The End of the Road

So this is it. My last entry for Customer Insights. I'll try to make it a good one.

The whole concept of the customer experience was a new idea to me. I had had some, well a lot of experience actually, working with instrumentation products that were designed to be operated by an end-user. However all of our requirements were based on the functional usability of the machine and that was it. From the first day when Professor Walls described the customer insights course in terms of the "Starbucks Experience" it really opened my eyes to intangibles such as the emotional connection or relationship the customer can have with their product and some of the more subtle motivations behind why customers buy a product. In other words, the factors that go beyond price, quality, and performance; typical parameters that have been traditionally used to define the merits of a product from a seller's standpoint. So from this point on I was really sold on this idea and as the course progressed I realized that this is really a new, cutting-edge area of marketing and one that all businesses would be wise to consider. Companies such as Starbucks, Apple, and Ritz-Carlton, have been fast movers in adopting this marketing ideal, and this is certainly a new perspective that I will take to the company (Life Technologies) I will be interning at this summer. The group project re-enforced the idea that there are more factors at play than the pure functionality of a product. In our project, Lisa (trendy Mom) was constantly concerned about clutter, mess, storage, and time when in the kitchen, which was somewhat divergent from our original idealistic picture of her in this environment. Had we not have conducted our ethnographic and traditional research, we would not have truly understood her typical experience in the kitchen and what we could do to improve it. In the end I believe our "special skillet" is a product that we could never, ever, have come up with had we not used the customer experience concepts.

"The Ugly Baby"

The other key takeaway from the course that I know will be useful in my future career endeavors was the prototyping process. The rapid prototyping was particularly insightful. It was created based on the feedback that we received from our persona subjects, but what really blew me away was how much criticism our subjects had of the design! Considering we designed it from their ideas and thoughts I found this really paradoxical at first, but what I realized was that there must of been information that was not, and maybe could not have been captured in the original data collection which only the rapid prototype could have brought out (as embarrassing as showing the prototype was). I do now see the value in the prototyping process, as it gave our group the ability to exercise our creative genius incrementally and within the context of the customer's needs. As a matter of fact, I believe that if we took our second prototype to the persona subjects again, they would again have feedback and questions, though probably not quite as many as the design has matured based on their requirements. If I had another opportunity to take this course, I would choose some different ethnographic techniques (for fun) as well as a different persona. I actually really wanted to choose children or tweens as the group persona, as I think a lot of really cool off-the-wall ideas would come out from this segment. Oh well!!

The third question is difficult for me to answer because I really did feel all aspects of the group project were useful and represented a learning experience. Hmmmm......, perhaps the options of what environment the product could be designed for could be opened up to the team's or individuals' interests? I don't know. I don't really feel strongly either way about this. Sorry, I don't have too much to say on this subject. I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of the project and the process we followed made perfect sense to me.

Working with the group on this project was a good experience overall. I was fortunate enough to work with a great team that was reliable and had their materials prepared by the deadline. I think the group aspect was of particular value in creating the rapid prototype simply because there are so many possibilities at first. Having the ability to bounce different ideas of different team members is invalueable. As I mentioned in my group presentation I did confirm through this course that I am an egocentric person! The friendly argument that ensued between me and my persona based on the rapid prototype was an eye-opener. To re-iterate, never, ever have one of the designers performing follow-up interviews! Otherwise the data may be biased by that person! I believe the group presentations was a good experience, particularly for the non-MBA students. From an audience perspective it did appear to me that there was a difference in quality between an MBA speaking versus a non-MBA. Last but not least I think Professor Walls did a good job with this course. My major sticking point was mediation of the classroom in terms of side-conversations, laptops being up during class, people on smartphones, and name tags not displayed. Totally disrespectful in my opinion. It disgusted me when I saw the usual classmates with their token comments for participation points get right on their smartphones immediately after voicing themselves. Brutal. Anyway, not to be overly negative - that's just one criticism. My experience in this course was great, and I'm definitely going to carry this knowledge forward into my future career!

Shoot first. Ask questions later.

Today I reviewed the authors' commentary on groundswell. Yes, groundswell. Are they making up their own words for this social media phenomenon? If so, can they not pick a more intuitive term to describe this? Wow, I'm in a negative mindset today! Right...calibrate... let's move on!!

A few topics really struck me as I read the chapters. First and foremost, there is an immense amount of potential to solicit product and process feedback from SNS users, and in my opinion, particularly from forums and review sites such as IMDB (Internet Movie Database) and CNET, which gives users a chance to weigh in on the product offering. To me this represents a huge paradigm shift away from having a few central "experts" that have historically had an extraordinary effect on the success or failure of a product. Some examples that come to mind immediately are movie critics (Siskel & Ebert / Roeper & Ebert) and food critics (Ruth Reichl / R.W. Apple Jr.). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they still impact a large number of people, but now there are social media mediums that people can utilize to provide their opinion and see a large subset of feedback as opposed to one or two datapoints. Companies ought to be aware of this shift and adapt to it. So the question becomes, what can they do?

If I were in a marketing position in a company that sold, say, a technology product. I would immediately educate myself on the various forum and review-style sites that exist, and if there weren't any I would request an initiative for my company to create one and manage it. The question of whether my company would put it's name on it is an interesting one. I suppose the answer would hinge on how the particular demographic of users feels about corporate logos on forums - is it anti-corporation, indifferent, or are some other emotions expressed?

In any case, an idea that came to me was to create loaded statements on the sites. That is, extreme statements that either greatly over-exaggerate or significantly undermine a product or service. The intent would be to illicit response and to determine exactly where a product stands - is the assertion way off, or not too far from the truth? I believe this would be a novel approach for companies to gain a better understanding of their products in the SNS segment that they have identified. Some major hang-ups that customers have with their products will almost certainly come to light.

At this point, the companies could attempt to get in touch with the users that have been critical of the product or service to better understand what segment they represent as well as how to improve their experience. To take matters a step further, perhaps it may be appropriate to create a persona for these users if they do indeed represent a common type of user.

The other idea I had was to extend the SNS into the physical store. For example, why not have "like / dislike" buttons by select new products at stores like Wal-Mart or Target to tally customer's binary opinions on a product. The opinions feedback can then be ported over to a forum for that product, to help understand why users liked it or why they disliked it, and again, take measures to improve these customers' experiences. This is a win-win for both the retailer and the manufacturer. Speaking of Wal-Mart, check this website out, funny stuff.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

I am one of those people that refuse to shop at Wal-Mart. I honestly don't. This is the reason.

So I touched on a couple of ideas of some applications that companies can use to exploit SNS. I feel that there is potential to have successful marketing efforts through SNS, but at the same time there is an equally likely or perhaps even greater possibility that companies' products, services, and actions, will be scrutinized to an extent never they've never experienced previously. Simply put, it is unlikely going forward that large companies will be able to release crap without a considerable number of people knowing.

Power to the people.

WAR IS PEACE - FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The NY Times article on Wal-Mart's hidden customer data mine came as a big surprise to me. I knew that large retailers did collect some data on their customers' buying habits, but 460 terabytes of data? C'mon man!

To Wal-Mart's credit though, they are absolutely correct in their perspective that the data represents very powerful information and I believe they have exploited this data to gain a competitive advantage over their competition. Wal-Mart's most significant core competency is supply chain managment and as such, they realize that matching supply with demand is a critical challenge they can use this data to overcome. Imagine knowing the precise amount of inventory that will consumed in a month... in a week... in a day... in an hour. Wal-Mart recognizes that given enough statistics (gender, age, race, geography, looming natural disasters) they can reasonably accurately predict the demand for certain goods. For the customer this represents a positive experience. Most people are well aware of how frustrating it can be when they go to the store and an item they really want or need is sold out. Wal-Mart is trying to create a situation in which this will never, ever happen. The data should also lead to reasonable pricing and the "right" merchandise being available. That is, if the demand for a product is low, the data will probably support either lowering the price of the product or replacing it outright. So this is the positive experience in a nutshell: the item I want, at a reasonable price, on the shelf when I want it.

Another benefit that this data gives Wal-Mart is an even greater amount of power over their suppliers. According to the article Wal-Mart may be moving to a system in which suppliers own merchandise until it's sold to the end-user. With the data Wal-Mart has, they should be able to statistically ensure suppliers that their merchandise will be sold and that the supplier will not be left with an excess amount of inventory on their books. Given Wal-Mart's sheer size and this guarantee, I think suppliers will have no choice but to conform to the mandate. This is clearly not a financial benefit to the suppliers, as it could increase their working capital, but many companies depend on Wal-Mart to remain intact and profitable, so they will have no choice but to continue to do business with this merchandising monster.

There certainly are some potential privacy issues that this data collection raises, and I'm certainly not in a position in which I trust Wal-Mart. In fact, I don't trust big businesses in general, because as a business student I realize that company's mandates are to be accountable to its shareholders. Simply stated, companies will attempt to create value by any means necessary. The problem is that if this means finding a loophole in the law in which they can sell off data (a practice Wal-Mart used to partake in) to make an efficient buck, then the management will not think twice about it. I guess I see both sides of the coin. On one hand it is reasonable for Wal-Mart to collect data in an effort to understand its customers' purchasing habits. Isn't this what every retailer should do? On the other hand the data could be used for sinister motives a la 1984 (did you recognize the reference from the title of this blog entry?). Overall I'll admit that this issue does not bother me too much because I think the laws in North America are too restrictive to allow extreme misuse of this data towards the collective population. I'm confident that some lobby group will scream "bloody murder". After all, isn't democracy all about having your nation run by special interest and minority groups? Okay... sorry I'm getting carried away. Politically charged Norm "OFF".

One important segment of data I believe Wal-Mart is missing lies with the end-user. Wal-Mart tracks where merchandise is bought, but how satisfied is the customer with their physical purchase, not to mention the experience they had in parking their car, interacting with the greeter, comandeering their cart or basket, finding what they were looking for, waiting (or not) in line, interacting with the cashier, returning their cart or basket, finding their car, then finally leaving the lot. These are very crucial pieces of information that (as far as I know), Big Brother... I mean, Wal-Mart is not capturing. I feel Wal-Mart could be an even more powerful entity if they had value propositions beyond just EDLP. So anyone want to answer an e-mail survey? $10 off your next purchase at Wal-mart! Anyone??

Let's end with a quote from a song I've been listening to while I've been writing this blog... relevant perhaps? So long!

"Relapse, fall backwards and slide, are you suggesting that I repress, repress and disguise?"

-The Honorary Title