Despite the rise of Big Data, a good researcher has so much to offer for an in-depth understanding of consumers and the emotional homo sapiens.
Nearly two years ago, I began a search about how to remain relevant as a researcher motivated by what I was experiencing in my company.
Looking back, I could say that the arrival of ING in 1999 was perceived as a banking ‘uberisation’. After a job interview where I was told that ING was a ‘customer centric company’, I noted that this concept became the mantra for nearly everyone in the company with the huge orange circle with the word ‘client’ at its center, posted everywhere in the office. This has been ING’s success. Every time a new product or service was designed, we thought of the client: their needs, how to make their lives easier and how to earn their trust. We used clear and transparent language, and everything was achieved by means of research, asking, talking and testing with the client.
But is not design thinking an approach to tailor products and services for clients, constantly talking, asking and testing along with them? Why then were we researchers not involved in these sorts of projects? Why don’t we stop thinking “those people do the same that we did but worse, without structure and method” and work together instead? Hence I call upon colleagues to drop this defensive attitude, and on those companies that do not back us up when it comes to implementing innovative methodologies. Experience tells me we can, and do, work together wonderfully. For instance, researching next to a UX designer helps us both do a much better job.
Which factors count?
Companies attempt to change consumers’ behavior so that they use a new service, buy more, forget competitors, or recommend. For that, companies need to know the factors playing a part in that behavior. Comprehensively understanding the consumer is still a priority, but what do we do in order to understand them? Do classical models still work or do we need a new kind of investigative line and a new generation of researchers?
Behavioral Economics (a multi-disciplinary approach consisting of economics, psychology, sociology and experiment design) and Neuroscience are two trendy scientific lines, which, from different starting points, converge in understanding human behavior. They offer a new framework isolating the human being who listens, thinks, and analyses the pro and cons, and seeks to optimise their satisfaction by making decisions without thinking about context, social conventions or simple emotions. There is no such thing as the rational human being; there is the emotional one.
Nonetheless, we find that most research methods till now are not experiential; they do not study people in a natural manner and environment. We cannot understand consumers and their behavior isolating them from their context, as we often do not understand the way our own brain works when making a decision. If asked, often the consumer can describe why they do something, but might not know the true reason for their behavior.
Ethnography and emotional research rule alongside Big Data
Thus, ethnography and emotional research rule alongside Big Data. Ethnography, that huge discovery from behavioral economics, was already used by our forerunners. I will not focus on the obvious value of this approach in watching consumers in their environment. Or the satisfaction of the qualitative researcher who used to resist technology who is now providing powerful insights from digital ethnography.
Monitoring is not limited to accompanying and observing the consumer for several hours; via technology; depending on the project, it can last over one or two weeks. We can work with an online community, a group of 10-20 people of a pre-determined profile to engage them in the same way as a traditional focus group. We have the advantages of focus groups because of the interaction among members; plus the advantage of the personal interview with the bonus of more considered answers, as subjects are not pushed to respond right away. Moreover, we can ask participants to upload videos, photos, life journals and stories or be “researchers”, by testing prototypes or answering short questionnaires. We can dive into subjects that emerge that we had never considered. This cannot be done as DIY since the experience of the good qualitative professional is crucial.
With online communities, we observe highly-involved participants, and insights that could have never have surfaced from a focus group, providing a tremendous help in continuing to design a particular service.
I conclude by talking about one of the keys of enquiry: Emotional Research.
Neuroscience has proven that emotions play a part in decision-making, they are not just an additional factor to reason, but provide the necessary impulse to act which is why a consumer’s behavior makes less sense if analysed exclusively in rational terms (Why is not my product purchased if it is better than the competitor’s and on sale? Why is my new app not used if testing has proven it easier?). Intuition, perceptions, fear of loss or laziness about changing habits, are examples of what triggers our decisions. Understanding how our brains work and identifying the emotional and subconscious factors that lead us to make a decision or follow certain habits, is fundamental to reading and interpreting consumer behavior.
Spotting those emotional triggers, we can modify consumer behavior by not generating negative emotions
Emotional research allows us to establish the causal chain between stimuli, emotions, and behavior. Spotting those emotional triggers, we can modify consumer behavior by not generating negative emotions (disappointment, irritation, frustration) but instead positive ones (trust, gratitude, surprise). Knowing how to do this, companies can design strategies to build an emotional link with customers that ultimately represents revenue, moving from being customer centric to being emotion centric.
Digital ethnography and emotional research are two examples of approaches that help us focus on our impact on organisations. Due to the short cycles in which they operate, now more than ever, the researcher’s profile should be that of a professional who advises, accompanies, and becomes involved in decision making.
