Demystifying Customer Insight for Marketing Professionals AEO Forum, 31 st Jan 2020
A BIT ABOUT ME Ben Smithwell: ben.smithwell@comotional.com Director at Comotion, a Freeman company Ben runs Customer Experience Consulting & Insight at Comotion. He is a Customer Experience expert, Design Thinking professional and TEDx speaker. Originally from a Research, Marketing and Service Design background, Ben spent years leading research teams to unpick the psychology, behaviours and needs of customers in order to help large organisations solve intractable business problems. He then spent his ‘CX years’ in senior leadership in global corporates helping them make truckloads of cash, before deciding his days of working a ‘proper job’ were done. Nowadays he focuses on Customer Experience transformation, helping organisations profitably reorient their DNA, smoothing the transition from product-led, to customer-led. His dad still has no idea what he does for a living.
We need to talk about Kevin CUSTOMER INSIGHT 3
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“Bureaucrats love a formula because it prevents them from having to exercise judgement, for which they might be blamed” - Rory Sutherland
This is not Insight. Some indicator 8
You’re just measuring stuff 9
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This is Data. 11
This is noise. 12
1 3 1 2 This is 2 2 information. 1 2 1 3 13
This is Knowledge. 14
This is an Insight. 15
Insight emerges from a process It’s the super- refined good stuff
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• NPS was +22 for domestic attendees, which is +4 from last year Insight, or • Attendees say they want better wifi • First time exhibitor churn is 55% • Booth dwell time is up by 23 secs on av. signal? - More specifically, they are not insights on their own - They are signals, around which we can hypothesise 18
Example insight chain: • UK exhibitors have new needs around showcasing product innovations • Because their end-users can’t keep up with the pace of change • Because exhibitors are pushing really sophisticated systems into the market at a faster pace than ever • Because 3 dominant Chinese companies own 30% mid and lower end of the entire global market • …and as they can’t compete on price, UK companies have had to invest heavily in R&D, and attack the sophisticated end of the market • Which means that end users (who are not all IT-literate) don’t understand the art of the possible This insight came from a mix of existing data, market reports, post- • Which means that they are hard to sell to show surveys, qualitative interviews, front line workshops • Which means that the show needs to become a place where end users and industry white papers. can come to become educated Notice how this it is really a set of inter-linked statements that we • Which means that the show needs to show exhibitors how to change know to be true, and it forms a story. It enables us to start to form their show strategy, stand design, and who they staff their booths with solutions to the RIGHT PROBLEM
WE LEARNED THIS IS THE A THING SOLUTION 20
ATTENDEES WANTED MORE TOILETS! 21
Hmm, there are a lot of hygiene ATTENDEES factor gripes WANTED MORE this year. What TOILETS! might this be indicative of? 22
“Footfall is down!” 23
Small data. 24
Brand assumption-led Insight-led
We don’t say what we mean 27
We don’t always know what we think 28
But that doesn’t stop us giving you an answer
“Whenever I’m making a creative choice, I try to step back and remember my first shallow reaction. The day I realised it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.”
“Whenever I’m making a creative choice, I try to step back and remember my first shallow reaction. The day I realised it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.”
80% of customers said they understand their finance product, research their cars thoroughly and negotiate with dealers for the best deal
No single research activity is the source of the absolute truth.
Qualitative research Quantitative research • Understanding to what degree / • Understanding the real drivers of intensity things identified in customer experiences on a qualitative research are important behavioural and emotional level or true • Uncovering unconscious / latent • Ability to prioritise factors needs • Sophisticated factor analysis is • Ability to pivot with agility possible • Creating ‘empathic depth’ • Testing hypotheses • Forming robust hypotheses • Potential reach; highly scalable
Qualitative research Quantitative research • Data can be misleading if • Creates large amounts of sampling is not done unstructured data; can be appropriately overwhelming • Easy to introduce bias into • Requires skill to extract nuance survey design inadvertently from data that is to an extent • ‘Survey fatigue’ subjective • Challenges getting a representative view, recruiting participants
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Research mindsets 2) “What would you 1) “Tell us about this” like to tell us?” Contradictio n • ‘Deductive’ & focused • ‘Inductive’ & inquisitive • We know what we want you • We don’t know exactly what to tell us about we’re looking for yet • Capture the information in • Listen for themes of interest to pre-determined format refine existing understanding • Structured data gathering • Semi-structured ‘conversation’ • Rigid • Adaptive • ‘Market researcher’ • ‘Detective’
Today • Measuring stuff we always measure We know what • How do we know we’re asking the right questions? we want to • Reliance on one ‘big bang’ survey Disconnect know about. • Reinforces ‘insulation’ from customer Existing data • Disconnected from the rest of our We ask the learning, therefore findings spurious even if methodologically ok questions. Ad- • Uninquisitive; we measure ‘what’, hoc rather than discover ‘why’ qual Time Show Post-show survey
Minimum Viable Research • Start with ‘what do we know already’? – form hypotheses to test • Small, quick, inexpensive insight work using sprint methodology ‘how much can we learn this week?’ • ‘Minimum viable research’ (MVR): method-agnostic; robustness comes Probe Probe Probe from multiple data set synthesis • Kill unhelpful lines of enquiry fast, Probe Probe pivot towards valuable learning, Probe update hypotheses as you go • All research feeds from & to the Probe Probe Probe existing overall data set, creating a connected system of knowledge Hypotheses Hypotheses Hypotheses Time Show Existing data
Boiling it Down Common corporate mindset Best practice Focus on the process of collection Focus on the process of synthesis Dependent on surveys Minimum viable research (MVR) Rigid methods & processes Inquisitive & responsive to themes One perfect piece of quant Iterating based on what we learn “Tell us about xxxx…” (deductive questioning) “…and also what would you like to tell us?” (inductive discovery) Statistical significance Multiple data source validation Insights on our terms (focus group) Engaging on participants’ terms (ethnographic & contextual interviews) The numbers are the source of the truth Continually pursuing the truth Insights professionals The Insight-Literate Business
Thank you. ben.smithwell@comotional.com +447950 373390 https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben- smithwell-ba520a70/
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