HOW MARKET RESEARCH CAN TAKE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL

➢   How Customer Experience (CX) has evolved with technology ➢   Insights from January MRIA event with Jay Zaltzman ➢   Learn research methods that LA-based Bureau West and Vancouver's PH1 Media use to improve CX

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When you invest in customer service, you’re investing in offering a good customer experience. If you keep response time, hold time, queuing times, and resolution times short, then your customers will have increased satisfaction. Right?

Even though that may have been the case as recently as a decade ago, today’s organizations must view Customer Experience (CX) as the sum of all interactions a consumer has before and after they’ve made a purchase.

In today’s always-connected world, a brand’s CX includes everything from the first interaction with a marketing campaign, up until the feedback survey every customer should be sent asking them why they stopped purchasing. Without a deep understanding of everything between ‘what motivated’ a consumer to first consider the brand and why the brand ultimately lost that customer, brands cannot understand the full CX.

“Customer experience can give companies a significant advantage over competition”

Speaking at January’s Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA) event in Vancouver, Jay Zaltzman, President of Los Angeles-based Bureau West sees CX as the opportunity to do better for our clients. “A good CX can turn customers into evangelists.”

He spoke of an important shift that is enabling more organizations to improve their CX. While improving the experience of websites, logistics, and consumer packaged products has long been exclusively the role of technologists, marketers and researchers can take back control.

“... All the new technological tools that can measure and provide insights into customer’s experiences and provide customized experiences. Tools like analytics, input from social media, and big data. We can use these [to inform our research] to provide customers with a personalized experience.”

Constant customer feedback is at the core of improving CX and it shouldn’t be limited to companies that can invest in technology. An auto repair shop can use CX research to gain a better understanding of how to improve the waiting area experience and how to improve a customer’s decision-making process when selecting which tire to purchase.

Thankfully small businesses now have access to a variety of analytic tools and research methods that aren’t cost-prohibitive. eCommerce platforms like Amazon and Shopify can be set up to provide extensive data about the choices customers made. And products like Google Analytics can be set up to provide data about the path a customer or non-customer took or didn’t take.

“Ideally CX is about combining the information from analytic tools with research about a customer’s wants and needs to provide them with a better experience. Starting from how they are marketed to as prospects, continuing them as happy customers, encouraging them to tell all their friends.”

He warns that when data is not appropriately balanced with market research, corporate leadership may get an oversimplified view of customer expectations. We all travel for different reasons, so when United Airlines restructured their frequent flyer program he believes it harmed their CX in two ways:

a. Mid-tier frequent flyers saw a significant drop in benefits because the restructuring focussed so heavily on the elite travel tier;

b. The program’s benefits failed to recognize that travellers take trips for a variety of reasons and each wants to use their benefits differently.

RESEARCH METHODS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Jay Zaltzman believes organizations must recognize that different customer groups benefit from different approaches. To start thinking about how to personalize CX he recommends this method:

• Gather quantitative data from analytics and sales tools;

• Define customer segments based on insights from the data;

• Take those customer segments to the next level by using qualitative research. Interview customers to understand what they are thinking throughout the interactions with the company;

• Create customer journey maps and buyer personas for each of those segments;

• Identify opportunities to personalize marketing for each of these personas.

As analytical tools continue to evolve, so too does the level of sophistication that organizations strive to achieve with their CX personalization strategies.

In addition to what Jay has outlined, here are the CX research methods we recommend:

1. Empathy Mapping Quickly visualize a customer’s needs by analyzing situations to better understand what they experience, think, feel. The first step to creating content/offers/programs that convert is empathizing with the customer’s emotional state at different points throughout their customer journey.

2. Motivation & Perception Mapping Understand the choices a customer makes —and doesn’t make— by understanding their motivations and perceptions at each step of the decision process, and how they view your company/product/service’s role in their life. These will enable you to more effectively create experiences that convert and build trust.

3. Benchmark the Purchase Experience Whether you’re in CPG, retail, or services, customers are evaluating the purchase experience against expectations they’ve created based on your competitors and industry-leading brands. This analysis can identify competitive advantages and opportunities you weren’t aware of.

4. Identify Extremes While quantitative research often points to prioritize based on sales volume, qualitative research can identify consistent extreme emotional reactions to marketing, product, communication, service that are often left un- or under-reported. These extremes can point to leading-edge trends that need to be addressed, as well as to exceptional opportunities to personalize experiences.

5. Throw Out Demographics They are part of a legacy way of stereotyping consumers and can limit an organization’s ability to personalize based on more impactful factors: motivations, perceptions, values, features preferred, stage in the decision-making process. By understanding customer experience by the role you play in their life, and not demographic, you will get more robust user personas that are more informative and can identify areas of opportunity you may not have been aware of. Or worse yet – friction points where you are losing customers.