Customer Crossroads

When Quantitative Isn't: And How to Tell the Difference

If you read [email protected], you have probably noticed this invitation to participate in a study on product complexity

[email protected]/George Group Survey
The impact of product and service complexity on business
George Group Consulting and [email protected] have teamed up to explore the impact of product and service complexity on corporations: As companies add new products and services to their portfolios, what is the impact on processes, profitability, and growth? Please take a moment to participate in our brief survey via the link below; all information will be kept confidential and will be used only for this study. Each individual who takes part in this study by filling out a complete survey will receive a free copy of the results document. Many thanks for your participation.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/weblink/131.cfm

Even if you don't subscribe, have a look at the survey questions (registration is free, and [email protected] can be a great source of background material).

Looks pretty good, doesn't it?  Erudite.  Professional.  Nice clean layout.  Easy drop-down boxes.  There's just a few problems...

• Respondents aren't qualified, other than being people who read the publication

I'd like a copy of this report.  I bet you would too.  Unfortunately, guilt overtook me half-way into it, and I just couldn't keep manufacturing some kind of answer.  Not only that, I realized the report wouldn't be that useful if it was answered mostly by people like me.  Unfortunately, since I am quite interested in the topic of complexity and how it relates to customer experience.

• The attempts to qualify respondents by industry and position aren't all that helpful

Actually, the short list of position types makes a lot more sense than what you usually see in surveys of this nature.  And indeed, I am a C level executive, albeit of a rather small enterprise.  But what is the function of a C-level executive?  Strategy and Planning?  Marketing? Investor Relations?  Surely it is all of these things and more. 

More important, they never ask the size of the organization, or a proxy for that question. It appears that I am a legitimate participant, and so are you.

It's not that this isn't a problem for "real" scientific surveys.  It is. A challenging one.

• Question meanings aren't necessarily clear.  They could mean many different things to different people

Here's an example. "Our cost accounting systems fully capture the full costs of complexity.  Strongly agree, Agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Somewhat disagree, Strongly disagree"  .  Wow.  I bet you could write a PhD thesis on that topic.  Maybe more than one. 

• Questions don't have a "Don't Know" option. 

This is very important, and a common problem with weak survey designs.  Even if you are a really smart person, such as the CEO of Oracle, you might want to answer Don't Know.  But there's not an option to do that.  You are instead forced into the "Neither agree nor disagree" option.  And many surveys are constructed in such a way that you must answer all questions. 

Okay, let's stop here.  You see the problem.  This is actually not scientific research. I'm not sure it's even quantitative, even though lots of numbers will be generated from this. It is like asking questions of random people spotted on the floor of a large trade show.  Or at a Christmas party. 

In fairness, the researcher probably knows this.  The purpose of this survey appears to be publicity, since the George Group tells us on their web site that they are "the recognized authority in the development and deployment of Strategies for Conquering Complexity".  And perhaps they want to scan the horizon a bit, and aren't too worried about scientific accuracy. 

Still, I expect we will still see a future report in [email protected] with statistics and tables that most people associate with a scientific survey.  Except this isn't.

Starting with the [email protected] readership is not a bad idea.  But after that, if you want real research results, you pretty much have to pay the price.

If surveying C-level executives about their opinions and attitudes were this easy, you could also buy brain surgery at Home Depot.  So keep your BS detector running when you read reports like this. 

 

Collaborating with your customers: the Pez MP3 Project

There's a guy trying to build an MP3 player that looks like a Pez dispenser. 

He's documenting his story on a blog -- not unlike the book, Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder, but a lot easier to read and the pictures are better. 

Guerilla Marketing, Direct Response, Research & PR all in one package
Customer experience designers should care about this because this fellow is conducting on-the-fly consumer research, collaborating with his target market, engaging his future customers, and building loyalty even before he has the product. 

And he's doing it using a blog, so the research is costing almost nothing.  (Certainly less than a single focus group, if you don't count the time to write the blog) 

It's a good story, so Fortune's Daniel Roth has provided priceless PR:  The Amazing Rise of the Do-It-Yourself Economy.

What's Intriguing
This thing is interesting from so many angles.  Here's a few that come to mind:

• more evidence of virtual organizations -- these are not going away, and we need to start figuring out how to manage them
• the Pez dispenser is more important than the candy inside.  If you doubt me, do an image search on Google for "Pez Dispenser".  Pat Misterovich, the guy building the MP3 player, plans to hide the USB connection under the head, and have interchangable heads. 
• No one really owns their brand -- it's an illusion.  The whole thing exists inside the hearts and minds of the customers. 
• The company that makes the candy -- PEZ -- is now in a position where it can look good or bad.  They can enter a whole new territory with their name, or they can look like corporate Godzillas.  Opting out? Not really an option, is it?

Using a Blog for Research
To see how this blog-research thing works, you need to look at the comments people are leaving on the Pez MP3 Blog site about design issues, whether the PEZ brand is essential to the product, and so on.  It's qualitative, yes. 

Does it replace what people like I do for a living?  Of course not. But why not use all the tools at your disposal to connect with customers? 

Let's find a few more examples of companies that are collaborating with their customers -- anyone? 

Getting out from behind the mirror: having clients in the focus group

If you want to maximize the learning from your focus group investments, get out from behind the glass, and sit at the table with the respondents.  At least that's what skilled moderator Rick Wolfe tells me.   Here's his rationale:

Trust, atmosphere and authenticity are all issues, but there are reasons more central than these:

 

1) When people are in the room they see more, hear more and feel more. That makes the learning more powerful.

2) When people are in the room, the experience is more memorable. They make better use of the learning down the road. They tell more stories about the customer back at the office. They compare notes more.

3) When people are in the room there are no distractions (good food, good wine, good gossip) that keep them from paying attention.

4) When people are in the room, paradoxically, the moderator has to worry about them less than when they are behind the glass. There is no need to play to them the way you have to when they are separated from the conversation.

 

In summary: greater efficiency, greater effectiveness, less noise in the system.

I'm a big believer in placing client learning as the highest goal in any project, so the concept had a lot of appeal for me. 

I have done on-site interviews with clients by my side, and found this works quite well.  And having now tried it in a traditional focus group setting, I think he's on to something. 

It does change the dynamics of the group a bit -- and can be a bit hairy for the client people if there is negative feedback.  But the benefits outweigh the obstacles.   

Qualitative research is expensive -- there's no question about it.  But it is also very powerful.  You can add to its power by getting in closer.   Challenge your moderator to consider this option for your next project.   You'll eat less junk food AND you'll learn more.

Image courtesy of Jonathan Natiuk at stock.xchng

Spin-off benefits from marketing research: generate positive word-of-mouth

Aside from generating insights into your customers that can make your business more successful, good marketing research can generate positive feelings among customers, and sometimes even good word-of mouth.

In B2B marketing research, this is actually a fairly common side-effect, especially of qualitative research.   The professionals that you have interviewed or had in a group discussion often find the discussion itself valuable.  If you disclose that you are the sponsor, part of this value rubs off on you, the sponsoring company. 

In addition, you have established that you are prepared to invest time and money in understanding your customers and prospects.  And that is also a positive.

The act of participating in a customer-satisfaction study actually can actually improve satisfaction and loyalty as measured by buying behavior.

In one study, customers who had participated in a 10 minute telephone survey were more than three times as likely to conduct additional business, were more profitable, and were less likely to defect than customers from the same sample that had not had the survey.  (see the HBR reference below)

How to get side-benefits from B2B research

If you want some of these benefits from your own B2B projects, here are my tips:

• Make sure the discussion is interesting for the participants by staying on topics relevant to them, not just to your marketing challenges
• Use a lot of variety in question approaches and exercises -- B2B research is often conducted among senior, successful people.  Don't bore them.
• Provide some opportunities for the participants to just connect with each other.  In a bulletin board environment you can give them a page for their own stuff.  In a face-to-face environment, give them a little space to talk "off-topic" and time to share business cards with each other
• Invest the extra effort and expense in producing a summary report for participants.  They are often interested in seeing the results of the study (even if it's pretty high level), and you can use these reports to reinforce what a helpful organization you are.  If it's an interesting report, it wil have pass-along value. 

How to get side-benefits from Consumer Research

Consumer groups are generally part of a much larger target market, so it's not quite as straightforward.  But not impossible. 

• If you aren't doing any customer satisfaction work, start
• Get feedback after key events such as new car purchase.  Customers are more likely to remember that you asked, because the event is still recent
• Give customers opportunities to provide feedback even when you aren't asking

These are all tools used by large and successful consumer marketing companies.  But all of them are available to much smaller enterprises.   

Reference article:   Dolakia and Morwitz, How Surveys Influence Customers, Harvard Business Review, 2002,  Reprint F0205A.

Innovative Ideas: A pen that prevents cheque fraud

Reframing a problem can help you come at it from a different angle, and can help you find an innvoative solution.   

Here's a great example of reframing:  the uni-ball 207 gel pen.  The company claims it can reduce cheque fraud because the ink bonds to the paper fibres, making cheque-washing impossible. 

The other ways people have tried to solve this issue: 

• Changing the paper and printing on the cheque itself, so they are harder to modify
• Developing neural-network real-time detection systems that catch likely fraudulent transactions

I thought this was rather clever of the uni-ball people to either a) try to come up with a solution to the problem of cheque fraud, or b) discover a great way to market a benefit from a product that may not have been designed for this.

Marketing to VIPs in Developing Markets

Our post of last week on serving VIPs in Nigeria continues to attract discussion.  Further questions were posted from a customer service manager for a Kenyan land line company, and additional commentary has been provided by an executive of NCR - Teradata, as well as Kyle Coolbroth, author of  the Experience Journal.

Picture source

Designing New Products: the SHIFT Tricycle-Bicycle

Isn't this a beautiful bicycle? 

It shifts between being a tricycle and a bicycle as the rider moves faster.  No more training wheels! 

Designed by a team of industrial designers at Purdue University.

"None of us had ever designed a bicycle before, so we thought we might be able to approach the competition from a fresh angle," said Grossman, who graduates this spring. "This in itself was pretty motivating. One thing I love about the design process is that you eventually become a mini-expert on whatever it is you're designing through research and lots of brainstorming."

When we look deeply at at problem, and start trying to reframe a situation, we can start to think up things like this.   

Thanks to Karl Long at Customer Experience Strategy for bringing this to my attention.

More on Blogging 101: tell a friend about blogs week

I'm still running into a lot of people who don't know what blogging is.   It's important enough you need to form your own opinion on the topic.  You may decide it's just so much navel-gazing by a bunch of self-important pretenders. 

Or you may decide blogging is the latest evolution of what Gutenberg started way back when. 

If you need the basics, I've updated the Blogging 101 post. 

Seth Godin has announed that this is "tell a friend about blogs" week.    So do it.  Tell someone about blogs.  Even better, start your own blog! 

More on Gutenberg's invention here.  Hint: it was not the printing press. 

Multi-channel integration for better customer experience: is it technology, organization silo problems, or both?

How long have we heard talk of multi-channel integration, and seen so little evidence of it?

Asaf Buchner, writing on a  Jupiter Research Blog  reports on the 2005 Net Finance conference.   Most multi-channel integration efforts are at the level of consistent look and feel across off-line and online.  But better efforts are starting to emerge, according to Mr. Buchner:

The few banks that were able to achieve a true integration offer a superior customer experience, allowing a client to start a dialog with the bank in one channel and continue it in another (e.g. start an application online and continue it from the same point off-line). In the following months, I will investigate the success of banks like Wachovia and Wells Fargo that were able to overcome technological barriers and break silos in the organization to fully integrate their marketing channels.

It's been a long time coming, hasn't it? 

The internal organizational barriers are real.  It's not just that people won't work together -- it's that most of our organizations are set up to encourage and reward other kinds of behavior.  Employees doing the right thing for customers are often doing it in spite of, not because of the organization. 

I had often wondered if there was just a paucity of innovative thinking from customer experience marketers in financial institutions.  However I'm learning this is not the case at all. 
The technology barriers have been real -- compounded by the data barriers.   

A really clever fellow from IBM Global Services, educated me on this topic at a roundtable sponsored by the Access Group in early March.   There are actually lots of good and innovative ideas out there -- but either the technology or the data are a barrier.  Or both. 

Not necessarily that the tech solution doesn't exist.  But few firms have the capabilities that Asaf Buchner is writing about.  (Yet).

What's your perspective?

Designing your processes for customers, not for organization convenience

The saga of my custom drapes continues.   And it's a good illustration of how some businesses organize their processes for the convenience of the organization, not the customers. 

I ordered these beauties in early March, advised they would take 4 - 6 weeks.  I called at 6 weeks (no one called me) and was told "definitely by end of April", and promised a call if anything changed.   
When the end of the month (and 8 weeks) had come and gone with no further contact from the store, I called again. 

This time, it took three calls over three days to get the status of this order, because the people in the store don't have this information and have to call head office.  They do not give out the number of head office.  And head office is only available before 5 pm on weekdays.  And could I call back tomorrow when my salesperson is in, because she isn't working today? 

Today I learned "they will definitely be on the truck on Friday".  And while they had me on the phone, would I please provide my credit card for the balance of the purchase price?  HUH?

It gets better.  The installer will not book an appointment until the drapes have been paid for, even though they have not actually arrived. (And with their rate of on-time performance, can you blame the guy?) 

So I can't schedule anything unless I'm prepared to pay in advance.   But the installer works for you, right? I asked.  Yes, but he has nothing to do with invoicing. 

This is a pretty amazing scenario when you consider the cost of floor to ceiling silk draperies, fully lined, with fancy sheers to boot  (I'm hopeful the yellow silk and the palm trees will cheer me up during the grey winter days next year).

This is a system organized for the company, not the customer.   It lacks basic communication standards that are readily obtainable on a $50 order from LL Bean, for example.   

I'll let you know if the plaster survives the installation. 

Online Shopping Behavior: Explorers, Hunters, Trackers

Mike Baxter recently wrote us about some new research on online shopping sites.  The free sample report has some useful definitions of some segments in online shopping behavior.

A tracker knows exactly which product they wish to buy and uses an online shopping site to track it down and check its price, availability, delivery time, delivery charges or after-sales support.

A hunter doesn’t have a specific product in mind but knows what type of product they are looking for (e.g. digital camera, cooker) and probably has one or more product features they are looking for. The hunter uses an online shopping site to find a range of suitable products, compare them and decide which one to buy.

An explorer doesn’t even have a particular type of product in mind. They may have a well-defined shopping objective (buying a present for someone or treating themselves), a less-resolved shopping objective (buying something to ‘brighten up’ the lounge) or no shopping objective at all (they like the High Street store and thought they would have a look at the online site).

You might come up with some additional ones, such as "research online, buy offline" -- but it is useful to look for these kinds of patterns in your data.  And consider different behavior patterns when you are designing your site. 

(PS - Photo is not Mike, it is Christopher Columbus)

Online Experience: Missing Links, Missing Products, Buried Treasure and Confusion Zones

Mike Baxter writes:

I thought I'd let you know about some of the research I've just published.

I analysed 15 of the best-known brands in UK online retail and found that they all have ‘confusion zones’ within their navigation paths: either missing links, missing products or even ‘buried treasures’.

Take Argos for example. They actually offer 20 different photo printers. Why then do they show only 5 of them under ‘Photo printers’ in ‘Photography’, 16 under ‘Photo printers’ in ‘Office/PC Printers’ and only 1 in both categories? And who would imagine that Littlewoods actually stock 8 different hover mowers when only one is listed under their one link that is called 'Hover Mowers'?

The prize for buried treasure however, goes to Next. On the fifth page of their ‘Homeware - Storage’ section you find a fine selection of hair-styling products! Is this a devious cross-selling strategy for customers who have bought a storage box and have nothing to put in it… or is it simply bizarre?

Thanks for writing Mike.  More on his research in the next post.