Bureau West

You know how you go to a conference and different presentations seem to coalesce and reinforce the same point?  That happened to me last week at the MRA Insights & Strategies Conference.  Thursday started with a great keynote speech from Derek Thompson.  It was about understanding Millennials, but one thing he said made sense for all generations: he made the point that brands are particularly important when customers have little information to help them choose among competing products – the brand reassures them.  But nowadays, customers are frequently inundated with information to help them choose (customer reviews and background information from experts, for example).  So branding alone isn’t enough.

Successful companies need to not only brand themselves, but also ensure that the customer learns about them from all the other information sources.  One way to make that happen is to ensure great customer experience… which just so happened to be the topic of the presentation I gave, “Taking Customer Experience to the Next Level.”  While my presentation focused on the importance of the customer experience approach to company success, in the following time slot, A.J. Drexler gave a great presentation about customer journey planning.  Her main point: companies should go beyond just mapping the journeys different types of customers make to the purchase decision; rather, they should work on ways to improve the customer experience all along those journeys.

The point of addressing the totality of inputs customers receive, including advertising, information gathering, word-of-mouth and actual experience with the brand, was reinforced by a presentation later that day by Caroline Smiley from Delta Air Lines and Catherine Rickwood from MESH The Experience Agency.  Delta is moving from focusing on Share of Voice to looking instead at Share of Experience and is finding that the quality of those experiences can be more important than the frequency of exposure.

When you look at all those presentations together, you could say it boils down to marketing more effectively by gaining a better understanding of the customer’s point of view.  Of course, that’s what good marketing has always done.  But the conference reinforced the point that there are new ways to do that nowadays, including obtaining a deeper understanding of how customers experience a brand and mining that data to improve those experiences.

Let’s find out how your customers experience your brand.  Call me at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

 

Sources: MRA Insights & Strategies Conference 2016: “Inside the Minds of Millennials and…Plurals,” “How Qual Can Take CX to the Next Level,” “Customer Journey Planning as a Competitive Advantage,” “A New Experience Currency for a Changing Economy: How Share of Experience is Growing Delta Air Lines and Other Brands”

 

I just got back from the Worldwide Conference on Qualitative Research in Vienna.  One of the themes that emerged for me was the fact that qualitative researchers are in greater demand today because we can help our clients make sense of the very large amount of data they’re receiving from sources such as website analytics, purchase data, social media, etc.  We are the ones still talking to human beings and putting that data in context for our clients.

Many of the presentations talked about not just conducting research, but at looking for ways to ensure that we truly convey the research findings to our clients.  Human beings (including executives!) all have a tendency to perceive input as agreeing with their preconceived notions.  And executives tend to think their customers’ world is similar to their own.  As Ben Skelton put it: “we need to use qualitative research to get executives to understand their customers’ world is different from theirs.”

Some ways to do that:

• Utilize methods where clients interact directly with their customers, such as co-creation workshops, or serial interviews (“speed-dating” style)

• Look for more immersive ways to report research results, such as video rather than PowerPoint

• Steve August and Shannon Danzy try to determine how their clients prefer to learn, and report results accordingly: they might provide lists for engineers and videos for designers. They’ve even hired a comic artist and turned findings into a comic book (I can’t wait for an opportunity to try that at Bureau West!)

Overall, the conference reinforced my desire to make sure we approach each new research project with fresh eyes and look for the best way to answer the research questions most effectively.  Let’s do that together!  Call me at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

 

Source: QRCA Worldwide Conference on Qualitative Research, April 13-15, 2016

 

“Big Data” is becoming ever more important to companies to maintain a competitive advantage.  As companies strive to improve their customer experience, they realize they need to utilize Big Data to gain a better understanding of customers’ needs and to provide customized, targeted products and services.

I’m using the term “Big Data” to refer to the ability to analyze a large amount of data from different sources, such as sales, operations, website behavior and social media.  While it can be daunting to collect all that data and get it in a format that can be easily analyzed, companies don’t necessarily have to have a data scientist on staff; third-party providers make these services accessible even to small and medium businesses.

Despite all of the above, I’m surprised by how many small and medium companies still make their decisions based only on executives’ gut instinct or prior experience.  There’s good reason for them to get on the Big Data bandwagon.  Some examples of how companies can benefit:

• They can look for purchasing patterns to determine which offers to give to which customers, as well as which customers are likely to be most profitable. (Remember when Target sent a teenage girl pregnancy-related coupons and angered the girl’s father, who later realized that Target knew more about what was going on in his home than he did?  Target was able to figure out which customers were pregnant by analyzing shopping patterns.  People were taken aback, but you have to admit, it was pretty impressive!  Target still does that, but they mix in innocuous offers so people won’t get creeped out.)

• They can analyze trends in demand, and tweak pricing and staffing levels accordingly.

• They can see how people are talking about them on social media and learn what might sway potential customers in their favor, as well as uncover ways to improve their offering. This can also an “early warning system” regarding customer issues, which provides the company with the opportunity to resolve issues quickly before damage is done to the company’s reputation.

You can do this!  At the very least, make sure you’re using Google Alerts and socialmention.com to see what people are saying about your company, and Google Analytics to understand people’s behavior on your website.  And once you’re ready to take the next step, check out some of the tools recommended in this article.  That’s when you can start combining the data from various sources to come up with really powerful insights!

So do I think Big Data will replace market research?  Of course not!  But Big Data enables us to come up with hypotheses that can help us ask the right questions when we conduct research, resulting in more effective research, which means higher profits.  Let’s do just that – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “Stop Playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey: Unlock Your Big Data Insights,” Inc, March 16, 2016; “Former Facebook Data Scientist Shares How to Wrangle Your Data,” Inc., March 2, 2016

I’m happy to say that I’ve been chosen to be a presenter at the Worldwide Conference on Qualitative Research, which will take place in Vienna, April 13-15.  I’m going to be presenting on the topic of customer experience research; I hope to see you there!  (For more information, go to http://qrca.org/vienna2016)

In the past few years, customer experience has become a focus for corporations around the world.  And with good reason: companies that provide a superior customer experience enjoy huge advantages in profitability and growth.  So why do most companies fail at customer experience?  And why do customers continue to report low satisfaction levels?

The problem is that many customer experience programs are too narrow.  They look at a series of touchpoints and frequently don’t understand the customer overall.  Companies can provide a superior customer experience by understanding the whole customer and connecting with customers both rationally and emotionally.

To do this, I recommend using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research to gain a deep understanding of the customer.  In addition, companies should not be afraid to go beyond being bland and sterile and develop a “personality” and tone of voice.  I’ve found that customers personalize their relationship with companies whether the company intended them to or not.  Successful companies embrace that relationship.

Companies that take the approach above are able to make “delight the customer” more than just a buzzword, but a reality!  For details on how to do so, I’d be glad to give my presentation “Take Customer Experience to the Next Level” – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.