As customers continue to evolve, companies are faced with difficulties in keeping up with the shifting market.
In a recent session at CXSF 16, presented by Forrester, Principal Analyst Tony Costa discussed the theme of blind spots created by the changing marketplace, and how brands can overcome them by exploring the context of how and why consumers use the products they do.
During the session, Costa explained that companies can more effectively engage consumers by thinking about them “as individuals; not only as demographics or segmentations but as social beings and as rational actors.”
CX strategies can be built around this more sophisticated matter of framing customers, but only by using correct analytics tools and deep customer research. Costa cautioned CX officials against the use of thin data, which typically represents a small portion of the customer experience, without providing sufficient context.
To demonstrate the potential gap between brand and customer perspective, Costa used the example of Adidas. After a period of offering products for athletes competing in sports and fitness, the company sought to understand the customers who shopped Adidas but weren’t engaged in any sort of competition.
To gather data at a deeper level, the company followed select customers throughout their day, asking them to document the reasons for their physical activity. Through this experiment, Adidas found that in the absence of competition, users were exercising to look good, feel good, and be social with others while working out.
By understanding consumers at this personal level, Adidas gained a complete perspective of what shoppers wanted out of the brand. Armed with these new customer insights, Adidas forged partnerships with fashion designers, and its products focused more on aesthetics rather than granting a competitive edge.
“Our assumptions shape how we think of products and customers,” Costa explained. “It’s a shorthand for how we look at what’s valuable to them, and what they want out of the experience. These assumptions have a half-life, however, and need to be challenged on a regular basis. People change. That’s a reality. Our assumptions need to also change alongside them.”
The key to changing these assumptions, Costa noted, is the use of ethnographic research. By reframing the issue faced by the company, brands can unlock insights into what customers are looking for, both in a product and in an overall experience.
By employing research that seeks to understand customers within their own environment, a company can much more effectively discover how products are being used, why they’re being used, and how to move forward by taking these factors into account. This valuable insight can only be collected by understanding the entire context of the customer experience.