Research

Gordon Brown’s recent leetspeek (mp3 podcast) leading up to the Global Investment Conference (GIC) has sparked renewed calls for tax breaks for the UK computer gaming industry. The PM stated that the UK games industry was “the most important in Europe”, and that UK developers are “by far the biggest producers of computer games in Europe”, going on to promise that there would be “new commitments of investment off the back of [the GIC] conference”. Interesting words, encouraging perhaps for some, but is it just more talk? Considering The Digital Britain report was full of high praise for the industry but so far has yielded few tangible initiatives, and a previous request from the industry for tax breaks failed to get a mention in the Chancellor’s December 2009 pre-Budget report, one could be forgiven for (quite skeptically) thinking “the cake is a lie”. Read more…

Facebook turned six recently and celebrated the milestone by giving its homepage yet another makeover, this time to “improve navigation to and discovery of commonly used features”. Six years is a long time on the interweb but, even still, Facebook has made impressive and significant gains in that time. It currently sits at number four on the list of biggest names on the web (behind Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, respectively) and with over 350 million users (and growing fast) it is poised to very soon become number three. It’s become the “face”, as it were, of the social media space, if not the brain. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 09/10/09 and is republished here with permission.

 In the UK, Econsultancy has released their latest overview of the Web Analytics market and there are some interesting findings and trends that I’m sure are being replicated in other parts of the world. It also highlights though that in some areas that there is still a lot of progress to be made. Read more…

 This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com and is republished here with permission.

I’m increasingly convinced that the issues that most businesses face around the successful deployment of analytics in their business are not to do with their technologies but to do with their businesses processes. That view was reinforced this week when I was running a workshop with a group of students studying on a Masters Programme in Internet Retailing. Read more…

Foviance conducted research commissioned by Oracle to better understand online security measures and their impact on customers.

By Arthur Moan

Global brands that are serious about establishing and maintaining a worldwide online presence, must undertake international customer experience research to ensure regional credibility. It’s that simple.

It’s all too easy, even for high-profile commercial brands, to assume that a website which has proven to be highly successful in their native country, will make a seamless transition to other regions. A common pitfall for many firms is to build a global template site and then simply translate languages, currency and legal notices to comply with local markets. Without practical insights into local market attitudes and buying behavior, firms can be left bewildered by a poor reception and response to a site that has prompted positive feedback and results back home.

Part of our role in international customer experience research, is to inform global redesign and help to communicate brands in ways that are better understood by specific local audiences. One of my first tasks in this field was to assist with a global review of Adidas.com, identifying usability issues and brand perception across disparate international audience segments. We conducted usability evaluations in the UK, US, Germany and China before combining the findings into a single report containing market specific insights, similarities and differences and recommendations. In this way we helped to shape the global Adidas online re-design strategy.

Research like this is the bedrock on which global brands should build their regional confidence and international reputations. Another client of ours, who is a global technology & computer manufacturer, operates ecommerce sites in a vast number of countries around world. I’ve personally been to China, Japan, India and numerous EU countries to help refine its customer experience in diverse regions. Like most global organisations, they created a global site in the US which it rolls out in other countries. But before it can do that, it knows that that it needs to understand that people have different ways of purchasing goods and engaging with content depending on where they live. China has a history of cash on delivery and business invoicing for technology purchases, for example, and so many accepted western transactional models simply wouldn’t translate into sales. The overall trend then is one of global branding with localised content and practices. We also helped this same client understand their business customers worldwide by creating a set of personas for each of their mature markets. These were informed by quantitative data in the form of online survey responses and web analytics data insights. This was then enriched with qualitative local on-the-ground research to examine the different job titles and roles within their business, which would help shape the content and functionality they would need from a technology & computer supplier.

Customer Experience research in these circumstances is best conducted as a one-to-one, end-to-end process that is task oriented, allowing time to understand offline habits in order to pinpoint the stage at which local customers choose to engage with your website. It’s important to witness how customers like to navigate, how they read, how they like their screens organised and copy arranged, what terminology they use that may be different from other regions, and more. The next stage is to use focus group discussions to talk through concepts, ensure imagery and icons mean what they are intended to mean, and then recommend an accepted look and feel. Ethnographic research reveals a real understanding of cross-channel interaction with websites, and discovers what drives potential customers online or even offline. Reasons can be as diverse as cultural landscape or attitudes to security, but they need to be identified.

Of course operating a bespoke web presence in each country can cost businesses a lot of money, so customer experience research needs to be as efficient as possible. Foviance took the decision five years ago not to open offices around the world. We have in place a global network of local trusted usability consultancy partners with the same standards and values as Foviance, who are skilled at recruiting local representative demographic line-ups. This provides us with increased flexibility to deliver research in the locations most appropriate to our clients and their target markets. Moderation is always conducted in local language and translated real time for the client in attendance. We also deliver an English dubbed video of all the sessions for the stakeholders who could not make the travel and can even provide web streaming of the sessions around the globe – anything that they feel helps them deliver against their globalisation and localisation strategies.

Due to our years of experience and knowledge in conducting this type of research, our clients generally rely on us to manage the entire research programme using one of three main methods:

• Foviance Consultants can deliver the research in each individual location (if timelines allow) using our partners’ facilities. We employ French, German and Portuguese consultants.
• We manage the research remotely, carefully briefing our international partners who deliver the research and complete the analysis and reporting. This is then consolidated by us into a single overall report.
• Finally, with a Foviance Consultant attending the research sessions, we manage the research remotely, carefully, completing the analysis and preparing the report.

In essence we can conduct customer experience research anywhere; I have yet to be tasked with a location we could not reach. Equally importantly our business focused approach to customer experience research ensures that our global clients receive the insight they require into local markets as easily as if they conducted the research in the US or UK.

This week, 4th March 2009, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend an “Influence Masterclass” being given by Bob Cialdini at the Royal Society of Physicians and sponsored by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES). Cialdini delivers a good presentation and whilst there was little different from the research described in his books (Influence: Science and Practice and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion), he brought the examples to life and his stories and anecdotes meant I left able to share some of the learning with colleagues quite easily. The focus of Cialdini’s presentation was on 3 of his 6 principles of “Ethical Influence”. The 6 are:

• Reciprocity – you have to offer up first, but if you do something for someone they will do something for you
• Scarcity – increases the value of something
• Authority – people are convinced more easily by authority figures.
• Consistency – if someone commits to something publicly, they are more likely to stick with that idea
• Consensus – People are more likely to be influenced by the similar actions of a group of their peers
• Liking – people are more easily influenced if they like you

We heard in depth about scarcity, authority and consensus. Authority was really interesting and the use of the word “but” was revealed as crucial for establishing trust. Most people when trying to get their point of view across, front end the benefits and then, to establish that they are honest, throw in a couple of weaknesses at the end. For example I might say that “Foviance is a world leader in customer experience consulting ‘but’ we don’t do website graphic design.”

Cialdini argues that people will only hear and retain the information after the ‘but’ and that all we have to do is switch the order of what we say to fix the problem. So, what I should say is “Foviance doesn’t do website graphic design, ‘but’ we are world leaders in customer experience consulting.” In order for you to be more likely to believe what I say, I can have a colleague introduce me and say a little about my credentials.

Cialdini is quick to observe however that his techniques only work where there are real, truthful arguments and benefits, ‘but’ you can’t have everything can you.

The deepening gloom surrounding the global credit crisis is providing a distraction for many people in business from carrying out a review of what their business has achieved in the past 12 months and how the market has changed. Foviance is no different, although we are fortunate in that we carried out a complete review of our business some 18 months ago as we felt it could be run better. This has enabled us to be slightly more outward looking than we might have been had we not done this and made the changes that resulted. So I am able to take a look at the last 12 months and consider what we achieved and how the market has evolved.Our year began with a face lift for our reception area and offices. Our usability labs have never been as busy as they have this year and we have had more than 1,000 participants through Foviance doors this year for various client research. With many of our customers spending long days with us viewing the research, we felt the place needed a new coat of paint and a more professional feel – despite being only two years old! Further improvements are planned for next year to the lab technology and it seems credit crunch or not, testing key user journeys remains a critical success factor for many businesses.

The other area of our business that we have been working hard to develop and really took off in 2008 is product testing. Since we started the business in 2001, we have carried out product research but it has come to us rather than us seek it out. We took Microsoft’s tablet PC all over the world in 2001 and since have tested everything from printer control panels to laptops and beyond. It seems to me the change we have seen is driven by two factors.

The first is the global market place that has developed, and many brands are now routinely leveraging our Asian, US and European connections to test their products in multiple markets. The second is the convergence in mobile and small portable devices between software and hardware from a user experience standpoint.

It seems to me that this year the willingness to adapt the hardware in order to maximise the user experience in the software has increased substantially. It is easy to credit the Apple iphone with this evolution but I believe it is the general increase in comfort and understanding of technology that has facilitated this. In my opinion, more is to come.

Looking back on 2008, I think businesses were just starting to ‘get’ cross-channel customer experience.
I use the past tense because I think for many, the credit crisis will (if it has not already) send them backwards. This is a mistake. I have met many businesses this year that had started to think about the customer experience they want to deliver across all their channels in the same way they think about the brand holistically. A planned and well executed customer experience means that when a customer goes online, visits the store or calls the call centre, they receive a consistently good experience. If they do they are more likely to convert, remain loyal and become advocates. The trouble is, being organised is more expensive upfront which is why I think we will see the progress made this year eroded.

We ended the year with the acquisition of Applied Insights which I was, and remain absolutely delighted about. “When the going gets tough, the tough get measuring” I am told and that certainly seems to be the case. Since Neil Mason joined us we have hardly seen him or the team, such is the demand from organisations that want to understand what is going on in their businesses.

So, not a bad year, we achieved many of our goals and I feel we are well equipped to cope with whatever the market throws at us next year. There is uncertainty from our clients about their businesses and markets but I think that can only help us, and our industry deliver more value and create new and exciting ways to do so. The year ahead will be tough for a lot of businesses, but I am optimistic that customer experience research will continue to play a vital role in the success of businesses in every sector.