Customer Experience Research Toolkit
New insights from neuroscience, psychology and physiology reveal how little of our behaviour is driven by rationality. Our actions are actually driven by our unconscious mind. Our unconscious mind is heavily influenced by sensory stimulation from all around us. We are also subconsciously influenced by the external actions of others and by our own irrationality. The vast majority of customer experience research asks people what they did and asks for their opinions. But science tells us this research is flawed. People search their conscious brains for the reasons why they did things or for ideas on how to improve the service or product. However, their reasoning is often inaccurate.
So how can we understand what’s really going on? How can we monitor real behaviour in real time? How can we use measures that don’t rely on memory? How can we eliminate the conscious filtering that happens when we focus attention to what we are doing?
To answer these questions, we have developed a research toolkit based on the science of customer experience. We find out the actual experience customers have, what they remember and how this memory impacts on their behaviour.
CX Lab Test Research Tools
Inquisitor
- Investigation via desk research conducted by a CX Lab technician or leading industry expert
- Uses all available resources, on- and offline
- Overview of current global situation re. particular product, service or business issue
- Often first element of the ‘Discovery’ process
- Resulting report provides succinct summary
- Enables research team to quickly assimilate knowledge and input to design/structure of subsequent research
Generator
- One-to-one facilitated interview with CX Lab ‘technician’
- Uses psychologically-designed questionnaire to probe beyond standard responses
- Used to elicit insight from both management and staff within an organisation
- Vital background to determine the use of other tools
Extrospector
- Uniquely structured and facilitated group discussion
- Typically 4-6 participants
- Held in relaxed, pleasant environment relevant to study or participants
- Session revolves around completion of set exercises specifically designed around each aspect of the experience (i.e. Functional, Motivational & Emotional)
- Covert a/v recording for live or subsequent review and evaluation
Introspector
- Technique developed from research into psychological effect of human interaction with computers
- Lone participants placed in fully immersive environment designed to create state of ‘relaxed attentiveness’
- All sensory elements optimised for this condition
- Participants posed questions via PC screen and all verbal/physical responses audio/video recorded
- Output covertly relayed live to control room where research team evaluate responses and interact secretly in real time with participant via PC
- Unique opportunity to probe responses without participant’s awareness
Revealer
- Covert AV recording of group interaction
- Discussion stimulated by undercover research confederate and ‘planted’ stimuli
- Often linked with Introspector and Generator to give a complete participant profile
- Rich insight into participants’ real responses outside of the constraints of a formalised research environment
Ethnotracker, Biotracker & Mindtracker
- Physiological and/or ethnographic monitoring and measurement of participants
- Combined with psychological profiling pre- and post-experience
- Ambulatory and/or lab-based
- Typical metrics include HR, EDA, respiration, body movement, facial coding, eye-tracking, etc
- Crucially, synchronised with covert AV recording to place all events in context and/or from tracking by trained ethnographers
We’ve recently produced a video and blog to explain in more detail about our Biotracker tool and the Tripping Points we seek to uncover.
Connector
- Online study tool for gauging associations using non-verbal responses
- Participants exposed to various stimuli (graphics, video, audio, text and/or physical examples)
- Robust sample size (>250)
Searcher
- Online study to that builds on other elements of the CX Lab toolkit (e.g. Introspector, Revealer, Generator, exercises from Extrospector, etc)
- Actual purpose disguised by game play/fun element to minimise research effect
- Robust sample size (>100)
- Generates hypotheses for output to Hypotester
Hypotester
- Online experiment based on game theory
- Large sample (>500)
- Contrasts participants reflective claims immediately post-experiment against actual behaviour during study
- Provides statistical evidence of validity of specific hypotheses
CX Design and Implementation Tools
Scenario
- Participants interact with representations of the proposed enhanced experience to gauge response
- Virtual or physical ‘approximations’ – can range from visuals, videos to VR and/or physical ‘models’
- Lab or real-world based
- Participant response monitored biometrically, ethnographically and/or via audio/video
Simulator
- Full size, actual live pilot of the enhanced experience to test the concept in the real world
- Ongoing monitoring to evaluate
- Roll-out to wider trial at several locations and compare/contrast with controls of existing experience
- Measure against agreed performance benchmarks
Evaluator
- Regular evaluation of new, enhanced experience using CX Lab toolkit using:
- Biometrics
- Ethnography
- Audio/visual monitoring
- Employee/customer feedback
- Agreed performance measures
- Feedback loop to create refinements as necessary