by Robyn Bolton | Jan 22, 2020 | Customer Centricity, Tips, Tricks, & Tools
Several years ago and courtesy of the TED Women Conference, I got my hands on SY Partner’s Superpowers Card Deck. Before forcing everyone on my team to run through the deck, I experimented on myself.
My Superpower? Complexity Busting.
And yes, I do truly love to create order from chaos or, as SY phrases it, “tame unruly thoughts.”
Which is why I now feel compelled to tame the unruly thoughts that many people have about customer research.
Most companies believe that it’s important to understand their customers and many of them invest millions of dollars in trying to do just that. Unfortunately, most of them are wasting their money by investing in the wrong tools.
Here’s a cheat sheet so you don’t make the same mistake
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
In-depth, one-on-one interviews
- WHY you should use it: To discover and explore what you don’t know. When you are exploring a new space (or one you haven’t explored in a while) and you need to discover both what is going on and why, one-on-one in-depth interviews are the best (and only) way to start to bring clarity to a situation.
- HOW to do it: Don’t let the name fool you, these should rarely be truly one-to-one interviews. I prefer to structure them as two-on-ones: person 1 is being interviewed, person 2 is the interviewer and asks most of the questions, and person 3 takes notes and occasionally chimes in with questions that person 2 might have forgotten to ask.
- WHEN to use it: At the beginning of any project that feels ambiguous or for which you don’t have a lot of pre-existing and up-to-date data to rely on. It’s also a good exercise to do at least once a year as a way of ensuring that your data actually is up to date and reflects changing customer attitudes and behaviors.
Pro Tips:
- Face to face is best so that you can see non-verbal cues that indicate if someone is holding back information, struggling to understand, or having an epiphany.
- Don’t rush these. Plan 1–2 hours for these interviews as the conversations need to be EPIC (empathetic, perspective-giving, insightful, and create connection).
- Follow the rule of 10. Qualitative data tends ot be directional at best so don’t waste a lot of time and money interviewing hundreds of people. Instead, interview 10 customers then reassess to see if you need to interview more. In my experience, people 1–4 tend to provide the most new data, people 5–7 help focus you on the most important things, and people 8–10 confirm the most important things or add interesting spins that can be explored through other means.
Focus Groups
- WHY you should use it: To develop, enhance, and refine ideas and prototypes. Creativity abounds when people can bounce ideas around and build on what others say. For this reason, group research, like focus groups, is best when you’re giving people something to react to but you’ve already done the homework to identify the right problem and you’re simply giving them a solution to which to respond.
- HOW to do it: Focus groups should be heavily facilitated with structured exercises to keep the group focused. There’s lots of ways to host focus groups — in-person in research facilities, on-line communities, even group texts. What matters most is how you facilitate the group, ensuring that the collective energy is focused on generating the information and insights that will be most helpful.
- WHEN to use it: After you have prototyped solutions to the challenges identified through the one-on-one interviews. You want to give people something to react to, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a 3D printed prototype or a few sentences on a piece of paper. What matters is that you have a facilitator guiding people through exercises designed to understand what they like, what they don’t like, what they think, and what they feel.
Pro Tip: Make your prototype as ugly as possible. In general, people don’t want to be mean or hurt your feelings. As a result, the more refined your prototype, the more likely people are to think that you spent a lot of time and effort creating it. They’ll go out of their way to find things that they like, even defaulting to “I think people will like this….” (which is code for “I don’t like this but I’m sure someone else will). If you want honest feedback (and you do), make the prototype ugly.
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Surveys
- WHY you should use it: To understand the relative priority of things and to build confidence in your recommendations. As mentioned above, qualitative research insights are directional and, even though they’re usually at least 80% right, some projects, executives, or companies want greater certainty before taking action. Surveys can get you that certainty in a far more efficient and effective way than additional qualitative research because they enable you to reach hundreds, even thousand, of people at once and collect data on a standard list of questions and answers.
- HOW to do it: This depends on the complexity of your survey. Self-serve options, like Survey Monkey and Typeform, are great for simple (e.g. 10 question) surveys to a broad group of people (e.g. women 18–34) or to an existing database of people (e.g. customers who have returned warranty cards). For surveys that are more complex (dozens of questions, use question logic), require a large base (100+) of respondents and/or are directed to a hard to find or access population (e.g. cardiac surgeons, people who have spent over $300 on gluten-free products in the past 3 months), it is best to work with a quantitative research firm that has the expertise, experience, and technology required to design and field the survey as well as analyze the data.
- WHEN to use it: When you are confident that you know the right questions to ask AND the right answer options to provide. In other words, after you’ve done qualitative research or when you’re doing something as a matter of course (e.g. post-purchase survey). And even then, it’s a good idea to include open-text response options just in case the answers you provide don’t include the answer your customers want to give.
Pro Tip: If you’re working with a qualitative researcher who claims they also do quantitative research, ask them to provide specific examples of past work that it at the same scope and complexity of the work you want to do. Quantitative research tends to become the “sole source of truth” in companies so it’s worth investing in the right experts for this type of work.
In closing…
Customer research is an incredibly complex field which means it’s easy to get overwhelmed and make the wrong decision. Hopefully this simple overview busts some of that complexity and quiets some unruly thoughts.
I’m curious…did this help you find the right type of research for your needs? What did I miss? What would you add? Share your thoughts and help all pf us get smarter and better at this important work!
by Robyn Bolton | Nov 18, 2019 | Customer Centricity, Tips, Tricks, & Tools
A few weeks ago, I published a piece in Forbes with tips on how to learn from your toughest customers.
During most of the year, these “customers” tend to the people buying our products or using our services — people who don’t understand why our products or services cost so much, are so difficult to understand, or why they should choose them over other options.
During the holidays, though, these people tend to be our family members — people who don’t understand why we moved so far from home, don’t call or visit more often, or why we support a certain political party, politician, or cause.
Luckily, the same techniques we use to understand our business’ customers and craft solutions that help them solve their problems or achieve the progress they seek (their Jobs to be Done, according to Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen), can also be used to keep the peace at your next family gathering.
Here are some Customer Research Do’s and Don’ts to help you navigate your next visit with family:
1. DO establish the topic of conversation. DON’T lead with your opinion: When you start an in-depth qualitative interview with a customer, you don’t start the conversation with “I think what we do is awesome and that you’re a horrible person if you don’t agree with me.” You start with, “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. I’m very excited to hear your opinions about my business.”
We all know you’re not excited to hear Uncle Lenny’s opinion on gun control but starting the conversation with your opinion isn’t going to help things. So, when Uncle Lenny brings up the topic, simply acknowledge the topic and ask if others are interested in having the conversation. Who knows, maybe Aunt Jenny will shut the conversation down before it gets started.
2. DO listen more than you talk. DON’T try to win the argument. The purpose of customer interviews is to learn from your customer, not to convince them to do something. That’s why you try to talk only 20% of the time and listen 80%.
When Uncle Lenny, undeterred by Aunt Jenny’s pleas to move on, continues to expound on why he believes what he believes about gun control, don’t try to drown him out, overwhelm him with data, or win him over to your side. Instead, listen to what he has to say, ask open-ended questions, and, every so often, chime in with your point of view.
3. DO be curious. DON’T make assumptions. During customer interviews, you don’t take things at face value. When a customer says something is easy, you ask what makes it easy. When as customer says they want something to be more convenient, you ask what “more convenient” would look like. You don’t assume you know what the customer means, you ask.
When Grandpa Joe says that anyone who believes (fill in the topic) is a (fill in the negative stereotype), don’t assume that he’s talking about you. Ask why he thinks that people who believe X are Y. Maybe he’s never met anyone who believes X and is simply repeating something he heard. As a result, he may be surprised that the family member he loves who doesn’t fit the stereotype does believe X. Maybe he HAS met someone who believes X and they do fit the stereotype. Then you can remind him that 1 person doesn’t represent everyone in a group and that while yes, that person may not be his cup of tea, there are other people (like you) who are.
4. DO share your opinions. DON’T be dogmatic about it. In the rare instance when a customer starts to assert patently false things — a company has satanic roots, a product kills pets, an executive committed a crime — it’s your responsibility to speak-up and correct the falsehood. When you correct a customer, you don’t stand up and shout in their face, you speak slowly and calmly, gently acknowledging their opinion before sharing the facts, and you do this only a few times before moving on to the next topic.
When Grandpa Joe refuses to relent on his “anyone who believes X is a Y” stance, you have every right to disagree but doing it with the same absolute language and heated emotions isn’t going to change his mind. Instead, consider framing your opinion as a question, “Grandpa, what if I believe X. What would you think then?” If he persists, then gently explain that you hear him, respectfully disagree with him, and believe X for the following reasons.
5. DO know your limits. DON’T be afraid to leave when they’ve been reached. Customer interviews have a time limit and, no matter how chatty, interesting, or charming your customer is, you end the conversation when the time limit has been reached. Maybe you schedule time for a follow-up conversation but more often than not, you thank them for their time, hand them their check, and show them out the door.
Family time also has a limit. When you reach the limit of your patience, energy, civility, or sanity, thank everyone for their time and show yourself out the door. Yes, you may miss out on Grandma’s pie or your sibling’s vacation photos, but that’s a small price to pay for keeping the peace. And you can always schedule time late for conversations with select family members.
In closing
Talking to customers isn’t easy. Neither is talking to your family. But by using the same techniques you use to understand and empathize with your customers, you can navigate the minefields of family gatherings, maintain your sanity, and maybe even make it to dessert.
by Robyn Bolton | Nov 11, 2019 | Customer Centricity
“They put their modems in filing cabinet drawers! Can you believe it?!?!”
The crowd roared with laughter. I closed my eyes and started to breathe deeply. Mainly so I wouldn’t throw my chair at the speaker.
The speaker was an industry icon. The gentleman was responsible for many of the cable and telecommunications inventions that we take for granted. After regaling us with stories from the past, the type of adventures one can only have when an industry is still small and scrappy, he was asked about the future.
He talked about ambitious plans to make it easier for people to age at home — everything from connected devices to modular accessibility tools to building code changes. It was while speaking about that last ambition that he made the comment about modem placement. And, in return, a room full of engineers laughed, shook their heads and wondered how consumers could be so stupid.
Your customers are not stupid.
Yes, customers do a lot of unexpected things. But that doesn’t mean they’re stupid.
They’re doing unexpectedly and seemingly stupid things for a reason.
Maybe the modem is a drawer because it’s ugly and ruins the aesthetic of the room.
Maybe the modem’s constant hum irritates the people in the room, distracting them from the work they’re trying to do.
Maybe the modem’s blinking lights keep people awake or make it harder for them to sleep.
There are lots of reasons why modems are in drawers and very few of them have to do with the IQ of the modem’s owner.
You are being lazy
Yes, there is something that can’t be modified to be easier or more intuitive to use but those things are not nearly as numerous as we think.
Cars had to be big to be safe. Until the Japanese made small safe cars
Computers had to be screens in beige boxes next to beige towers. Until Apple made a teardrop-shaped desktop computer in 5 colors
Can-openers and carrot peelers used to be metal tools that required strength and a bit of courage to operate. Until OXO made them more ergonomic.
Saying, “Modems simply have to be black with loud fans and lots of blinky lights, and they must be kept out in the open,” is, at best, lazy and unimaginative and, at worst, profoundly arrogant.
3 steps to stop being lazy and start being smart
1. Ask your customers WHY they’re doing what they’re doing. Actually, go TALK to your customers and ask them why they’re putting their modems in drawers. Do not hide behind a survey — you can’t possibly know all the reasons why so forcing your customers to pick from a list you created or fill in an empty text box will only get you the answers you expect. If you want the truth, go talk to the humans that are buying and using your products
2. Shut-up and LISTEN. After you’ve asked why, stop talking. Don’t suggest possible reasons, thus biasing their answers. Don’t try to take the blame by asking if your design is too complicated or the print in the instruction manual is too small. Just ask the question and listen. If there is silence, wait patiently. Your customers will start talking and, when that happens, you’re likely to learn something.
3. Make changes based on what you heard. Once you’ve heard the answer to “Why?” do not try to convince the customer that their reasoning is wrong and explain to them why they should do things differently. Once you understand their Why, say “Thank You,” and go back to the lab or the office or the drawing board and start solving the problem
- The modem is ugly. Can we change its shape, size, or color so that it blends in or stands out in a really cool way that transforms it into a status symbol (cough, white Apple earbuds, cough)?
- The modem is loud. How can we reduce fan speed or improve soundproofing?
- The blinky lights are keeping people awake at night. How can we eliminate the lights or reduce the number or change the color or change the placement?
Your customers aren’t stupid.
They’re giving you an opportunity to be smart
Take it.
Originally published (with some minor editorial tweaks) in Forbes as “How To Get Smart About Why Your Customers Do Confusing Things”
by Robyn Bolton | Jun 9, 2019 | Book Club
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius
That, in a nutshell, is what Your Brain At Work is all about . By blending snapshot stories, scientific and medical research, and practical examples, David Rock lays out a convincing and easy to read argument that, by understanding the workings and limitations of our brains, we can better understand others, overcome challenges, and navigate our world.
While this book is certainly written for a mass audience, innovators especially should give it a read because of what it has to say about insights, ideas, and driving change.
INSIGHTS
We’ve all had those A-Ha! moments. Those brief seconds when we’re doing nothing of import (like taking a shower) and suddenly, without warning, an insight pops into our heads.
Often those insights are an answer to a question or a solution to a problem that has been plaguing us. We’ve encountered a new challenge and we know that the usual solutions, procedures, and answers won’t work, but we don’t know what will.
What we need is an insight — “not a logical solution,” Rock explains, “but one that recombines knowledge (and maps in your brain) in a whole new way.”
The reason why insights pop into our heads when we’re doing nothing is that our brain is, in fact, doing quite a lot. Studies conducted by Dr. Stellan Ohlsson, at the University of Illinois at Chicago, explain why this is, “when facing a new problem, people apply strategies that worked in prior experience. This works well if the new problem is similar to the old problem. However, in many situations, this is not the case, and the solution from the past gets in the way, stopping better solutions from arising… Instead, the projection of prior experience has to be actively suppressed and inhibited.”
By not thinking of anything in particular, we’re actually suppressing the usual answers and creating space for new answers (insights) to emerge. And luckily, we don’t have to spend our days in the shower to make this happen.
How to Create Insights:
- Focus on the big picture: Dr. Mark Beeman, an associate professor at Northwestern University and an expert in the neuroscience of insights, found that when people solve a problem using insights, their right anterior lobe (a region in the brain’s right hemisphere) becomes more active than usual. Because the right hemisphere is primarily responsible for identifying holistic connections, keeping it active is key to producing insights. However, when we focus on the details of a problem, instead of the big picture, we activate the left hemisphere this decreasing activity in the right hemisphere and reducing the conditions required for insight.
- Get a fresh perspective: As Dr. Ohlsson’s research shows, the more we know about a problem or a situation, the more likely we are to rely on past experience for a solution. It can be incredibly hard to get out of our own way so, instead, we should seek out people with different experiences and perspectives for their input. Even if they don’t have the perfect answer, simply listening to a different perspective can help create the space needed for insights to emerge
- Have fun. Beeman’s research has also revealed a strong correlation between emotional states and insight. As Rock explains, “Increasing happiness increases the likelihood of insight, while increasing anxiety decreases the likelihood of insight. This relates to your ability to perceive subtle signals. When you are anxious, there is greater baseline activation and more overall electrical activity, which makes it harder for you to perceive subtle signals.” Quite simply, if you’re happy, you’re able to pick up subtle pieces of information that can be used to create brilliant insights.
IDEAS
Throughout the book, Rock uses a small theater as a metaphor to explain how the brain works.
Imagine that your pre-frontal cortex, the part of the cortex (the curly gray outer covering of your brain) that sits just behind your forehead and that Is responsible for most of our decision-making and problem-solving activity, is a stage. The stage is small, it can hold only a handful of people at a time, and it needs A LOT of lighting (energy) to operate (think).
In the theater are actors, pieces of information from the outside world, and the audience, information from our internal worlds (thoughts, memories, etc.).
YOU are the director and you can move actors (external info) and audience members (internal info) on or off the stage at any given time to accomplish the following:
- Understand a new idea — put an actor (external info) on the stage and see how it interacts with the audience (info already in your head)
- Make a decision — put several actors on stage and compare them to each other
- Recall information — bring an audience member on stage
- Memorize — move actors off-stage and put them in the audience
- Inhibit thoughts — move actors off stage
Understanding how your brain works, and that you can control it, provides insights into how to get the most out of it on a daily basis AND how to get the most out of others’ brains when you need to — like during an ideation session
How to Generate Better Ideas
- Start in the morning: The pre-frontal cortex is energy-hungry so the more your work it, the more physically and mentally drained you become. Doing creative work early in the day means that you’re starting with all your available energy
- Tell stories about people: When explaining a problem to people, it’s tempting to lay out all the facts. But “studies have shown that when you give people a logic problem to solve, they do so dramatically faster than when the problem is explained in terms of people interacting rather than in terms of disembodied conceptual ideas.” This is why personas, photos, and videos are so powerful during ideation, the move our thinking away from the conceptual (e.g. “how can we increase revenue?”) to the personal (e.g. “how can we better serve Claire the Customer?”)
- Provide diverse, analogous, and unexpected example solutions to spur ideation: “Picturing something you have not yet seen is going to take a lot more energy and effort,” Rock writes. “This partly explains why people spend more time thinking about problems (things they have seen) than solutions (things they have never seen and taking breaks gives you the opportunity to recharge so that you can continue the creative work.” Give people examples of solutions so that they can shift their thinking away from problems AND suppress their instinct to focus on existing solutions to the new problem they’re facing
CHANGE
We’ve all heard the clichés — “Get comfortable being uncomfortable” and “The only thing that is certain is uncertainty” and “The only thing that is constant is change.” But none of them make us feel better when everything around us is changing and, especially when we are being asked to change.
The reason for that is, according to neuroscientists, “because uncertainty feels, to the brain, like a threat to your life.”
It’s easy for innovators, people who feel it is their mission to drive change, to forget this when we propose new ideas or procedures. We are confident that we’ve done the work required to make a thoughtful and correct proposal that improves a product, process, or situation and are dumbfounded when we meet with resistance.
While we’ve worked hard on our idea, we’ve forgotten to work hard to understand how our audience’s brains will react. Specifically, whether the people we are presenting to may experience threats in one or more of the following domains:
- Status: Will I be perceived as less than other people?
- Certainty: Am I being asked to do things differently?
- Autonomy: Will I lose control or decision-making authority?
- Relatedness: Will I lose my connection to others?
- Fairness: Were my expectations not met?
Anticipating possible reactions in any and all of these domains, and addressing them directly or indirectly is critical to creating and sustaining change
How to Create Change
- Proactively address and reduce threats: Act humbly and acknowledge someone’s position and role to reduce threats to status, Set clear expectations and talk openly about the future to increase certainty. Let others own key activities and make timely and clear decisions to promote autonomy. Be authentic and real in all of your communications to reinforce relatedness. Keep your promises and quickly address broken ones in order to promote a perception (and reality) of fairness.
- Set goals and provide rewards: Setting goals as they relate to any of the five items above (stats, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness) and prime people’s brains to look for evidence that they are progressing towards those goals. Adding in a reward for achieving the goals further improves the likelihood that change will occur because it keeps “the expectation of a primary reward in sight…(which) will lift their moods and improve their thinking.”
- Repeat. Repeat. Repeat: “Real change requires repetition,” explains Rock. You’re asking people to stop doing something they’ve been doing for a long time and to start doing something different. That isn’t going to happen overnight and it’s certainly not going to happen based on even the most compelling data-based argument (how many of us eat as many vegetables, exercise as often, or floss as frequently as we should?). Instead, change happens because we are reminded of it, it is reinforced, and we are rewarded over and over and over again.
In conclusion
These lessons and actions only skim the surface of the interesting and useful insights in Your Brain at Work. But to learn more, you’ll just have to buy it.
by Robyn Bolton | Apr 1, 2018 | Customer Centricity
“There is only one boss. The customer.” – Sam Walton
With all the buzz around human-centered design, customer-centric businesses, and external-facing organizations, corporate America is (finally) waking up to the importance and value of creating things that people actually want and that solve people’s problems.
Teams of innovators, ethnographers, socialists, researchers, and consultants scurry about gathering customer insights, soliciting customer feedback, and generating reports that can be funneled back to R&D, innovation, and product development teams to inform the development of the Next Big Thing.
While this is all important work, amidst all of this activity, one customer is consistently overlooked. And it is this customer that often decides the fate of the Next Big Thing
There is only one first customer. Your boss.
Let’s start with what a customer is:
“The recipient of a good, service, product, or idea obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for money or some other valuable consideration.
Yes, you should spend a lot of time getting to know the people outside your company who will eventually be asked to exchange money for the good, product, or service you are creating.
You also need to spend time getting to know the people inside your organization who you are currently asking to exchange money (give you a budget) or some other valuable consideration (time, people, permission) for your idea and its development.
And you need convince them that “a financial transaction” is worth it because, if you don’t they can and will spend their money elsewhere.
Your boss is a tough customer
No matter what type of company you are in — from a company of 10 to a company of 10,000 — you are faced with limited resources. A dollar spent in one place means a dollar not spent in another place. A person allocated to one team means one less person on another team.
Managers have to make resources allocation trade-offs all the time but are often moving pieces between functions and teams where they know the ROI of additional investments. This situation changes dramatically when a manager must decide whether to invest resources into a new and uncertain venture or to invest in the core, and much more certain, business.
Convincing your boss to buy your idea, especially if that idea is a new venture, is tough because you’re asking your boss to buy (or invest in) something with an uncertain ROI rather than buy (or invest in) something with a more certain ROI. But you can be successful if you understand your boss.
Your boss can be understood (and their decisions anticipated)
First, get comfortable with the fact that your boss is a human being. And, just like other human beings, your boss makes lots of decisions, believes that these decisions are based on logic and reason, and actually bases most decisions more on emotion and instinct.
As frustrating as this may be when you are at the receiving end of these decisions, take comfort in the fact that you can actually use the tools you use to understand external customers to understand, and even anticipate, your boss’ decisions.
Here’s how:
- What is the current business situation? While this is usually an easy question to answer, it can be hard to anticipate what impact it will have on your boss’ willingness to invest. Just as most people are hesitant to invest in something new when the current business environment is poor, many people are equally hesitant to invest when business is booming. This is usually because investments in the core business are generating more than usual upside and that’s great for your boss and/or there is no urgency to do anything new because people assume the good times will go on forever (news flash: they wont’). So while you can’t anticipate what impact the answer to this question will have on your odds of securing investment, you do need to know the context within which you are asking.
- What is your boss being asked to deliver? How is she measured and rewarded? Is your boss expected to deliver revenue increases? She’ll be drawn to new ideas that increase revenue. Cost savings? Then pitch ways to improve efficiency. How much time does she have to deliver results? If she needs to show results quarterly, you have to generate results quickly. If she has a year to show improvement, you have a longer runway to show results.
- What is your boss’ reputation? Does she like it? Humans are hard-wired to be social creatures so, whether we admit it or not, we really care how other people see us. What is your boss’ reputation — is she known for being a steady hand that consistently delivers or a renegade willing to rock the boat and take risks? And how does she feel about her reputation? Does she like it or does she see herself differently? If you have a boss that likes being seen as reliable and a defender of the status quo, you’re going to have a much harder time selling your new idea than if you boss is seen (or wants to be seen) as the next Steve Jobs.
With the answers to these questions, you can figure out the likelihood that your boss will buy your idea. If you boss is managing a business that is struggling, is expected to increase revenue after years of decreases, and is happy to be known as someone who always delivers, it’s unlikely she’ll be willing to invest resources in a new and unproven idea. But if your boss is managing a struggling business, is expected to develop new revenue streams that will replace the old ones, and enjoys a reputation as a someone who challenges the status quo, odds are she’ll support a reasonably well-thought out proposal for initial investment in a new venture.
Bottom line…
Before you get the opportunity to sell a new product or service to external customers, you need to sell your idea to internal customers…your boss. Take the time to understand you boss, the things that motivate her and the issues and challenges that she faces. Then, just as you create a product or service to solve your external customers’ problems, you can create a pitch that shows your boss how your idea solves her challenges.
Approach your boss as you would a customer and you’re likely to get the support you need. Forget that your boss is your first customer and you may never get the chance to pitch to the ones you’ve spent so much time studying.
