Posts Tagged ‘customer’

5 Key Insights from the Strategic Growth Forum

Monday, November 28th, 2011


Recently, I had the honor of being selected as one of Ernst & Young’s 2011 Entrepreneurial Winning Women. The Award offered the opportunity to attend the Strategic Growth Forum (SGF) in Palm Springs, where more than 2,300 of the world’s top CEOs and other business leaders gathered to:

    • Master strategies for company growth
    • Learn the ins and outs of doing business in emerging markets
    • Learn critical success factors for mergers, acquisitions and IPOs

I was blown away by the quality of the programing, the ease of networking during the conference, and the resources invested in the event by E&Y. One attendee mentioned that the event budget was around $13 million. Incredible!

From the 5 days of panels, speakers, Q&As and presentations, I took away 5 key insights:

    1. We all have blind spots.

    Francis Ford Coppola commented that even the most forward-thinking companies can be blind to opportunities sitting right before their eyes. IBM invented a copy machine but couldn’t convince executives it was necessary. Similarly Xerox invented the PC but didn’t see the full future potential. Coppola noted that generally people are conservative, and when you do something differently, people see you as an oddball. However, “The things they fire you for when you are young are the same things you find yourself getting a lifetime achievement award for when you are old.” I wondered, what does this say about opportunities for us to move user experience forward? Are we missing obvious opportunities right before our eyes?

    2. Customers now own brands, too.

    In the old days, we saw brand mainly as a marketing and advertising effort. With the digital age, we saw that the online user experience became an extension of a company’s brand. Now, with social media, people have become owners of brands as well. Harley-Davidson riders are starting to do advertising for the company. Oreo cookies have 23 million Facebook fans constantly engaged in dialogue. Because of the strong role of consumers, there is less margin for a company to veer off brand message. Claudia Poccia, President and CEO of Curwitch Products said customers “shape the brand, personalize it and engage with it in real time. This relationship . . . must be totally authentic and transparent – because the experience can all change on a moment’s notice.”

    3. Pharma 3.0: Patient Outcomes & Digital Devices

    Healthcare and Pharma 3.0 involves an extreme focus on ensuring that patients have positive outcomes from their prescriptions and programs. As a result, companies are investing more in technologies and devices that allow them to drive compliance and monitor patient progress. One technology that has taken off is the smartphone app. Between 2006 and 2009, 11% of Pharma 3.0 initiatives were smartphone apps. In 2010, the segment exploded, and 41% were smartphone apps. The user experience of digital home devices and apps will be critical to compliance. Can diabetes patients effectively monitor their blood glucose and transmit results to their doctors? What will be the most effective way to communicate feedback from devices? How can smartphone apps best be integrated with patients’ lives to drive adherence? UX research in this space will be the key to successful patient outcomes.

    4. CEOs Get That Best Insights Come from Customers.

    Across various Q&A sessions and panels, I was thrilled to hear that leading CEOs truly understand their best insights come from talking directly with their customers. The CEO of 1-800 Flowers, Jim McCann, commented that their customers actually developed their best-selling product. Michael Dell stated, “The best insights come from customers, even if they want something new but can’t imagine what.”

    5. Speaking Skills Don’t Tell the Whole Story.

    I always had the impression that former President George W. Bush might have been lower on the intelligence scale due to his lackluster performance as a speaker. As President, he often looked like a deer caught in the headlights and made numerous verbal missteps. After listening to his fireside chat at SGF, I realized I’d completely judged him unfairly. In conversation with James Turly, Chairman & CEO of Ernst & Young, Bush was poised, confident, witty, charming, self-effacing, and entirely more knowledgeable on world affairs and the office of the President than I’d previously credited him. Lesson learned: personalities can change a great deal when someone takes the mike.

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AnswerLab Partners with Clients at UPA’s 2011 Designing for Social Change Conference

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

The past year has been a busy one at AnswerLab. A broad spectrum of client projects, as well as our own mobile research study, provided a wealth of research opportunities, challenges and insights. As the conference season hits full swing we are excited to have the opportunity to share some of these experiences with a broader audience.  Usability Professionals’ Association’s annual international conference happens in June and AnswerLab is busy collaborating with clients for four speaker sessions for the event.
We will present on a range of mobile learnings and best practices – from mobile ethnographies to mobile gaming- as well as sharing what we’ve learned from our partnerships with interactive agencies.

Here’s a peek at what we have planned:

Into the Wild: Uncovering Holistic Mobile Insights, presented by Amy Buckner (AnswerLab), Pamela Walshe (Wells Fargo Bank)

Understanding and connecting with mobile consumers is a huge challenge. We’ll highlight a compelling case study of a major financial institution’s need to understand the consumer experience across their mobile platforms (mobile apps, mobile site, and SMS banking) and how creative user research revealed deep insights. There will be a hands-on, group activity for learning best practices with mobile ethnography work.

Innovating Mobile Research: A Practical Introduction to Mobile & Tablet User Testing, presented by Danaus Chang (AnswerLab), Kuldeep Kelkar (PayPal)
Thanks to changes in the mobile device landscape and rise of ubiquitous connectivity, mobile user experience testing is both a necessity and a challenge. In this talk we’ll go into the logistics of setting up an in-person mobile usability study, demonstrate various set ups and share example findings.

How Research Plays: The UX of Mobile Gaming, presented by Sal Becerra (AnswerLab), Laura Smith (Electronic Arts)
Measuring the UX of mobile gaming is a challenge calling for research beyond usability. We highlight a compelling case study of how a leading game developer incorporated a holistic UX approach within their agile mobile-game development and how a creative user-research approach established a benchmarking framework to assess future products.

Working in Harmony with Interactive Agencies and End Clients, presented by Danaus Chang (AnswerLab), Charles Wiedenhoft (Red Door Interactive )
How do you ensure that your UX research provides insights that answer both interactive agency and stakeholder demands. We’ll share an in-depth case study demonstrating how to set up a UX research project to work harmoniously with both interactive agencies and end clients.

We’re looking forward to celebrating UPA’s 20th anniversary with an inspiring group of presenters attendees. If you’re heading to the conference in June please stop by the AnswerLab booth and say hello.

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Will Xfinity be Comcastic?

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Comcast recently announced that it is re- branding its products under the Xfinity name.  Re-branding their home cable, broadband, and phone services under a new name may be an attempt to convey a change in the products themselves or a shift in brand values. However, to truly impact the bottom line, changing the label isn’t enough – Comcast must focus on changing the entire user experience.

Companies primarily undertake re-branding efforts to  affect users’ brand perception. However, the most successful efforts are those where the entire experience – not just the wrapping – is enhanced or improved to the benefit of the end customer.  Often, how a customer interacts with a product or service and the company that supplies it – including the actions taken by the company if anything goes wrong —are more influential on loyalty and repurchase metrics than the product itself.  In an era of commoditized products and services where the barriers to switching are low, companies whose re-branding efforts only polish the surface – but don’t improve the user experience – run the risk of losing.

Comcast Xfinity LogoOther companies have been successful in changing both their name and their user experience. Take, for example, the case of Voicestream Wireless, the oft-forgotten brand name of a wireless carrier that was just the 8th largest in the US in 2001. Today, after an acquisition and a re-branding overhaul, the same company is the 4th largest carrier in the US, has celebrity spokespeople (Catherine Zeta Jones!), a slick logo, ultra-cool handsets, and – more importantly – is tied for the best-rated customer care amongst wireless carriers by JD Power. Yes, I am talking about T-Mobile.

But back to Comcast. On the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, Comcast currently has a substantially lower rating than competing cable and satellite TV providers like DirecTV and Cox Communications. A wholesale improvement of the entire user experience – from shopping to sign-up to everday usage to customer service – will make Xfinity successful.  Without the support of real experiential improvements, the new Xfinity name will simply be another cable brand offering below-par customer experiences. Our most successful user experience projects include implementing and measuring not just improvements to surface design features and look and feel, but to functionality, content and customer interactions.  When viewed holistically, companies can tie these improvements back to specific business outcomes, and measure success along the path.  In some ways, Comcast is lucky in that they do not have to make grand assumptions about which material changes are priorities for their customers.  The details are readily available on which improvements will help make a success of the Xfinity products.  Not only do they have their own customer service data, but there is a wealth of information in specialized user sites, social media and the blogosphere for them to tap into.  Active online forums like those on DSLreports.com actually contain useful information on which to base user centric improvements.  When embarking on a user experience improvement plan, monitoring social media can provide some great concepts to test, and some great ad-hoc measurements along the way. Formal user experience research can help quantitatively benchmark these improvements over time.

A great product and great user experience make a great brand – not vice versa.  Staying customer-focused will help companies like Comcast concentrate on the entire experience to maintain the brand promise.  Remember when Starbucks changed the coffee machines to have a lower profile allowing better engagement with the barrista?  Did this have anything to do with how the coffee tasted? No, but it had everything to do with the intimate experience of going to the coffee shop.

Let’s hope Xfinity is better than Comcastic.

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Takeout Takeaways

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
The view from my desk of the line at my favorite lunch spot, The Sentinel.

The view from my desk of the line at my favorite lunch spot, The Sentinel.

One of the perks of having our office in downtown San Francisco is the selection of nearby restaurants we can go to for lunch.  According to Yelp, there are no less than twelve sandwich shops within a five-minute walk of our office with at least four stars, to say nothing of the many taquerias, salad bars, and other specialty lunch locations.  But despite the surfeit of dining choices, I choose to exclusively go to The Sentinel for my lunches.  I’m not alone in my enthusiasm; every day customers line up at the side door of this tiny, grab’n’go sandwich shop to order and pay, and then patiently wait again in a small mob on the sidewalk to pick up their lunches.  How does an alley takeout stand with its claustrophobic confines, its lack of tables and chairs, and its limited operating hours manage to thrive in such a competitive environment?  And what can we apply from the Sentinel’s success to the successful management of user experience research?

Turns out this tiny takeout offers a few valuable customer insights worth chewing on:

Targeting the Customer
Above all else, The Sentinel serves food that both sounds and tastes delicious and it serves it fast.  Here’s a quick sampling from their menu: pork loin with figs, frisee, havarti; fresh tuna with green beans, fennel, spicy dressing; barbequed beef shoulder with caramelized onion.  This is not your typical sandwich shop.  In our part of downtown, there are a lot of people who need to eat quick lunches crammed between meetings, even back at their desks while they continue to work on topline reports and qualitative video highlight clips.  And a lot of these people, despite their tight eating schedules, really love good food, and are willing to pay a premium or make concessions to get it.  The Sentinel understands these customers and is specifically geared to attract these Fast Foodies.  It doesn’t overextend itself and try to go outside of its sweet spot.  It does its thing and does it well.

Zappos is a great example of a company that successfully built and grew a business around a target customer.   It realized that many more consumers would buy shoes online if they could receive them quickly, and return them easily, even if they could find the same shoes cheaper at a different site.

Understanding Customer Needs
Ordering lunch at many other lunch places can involve a lot of decisions.  What kind of bread do you want?  What kind of meat?  Any cheese?  Mayonnaise?  Other toppings?  If you’re ordering a burrito, what combination of meats, beans, salsa, cheese, and other add-ons would you like?  Giving the customer variety and the ability to customize can be very empowering, but it can also be overwhelming.  The Sentinel maintains a seasonal menu with around seven distinct sandwich choices and a daily special.  It manages to strike a balance between variety and simplicity so that customers feel like they have several different appealing options to choose from, and won’t have to eat the same lunch twice in the same work week, while keeping their decisions simple and fast.  This is crucial for high-end takeout food, as it minimizes the potential for errors and the overall time for ordering and preparation.

One of the biggest challenges that businesses and websites face is how to strike that balance, because answers will vary based on their products and customer needs.  The contrast between two automotive brands, MINI and Infiniti is a great example of two extremes.  The MINI online configurator is a six-step, interactive process in which the user can customize everything down to the side-mirror covers and door handles.  MINI is trying to immerse its visitors in the configuration step, hoping that they’ll form an attachment to their unique virtual cars.  Character, uniqueness, and individuality are all qualities that customers look for from MINI, and these qualities shine through their website.

Infiniti, on the other hand, bundles features and options into a few model trims and packages, minimizing the number of steps and choices that visitors have to make in its configurator.  As a luxury brand, Infiniti is catering to more affluent customers who may have less time to spend on the website.  By bundling popular features, Infiniti is able to save time for customers so that they can get the information they need as quickly as possible, and save money for the company by simplifying production complexity and selling options that may not have been purchased ala carte.

Trusting the Customer
The Sentinel changes its menu every 1-2 months, swapping in some new regular sandwiches to reflect seasonal availability and whatever the chef feels will be popular.  In the weeks leading up to a menu change, however, The Sentinel will test out a new sandwich or two for a short trial period and see how it does.  Sometimes, the new sandwich will stick around and make it onto the next menu.  Other times, it will evolve: the turkey meatballs becoming lamb meatballs, or arugula supplanting the frisee.  A few trial-sandwiches just disappear, never to be seen again.  The Sentinel is involving its customers in the sandwich innovation process.  How well does the new sandwich sell?  What are the customers who tried it saying?  The Sentinel uses this information to help determine the next iteration of its menu.

Many of today’s most innovative internet companies regularly involve their customers in their product design decisions.  Sometimes, it’s completely invisible to the end users, such as in A/B testing, when a set of users are diverted to an alternate site experience and compared to the rest of the users.  Other times, websites are more forthcoming, encouraging users to try beta versions or even creating a dedicated area for users to play with the next generation of tools and features and provide feedback, such as googlelabs.com and Microsoft’s officelabs.com.  In order to stay innovative and competitive, businesses, products, and websites should go in new, bold directions, listen to the voice of their customers, and keep innovating – even when some ideas don’t work.

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