. Mobile qualitative research comes into its own here.

Plus that empathy can be pushed up the chain. Having that ‘customer proof’ to take to management will help to drive customer-centric change.

5. It’s quick
And finally, it sounds simple but speed is a real business advantage. Being able to turn around solid insight quickly aids timely decision making and an agile approach. In the words of more than one client, “The right answer but too late is no use to me.”

Posted in mobile, research | No Comments »

It’s the journey (or, designing for the ecosystem)

Friday, October 12th, 2012



Cindy Chastain says, “It’s the customer journey; not the persona” that matters when designing for today’s ecosystem of digital and real-world services.

She says some other smart things like:

  • Considering customer journeys is now a business strategy tool not just design
  • Within the ecosystem, marketing moves from “persuasion” to “value” (I read this as total, integrated brand utility, if you like, not just one-offs)
  • Right thing, right context
  • Iteration and constant learning are the foods that feed the ecosystem
  • Marketers shifting mindset from linear to iterative

It’s interesting to see UX principles shifting to inform the broader brand experience, not just the design of individual interfaces. And this article by Tomer Sharon is another testament to the mainstreaming of Lean UX principles, as pioneered by startups.

Posted in customer experience, research, ux | No Comments »

The importance of empathy in innovation

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

We love getting feedback at nativeye. Not only does it mean we’re not just talking to ourselves, it helps us develop in a user-focused way. Receiving feedback of the type, ” it would be great if you had X as it would help us to do Y” is gold. If you hear it a few times from a few different people then you know you have a good argument for developing in that direction (balancing with internal factors such as strategy and resources).

But it’s more than getting user validation for innovations.

When you listen carefully to problems or wishes from real users you put yourself in the moment with your customer, faced with the same task they are facing. You might then start to think, “Yeah if that was me I’d really want to be able to do that too.” Taking on board their emotions leads you to a new level of understanding of the problem and how to design for it  - but also the motivation to do something about it.

User research might not always tell you the answer straight away (the old “customers don’t know what they want” maxim), but it helps to build the empathy that can lead to user-focused innovation.

Do whatever you need to do. Build an experience map – include touchpoints and all the attendant emotions. But first and foremost watch and listen. That will throw into relief where there is room for improvement and critically, help you to empathise deeply with the emotions bundled in with the customer experience. That will lead you to consider the problem in detail and then do something about it.

And that’s the point -

Until you feel the customer’s pain you’re just not informed and motivated enough to solve the problem well.

Posted in ideas, innovation, product development, research | No Comments »

What about the individual?

Friday, September 7th, 2012

“Every individual is representative of the whole, a symptom, and should be intimately understood.”

As the MR industry becomes enamoured with Big Data – social listening, sentiment analysis and (possibly) Google Surveys, it is worth remembering the value of studying the individual. Gigabytes of data can deliver some pretty impressive insights, but on its own can fail to capture those individual human examples that engender empathy in the researcher, designer, inventor that (I would argue) leads to user-centric innovation.

From Anaïs Nin on Why Understanding the Individual is the Key to Understanding Mass Movements

(via Brain Pickings)

The general obsession with observing only historical or sociological movements, and not a particular human being (which is considered such righteousness here [in America]) is as mistaken as a doctor who does not take an interest in a particular case. Every particular case is an experience that can be valuable to the understanding of the illness.

…, this indifference to the individual, total lack of interest in intimate knowledge of the isolated, unique human being, atrophies human reactions and humanism. Too much social consciousness and not a bit of insight into human beings.

 

Posted in ideas, research | No Comments »

Research and faster horses

Friday, August 24th, 2012

I think this is the best response to the statement – “Why ask customers? They don’t know what they want.”

Steve Jobs never asked. And as we all know, Henry Ford said that if you did ask customers you wouldn’t have gotten the car, just a faster horse.

As Brian Solis writes in the linked article, sometimes customers do know what they want, sometimes they don’t. But if you don’t ask you won’t know. And if you do ask you might discover inspiration for your next innovation:

Other byproducts of good research include the ability to feel customer empathy and translate it into inspiration

Research on the ‘Perception Gap’ by Pivot reveals that 76% of marketers feel they know what their customers want yet only 34% have asked customers – giving rise to the title of the research presumably.

There’s an arrogance associated with not doing innovation research. And if you aren’t Steve Jobs (no-one is), then this arrogance will distance you from what customers want and need (whether or not they can articulate it exactly), leaving your business less relevant and competitive than it once was.

Posted in customer experience, ideas, research | No Comments »

Developing an experience strategy

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

What is an experience strategy?

Experience Strategy = Business Strategy + UX Strategy*

It’s why your business is developing products and services the way it is, not just what.

Why would you need one?

1. Helps you evaluate new products and features in light of the goals of your business as well as the value to the user.

The strategy that you develop for your product ought not evolve in isolation. Even though the value of user experience is clear, your over-arching reasons for providing something should be considered with equal weight.

Mental Models, Indi Young

2. Bridge the gap between brand promise and experience 

See http://nativeye.com/blog/brand-promise-customer-experience-and-everything-in-between/

3. “The experience is the product”

It’s simply how you succeed in today’s experience economy http://nativeye.com/blog/the-experience-economy-links/

How do you develop one?

Start with the customer perspective. As we can see from the 7 dimensions of customer experience, this really is a business-wide challenge. Strating with customer perspective helps take out office politics and focus different departments on a common goal.

You may want to develop a mental model. As Indi Young points out:

A mental model helps you visualize how your business strategy looks compared to the existing user experience. Thus, it is a diagram that can support your experience strategy.

While technology and operating conditions might change quickly, mental models change slowly (providing a welcome anchor in a hectic world).

Map business goals and strategy against user mental models to see how they compare.

 

*Jesse James Garrett, “Experience Strategies — The Key to Long-term Design Value.”

Posted in customer experience, research | No Comments »

Happy to help (Part II) – Monitoring the employee experience

Friday, July 6th, 2012

Recording employee experiences as they happen

Traditional Employee Engagement surveys happen once or twice a year and therefore only give a (arguably skewed) snapshot of what employees are feeling and thinking. An alternative would be to take the temperature of the organisation throughout the year, as things happen, which would:

1) capture data while it is fresh and
2) allow HR departments to tie thoughts and emotions to events.

This second benefit would get organisations closer to understanding the impact of their actions (e.g. policy changes, hirings, firings) on employees.

A feedback loop (e.g. live publishing) would encourage response rates, especially if this data was also followed up by visible action on the part of management.

That’s the vision, how might we actually achieve it?

Step 1 – Give employees the means to record their experiences

Capture in the moment employee experiences          Tie feelings and emotions to events & triggers

The nativeye app allows employees to respond using their smartphone or via iPads strategically placed around the office.

Step 2 – Play back what you are hearing to show you are listening

See our Public Assignment, Are you being served? for an example of how to do this with a closed “Employee Experience” web page

Step 3 – Take actions based on the data

This bit’s up to you!

==============

If you are interested in conducting this type of research in your organisation, do get in touch with Ben or check out the nativeye website for more info.

Posted in research, workplace | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries