Taking Customer Conversations To the Next Level
In today’s business landscape, many companies are confronted with a multitude of questions regarding their customers, often overshadowing the answers they seek. What exactly do customers desire? What are their genuine needs? Despite their efforts to enhance their data collection through surveys, these companies continue to grapple with the challenge of extracting meaningful insights and comprehending the underlying rationale behind the analytics. While an abundance of data is available, the crucial question remains: what does it truly reveal? Regrettably, most customer interactions, including surveys, merely scratch the surface of understanding, failing to delve into the essence of the customer experience and reveal what matters most.
Conversations with customers, despite their potential perception of being less efficient, unlock invaluable attributes often absent in traditional analytics and other methods. These attributes include depth, emotion, authenticity, and a broader perspective, all of which are essential for comprehending the elusive "why" behind customer behavior. Depth, providing specificity, plays a crucial role in generating relevant and actionable insights. Emotion, on the other hand, fosters employee engagement with these insights, which is vital for ensuring meaningful action is taken. Authenticity guarantees the validity and defensibility of the insights, while a broader perspective uncovers interconnections among these insights within the bigger picture, enabling effective prioritization of actions.
The real challenge lies in skillfully navigating each customer conversation, particularly within the context of in-depth interviews, to ensure the extraction of answers to your most critical questions. To achieve this, it is crucial to recognize the presence of four content tiers layered within the conversation, each offering a unique vantage point of customer understanding. As you ascend through these tiers, the content becomes increasingly richer, resulting in invaluable fuel for insights development.
TIER 1: SUPERFICIAL
The first tier of conversation primarily consists of surface-level responses that lack depth and specificity. For example, let's examine a statement from a financial services interview with a small business owner: "Small business, we're scrappers. We're scrappy." Both consumers and B2B customers tend to respond swiftly to initial lines of questioning with concise hot takes like this. While these expressions can facilitate rapport-building and potentially indicate areas for further exploration, they often lack the qualities necessary to drive meaningful action.
Superficial content is pervasive in conversations, especially in sales and marketing contexts, making it tempting for businesses to rely on it to inform decision-making. However, the risk of solely relying on superficial content is that it provides a limited and one-dimensional perspective of customer understanding. Consequently, basing actions solely on this surface-level information can lead to incomplete and potentially flawed decision-making processes.
If we unquestioningly accept the customer's statement mentioned above, we run the risk of drawing inaccurate conclusions, such as assuming that small businesses do not require any support in financial services. This could lead to the misguided belief that there is no need to develop tailored solutions for the small business segment because they are self-sufficient. However, such a hasty judgment disregards the complexities and diverse needs within the small business community, potentially overlooking valuable opportunities for innovation and improvement.
TIER 2: INTELLECTUAL
Progressing to the second tier, the intellectual level offers an informative snapshot of the customer's current situation, the challenges they face, and the solutions they employ. Statements like, "There's just so much to do, but somehow we get through it," start to shed more light on the difficulties encountered by small business owners. However, navigating the intellectual tier poses its own set of challenges.
Effectively capturing depth and specificity is the hurdle of the intellectual tier. When customers express a problem, it is crucial to delve into its root causes and gather specific details. The more comprehensive the understanding, the better equipped we are to take action based on the insights derived. For example, engineers or advertisers, when confronted with insufficient depth and specificity, may devise solutions that miss the mark due to an incomplete definition of the problem.
If we conclude the exploration at this stage, we miss delving into the emotional depths that lie beneath the surface. We have only uncovered the "what" without exploring the "why." Furthermore, we fail to grasp what really matters most. Referring back to the customer's earlier statement, if there is a significant workload, we must ask why it poses a problem, the extent of its impact on their business, and how it makes them feel.
The upper limit of the intellectual tier also marks a crucial turning point in market research methodologies. While surveys and focus groups may be able to glean some of the data points available in this layer, they fall short in delivering the depth, emotion, and authenticity needed to uncover the "why." If the objective is to genuinely understand who these customers are and the experiences they aspire to be part of in the future, it is imperative to transcend this threshold and reach higher into the content tiers. It is at this juncture that the conversational platform emerges as the most valuable tool for comprehensive market research.
TIER 3: EMOTIONAL
The third tier of content marks a significant transition from focusing on the "what" to exploring the "why" behind customer responses, uncovering emotional content in the process.
The progression from intellectual to emotional content requires a moderator to make careful choices regarding the topics to delve into. It is essential to recognize that customers often say more than we realize, and the information emerges rapidly. Therefore, moderators must listen attentively and make note of the facts revealed by the customer, establishing paths to transition the discussion towards exploring their feelings.
Among all the tiers, the intellectual tier generates the most substantial amount of content. Within a conversation, numerous opportunities arise to delve deeper into specific problems or touchpoints of the customer experience, aiming to understand the customer's emotions and the significance of varying points of interest. A skilled moderator navigates the intellectual tier, capturing key problem areas, then seamlessly transitions into the emotional tier to further explore those threads, and eventually returns to the intellectual tier to harvest additional pathways towards understanding the "why."
Effectively transitioning the conversation from the intellectual to the emotional layer requires an understanding and meaningful application of the laddering process. Laddering involves a series of probing questions or exercises that encourage customers to further contemplate their previous responses. A proficient moderator systematically asks follow-up questions such as "why is that important to you?" or "why does that matter?" or “how would you feel if you couldn’t experience that anymore?” Each subsequent line of questioning aims to uncover the underlying reasons behind a response and ascends to a higher level of conversation. Laddering is critical in elevating the conversation to new heights, as customers typically do not habitually pause and reflect on their own opinions or behaviors to explore the essence of what truly matters in their lives. The laddering process creates valuable opportunities for introspection and reflection.
Accessing the authentic emotional narrative within certain topics also necessitates establishing trust within the conversation, making rapport building critical at this stage. Care must be taken to avoid triggering the customer emotionally when navigating this tier. The discussions within the emotional tier often revolve around deeply rooted themes encompassing happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. Therefore, it is imperative to approach the emotional tier with sensitivity, adopting an equity-centered interviewing approach that recognizes customers as unique individuals with the power to inspire meaningful change. It is within this tier that customers are more likely to grant permission for further exploration if a spirit of ingenuity and a shared desire to co-create something new are encouraged.
TIER 4: ESSENTIAL
The essential tier, the fourth and most profound level of content, unveils customers' fundamental beliefs and motivations—the very essence of their existence. It encompasses both the extraordinary and the clichéd, evoking strong emotions. In the aforementioned customer statement, "There are no manuals for this. We're real people out here, so if you really want to get to the heart of us, help us. Don’t just be a bank - build something," we learn that traditional financial services fall short—these customers require more from their providers. They crave genuine care, a willingness to stand alongside them and create something entirely new. By challenging the providers with the plea "don’t just be a bank,"they emphasize the need for innovation. They yearn for a creation that meets them where they are—a compelling endeavor they can wholeheartedly support. This finding, in and of itself, shatters any assumptions that could have been formed had we confined the conversation to superficial and intellectual tiers.
A skillfully conducted conversation that establishes rapport and systematically delves into the various content tiers can break through the pervasive white noise of business and corporate culture, amplifying the voice of the customer. Quotes like the one above possess the power to ignite passion within others. They serve as poignant reminders of forgotten truths, especially for those working in sanitized corporate environments. Such quotes can embolden change agents and influence critical decisions, potentially swaying the outcome.
Ultimately, by harnessing the transformative potential of essential content and fostering a culture of genuine customer-centricity, organizations can pave the way for meaningful change, cultivating an environment where the voice of the customer becomes the guiding force in shaping the future.
In embracing the depth and power of these content tiers, businesses have the opportunity to transcend the limitations of superficial and intellectual conversations. By unlocking the emotional and essential layers, organizations can truly connect with their customers in a meaningful way, paving the way for authentic innovation and transformative change. The journey to understanding the heart of the customer begins with meaningful conversations that go beyond the surface, amplifying their voices and shaping a future where their needs and aspirations are at the forefront, thereby fostering a culture of true customer-centricity.