When in doubt decisions get made based on our own gut instincts. Or on those instincts of the loudest or most influential people in the room. Somehow, the voice of the customer doesn’t always get the hearing it deserves.
Website interfaces, marketing messages, service propositions - all things that impact the customer absolutely - typically get created from the inside out. With rumbling guts leading the way. But you, me, the boss, the consultant - we are not the customer. The perspective that the customer brings - whether gathered through research in advance, testing during the process or feedback after the event - takes some of the randomness and risk out of second guessing.
How do you ensure the customer doesn’t get left out?
1. Don’t optimize for the hippo
Everyone has a hippo in their life - it may be the HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion, or a Highly Influential Person’s Personal Opinion. The hippo knows just how a website should look, or just what makes a great advert and they are not about to keep that opinion to themselves.
In lieu of stronger evidence from the customer, the hippo holds great sway!
But, our roaring, mud loving, opinionated hippo friends are not the people the website, marketing campaign, or interior layouts are ultimately designed for - theirs isn’t the only significant opinion.
Which brings me to the second point.
2. If in doubt, ask… (the customer that is!)
Just how many hours of speculation, doubt and opining could be saved by talking to the customer?
User testing, for example, can stop dead a circular debate that has run through a company for months. In the space of just a few hours the customers themselves reveal what is really in their mind.
Testing different content side by side and tracking the comparative results (right through to overall revenue) is another way of asking the customer “which of these works best for you”. Tools such as Google’s free weboptimizer allow you to easily test any combination of web content to find out what leads to the most conversions. The customer speaks with their attention and actions.
And of course, asking the customer can also mean good old research in the form of focus groups, site visits, follow homes, surveys, customer diaries, user testing and formal or informal interviews.
3. But, don’t start research sure of the answer - you’ll only prove your self right
Keep your mind open, listen and learn. Biased research is no better than gut instinct. I’ve written before about how easy it is to influence the results of your research. For example by unwittingly encouraging people to tell you what you want to hear, or by being so sure of “the answer” that you hear it despite what your customers tell you.
Instead, see if you can prove yourself wrong.
4. Test, analyse and make decisions based on evidence
If you have the evidence, act on it - don’t let the customer in, then ignore what they tell you when it comes to decision making.
But sometimes, despite the fact that you’ve talked to the customer and gathered your facts, the hippo can come back for a final roar - still convinced that their personal opinion trumps the evidence.
Keep the hippo at bay with voice of the customer data (the customer in their own words really works here). And remind them of the financial costs of inaction or inappropriate action. Better still, help the hippo realise it was all their idea in the first place and that they are one smart semi-aquatic mammal!
5. Out of sight, out of mind?
Highly successful businesses typically know that the customer is genuinely at the centre of their universe. And many go to great lengths to keep the customer presence there in the decision making process. I saw a presentation by eBay recently, where they talked about how people throughout the organisation participate in follow homes, to observe customers using the site in their own context.
Microsoft have done a lot of persona work and have created life size representations of key customer personas who are taken along to meetings. At the other end of the scale I have seen tourism businesses whose offices are full of cards and notes from previous visitors from all over the world - also a visual representation, if they choose to use it, of the customers’ role in key decisions.
So, you are not the customer and neither is the hippo - make sure you don’t simply second guess what your real highly influential opinion holders think!
This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Business research, Research tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.