Customer Crossroads

In the era of self-serve, the problems people call you about are not ordinary

Large organizations gather lots of statistics. Such as who calls the call centre. And what their problem is.

When they encounter a frequent problem, they do one of three or four things:

- they fix the problem (design feature, assembly instructions, whatever it is)

- they create self-serve options on the web site to help the customer fix the problem (such as tracking your package)

- they create an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file to deal with the problem

- they put a message on a phone recording to tell you the answer (such as what hours the store is open)

All of this is done to reduce the number of enquiries about simple stuff, and (hopefully) to make the experience better.

This has led us to an interesting situation -- all of those problems that used to be dealt with by people are now dealt with by us. By definition, what's left is uncommon problems.

So have a little respect for your front line call-centre staff, because they only get the difficult stuff. You may not be training them that way, but that's their reality.

My take

I was thinking about this again because I am speaking to some service quality professionals at the end of the month. And I think this is one of the things they have to contend with. We've actually solved many of the obvious service problems. What's left is not all that straightforward.

Is DIY research going to put us all out of work? The debate rages on!

There's an interesting debate raging around about Do-It-Yourself Research. I posted this comment earlier today on Power to the People, an article by Joshua Hoffman on the Research Access Blog.

As a quallie, I am well aware that lots of people think what i do looks not just easy, but dead simple. Relatively few clients want to do their own, although some do. The usual reason appears to be cost, from what I can see, as recruiting is no faster or slower for them or me.

I find client's analysis of qualitative is usually of the fast kind -- first impressions. If they did more analysis, many of them could come up with what i come up with.

The real issue for me is more one of raw capability. People who have the capability to do from an analysis perspective what I do certainly exist inside client companies, but they are typically senior managers and executives, and are primarily in a managerial or strategic role.  If client companies were prepared to hire people at a senior level to do this work, they could likely obtain great results.

A couple of other things are often missing when clients DIY on qualitative. The longer the person is in the job, the less breadth of exposure they get, the less ability to bring in contextual learning from a broad base of clientele. 

For some methodologies, it could be difficult to get people to tell you the unvarnished truth -- i say this because even as an independent, I (and my colleagues) often have to go to some lengths to assure people of true anonymity in their feedback. I struggle to see how this could be done by an employee.

I also -- as do many consultants -- spend a truly massive amount of time and money on my professional development every year. I attend conferences, I speak at conferences, I attend training events of various sorts, I participate in several professional organizations, I read widely.

My clients, on the other hand, are as busy as small mammals, scurrying on their wheel, often without the time to really think about anything in depth. Their voicemail says they are "in a series of meetings", and that menu rarely seems to change. Of course they have access to learning opportunities, but most are mandated by the company, not chosen by themselves for what they bring.

Even large research organizations have relatively few qualitative people involved in the world outside the corporation, which I would guess to be for cost containment reasons. They send one person to a conference with the idea that they will share the learning.

There is a lot to be said for people who strive to invent new things every year to compete. If I worked inside the client organization, I might not feel the same level of pressure to keep up and be inventive to get ahead. It would be easy to fall into patterns. As it stands now, I am constantly trying to figure out how to either add more value, or ratchet down the third party costs somehow.

Finally, I think the cost argument is upside down where qualitative is concerned. The senior people in qualitative would be prohibitively expensive to hire on a full-time basis, with the benefits and associated overhead.   Just think of the lost productivity in meetings alone!  

It is great to see the tools getting better to do technology-supported qualitative. I love it. I hope that the price drops, as surely it must if DIY is going to take off. Because feature-creep in online research has led to price creep, when it should be going the other way.

Some of the things raised in this article and others are relevant to the qualitative world as well.
* I wish that I could have more access to the learning from the CRM system when i am in the planning or reporting stages. I think clients themselves are struggling to integrate and effectively use all their many sources of data.
* I wish for better long-term collaboration. The best do it, the rest should.
* I wish for better semantic analysis tools -- not to replace me, but to make the work faster and cheaper.

But the good news in all of this is that clients want and need insights. And they don't want to pay 24 carat prices for fool's gold. And that's a good thing for those who can embrace the new reality.

What do you think about all this? I would love to hear your comments, and I know others would too.

[Hey, if nothing else, you can avoid writing that report. And that's gotta be good, right?]

mobile qualitative - ready for your phone today

This week I am participating in a demonstration of mobile phone texting as a method of gathering insights.

Not a new methodology, incidentally -- people have been using mobile methods for a few years now, but it's really starting to come into its own with the proliferation of smart phones.

In fact, I recall a large-ish student project of a few years ago, (bulletin board methodology), where i gave up using e-mail to communicate with students because they responded so much better to texts!

Back to the demo. Mobile methods for qualitative now come in many flavors, from simple Q+A gathered up into a spreadsheet at the end, to fully integrated texting in a discussion forum platform. 

Here's what I'm noticing, two days into the study:

- Far from being an irritant, I am finding the quick text messages a welcome interruption to my work a couple of times a day.

- I'm curious to see what the researcher is asking next. (Yes, it seems that a good and engaging question is as crucial here as it is anywhere, perhaps even more so!)

- I got a "great idea" response from the researcher that made me smile (the usual pats on the back we give to reinforce participation worked just fine on me too!)

I'll be interested to see the aggregated results of this demo study in a webinar later this week (put on by the Online SIG of QRCA.)

I love the idea of using this approach for a warm-up or follow-up to a more in-depth method. It's in the moment, very unscripted from the standpoint of the respondent, and reaches me where i am right now. The possibilities suggested are really wonderful!

If you have experience with this method -- either as a participant, or as a researcher / client, I'd love to hear your thoughts here in the comments.

Old media learns new tricks to stay alive and relevant: case in point, HBR

The obituary notices for old media have been a bit premature - instead of dying as predicted, many have stubbornly tried to change to stay relevant. [And surely staying relevant is a key challenge for everyone, isn't it? - I think about it pretty much daily.]

Case in point: Harvard Business Review, that venerable institution of middle management information, was something I had read like a religion since business school. A few years ago, I found it dry, irrelevant, and lacking in user-friendly design. It was becoming the most costly recycled paper in my office. Bye, bye magazine.

A recent look at the paper version of HBR revealed a significant improvement in relevance and readability.

Here a few of the gems that caught my attention on a browse through a recent edition:

Art: Images from edge installation artist Leandro Erlich

Interaction: Recognizing the wisdom isn't all in the authors, it's also in the readers. Example: this reaction to a social media trends story: "In 2011 people will begin to realize there are few shortcuts with these sites -- it's 'social' media, not 'robot' media."

Relevance:

On-line sales leads: contacting potential customers within an hour of receiving a query is seven times as likely to qualify the lead as waiting more than an hour, and 60 times as likely to qualify as waiting more than 24 hours.(1)

Good effects of a vacation wear off within a week. [Okay, that one probably doesn't come as a shock, but at least someone is paying attention.]

Foldit is a game you can play to discover new ways to fold protein molecules. Now there's a crowdsourcing idea that is truly exciting! 

Semantic mapping technologies are rapidly growing in sophistication: Quid Software

Case studies based in other countries and cultures besides North America!

Thought-provoking columns by people like Roger Martin and Dan Ariely -- almost always worth reading.

My Take

It's harder to turn some of these bigger ships, but if they pay attention to their customers and to emerging trends, they can turn, and they can mobilize, and they can stay relevant. Nobody said it was easy. But they're not dead yet.

Resources:

(1) The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, by James B Olroyd, McElheran, Elkington, HBR, March 2011

(2) Don't Get Blinded by the Numbers, by Roger Martin, HBR, March 2011

 

 

Who talks to customers in a Warm'n'Fuzzy way? Nominate them here.

I thought I'd try out Pandora radio today, after learning about it from Chris Brogan's blog. Or more correctly, a rabbit hole I fell into while reading his blog that led me there... Anyway.

I came upon this lovely error message from Pandora gently telling me that I can't use their service. So I've given them the first Warm'n'Fuzzy award for great communications. Who else should get a Warm'n'Fuzzy certificate? Nominees?

Makes you think how few communications really stack up well, doesn't it? Who does a good job talking to customers? Should they get a Warm'N'Fuzzy?

[Sorry the badge isn't more exciting -- i need to write a report, and can't play with graphics all morning today.]

Trendwatching: Software as a service goes big: Bell launches business apps

Most of the stuff I get from Bell can safely be ignored, but this letter announcing "business apps" caught my attention.

 

So much is moving to the cloud, and this offering is quite interesting -- a set of curated applications that cover a wide range of business needs.

Possible Benefits:

• Instead of looking all over the web for an application that might be what i need I get a pre-sorted list
• Reasonable assurance about the stability of the underlying company -- compared to usually none if I am just buying software online
• Simplified billing potentially? One bill with supporting documentation that doesn't have to be downloaded from separate suppliers (one of my current irritants)
• Looks like quality stuff from what I can see

Possible Concerns:

• Like any SAS (software as a service), it feels fairly costly over the long run unless there is a collaborative element which would require me to have a server, instead of just networked PCs
• Long term worries about stuffing critical business applications into the cloud

The service I highlighted in the picture, for example, is something I would potentially use -- a service that converts digital audio into typed notes. I have seen services like this before, but without much assurance of quality, I have stayed with my trusty independent supplier.

I also noticed a mobile service scheduling application -- something I wish more delivery and maintenance services used. It might seem expensive as a service, but I'd guess that buying a license and keeping it updated is likely an expensive option too.

If I think about it, I'm buying quite a few SAS solutions already, and keep thinking about buying more. Some help to choose the right solution might be welcome to many smaller businesses.

My take

With the constant growth in new offerings trying to get our attention, a curated approach offers some potential real value to businesses. 

Is this really a utility trying to turn itself into a value added provider?? I'm amazed that they could launch something so potentially awesome and innovative.

What's your take?

Are you happy to move to the cloud and the SAS model? Or do you worry that it will be just one more chance to be on hold with a call centre for support? What other companies could do this credibly -- your bank, for example? What about someone like Staples or Yellow Pages?

Creativity exercises really do work to generate better ideas: new research into construal theory

Approaches to creativity and innovation have mostly come from individual hypothesis and craft -- people studying what they think works based on personal observation. Now, scientific research is starting to validate many of these approaches.

When working with a team trying to come up with new ideas, one very useful method involves taking the problem into another framework. (There are many ways to do this -- one example: ask people to imagine Steve Jobs or Bill Gates solving the problem instead of themselves.)

Scientists Evan Polman and Kyle Emich found students who were asked to solve problems requiring creative thinking did better when they were solving the problem for someone else, instead of themselves. One example: they were more likely to solve a "tower escape" puzzle, and created better aliens for a story when they were solving these challenges for another person, not for themselves.

The practical implications of our findings are striking in the extent of their reach...That decisions for others are more creative than decisions for the self is not only valuable information for researchers in social psychology, decision making, marketing, and management but also should prove of considerable interest to negotiators, managers, product designers, marketers, and advertisers, among many others.

The theory, called construal theory, is still being developed.

Resources:

Polman E, and Emich KJ (2011). Decisions for Others Are More Creative Than Decisions for the Self. Personality and social psychology bulletin PMID: 21317316

Via the British Psychological Society Newsletter: http://www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog 

Construal theory on Psycholopedia: http://www.psych-it.com.au/Psychlopedia/article.asp?id=79