Bureau West

“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.

Happy New Year!  Over the holidays, I have been working on a new presentation, combining my research experience with that of other experts to uncover what all marketers want to know: how to change minds.  Whether we want people to move from another brand to ours, try a new product, or even make a positive behavior change (e.g., save water or donate to a charity), marketing is all about changing minds.

If you’d like the full presentation, feel free to contact me and we can set up a time.  In this Tidbit, though, I thought I’d focus on one book I read as part of my research for the presentation: “How to Change Minds: The Art of Influence Without Manipulation,” by Rob Jolles.

The book is targeted at salespeople, but I realized that we in the marketing and market research worlds can adapt the advice to create more effective marketing.  The book’s main point: everything we try to sell or market is basically solving a problem for our prospect.  Before people will buy what we want to sell, they have to admit they have a problem.  That’s the first step, but in order to create the urgency for them to actually make a change, they have to understand the consequences of not addressing the problem.

Jolles gives an example of a financial advisor with a prospect who is investing on his own and is considering using the advisor’s services.  He has had two meetings, and both have ended with “let me think about it.”  The prospect is hesitant to change.  To get him over that barrier, Jolles suggests getting the prospect to acknowledge that he needs help, with questions about the challenges he has been facing in trying to handle his investments on his own.  But the financial advisor will need to do more than that.  He not only needs to convince the prospect to hire him, he needs to instill urgency so the prospect will stop postponing the decision.  Jolles recommends asking questions about the impact of not doing a good job with the investments.  What if a risky investment goes down and he loses money?  What will that mean for his future plans?  While that may seem aggressive, questions like that can get the prospect to realize the importance of making a change and doing it now.

That’s a great approach for salespeople, but it can also provide great fodder for marketing.  When conducting market research, we should look to uncover what we need to do to get our prospects to conclude that they indeed have a problem to solve as well as understand the potential impact of that problem if it doesn’t get handled.

As I mentioned, the advice in the book is just part of what I’ll be discussing in my new presentation, “Influence: How to Change Minds for Positive Outcomes.”  I’d be happy to give the presentation – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Source: “How to Change Minds: The Art of Influence Without Manipulation,” Rob Jolles, 2013

I got back from the World Future Society conference a week ago, and my mind is still spinning!  For me, attending this conference meant stretching beyond my comfort zone, and I’m glad I did.  The presentations and topics brought up at the conference were fascinating.

One of the themes that emerged from several presentations: robotics and 3D printing will reduce the need for people to work.  This brought up several questions and concerns:

• If there’s less need for work (i.e., fewer jobs), how will most people make a living?
• Will they even need to make a living, or will it be possible for everyone to have food and basic necessities for free?
• And if that’s the case, what will people do with all their free time?

The big question regarding this and many of the other forecasts is: how do we get from here to there?  For example, will we arrive at a way for everyone to be provided for easily, or will there be mass rioting in the streets?  For most future predictions, there are both utopian and dystopian versions of how to get there.

Speaking of utopian vs. dystopian, my favorite presentation was by Brian David Johnson, who works as a futurist at Intel, but is also working on a personal project about the future of the American Dream.  He said that “science and technology have progressed to the point where what we build is only constrained by the limits of our own imaginations.”  So if we can have a vision for the future, then the rest is all just engineering.  I found the idea that the future can be as positive or as negative as we envision it to be very inspiring.  But then, Johnson and I have something in common: we’re both optimists!

The future predictions made me feel even more strongly about the importance of understanding human emotions and I have added to my presentation about how understanding customer emotions can increase company profits.  I’d be happy to give the presentation – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.