A Guide to Video Based Customer Experience Research
It is now more than a quarter of a century since the internet and the world wide web revolutionised the way consumers shop for products and services. E-Commerce is now an embedded and integral component of most businesses, but it is still considered a unique entity facilitating unique customer experiences?
Whilst this may sound surprising, online and offline customer experiences are not always viewed as one. Consumers can often be left disappointed with a product, or discouraged to reuse a service as a result of organisations investing resources into one channel over another.
At Indeemo, we are seeing a continued growth in Customer Experience Research, with strong emphasis being placed on a holistic understanding of both online and offline experiences. To coincide we this, video is continuing to play an integral role in providing the richest and most impactful insights for decision makers.
The Importance of Participant Recruitment for Successful Customer Experience Research
When conducting customer experience research, one of the most critical factors that determine its success is participant recruitment. Recruiting the right participants for your research is essential as they are the ones who provide the necessary insights into the customer experience.
The Role of Third-Party Recruiters
Third-party recruiters are external agencies that are specialised in recruiting participants for research studies. They play a crucial role in the success of customer experience research by ensuring that the right participants are recruited for the study.
However, as with any external agency, third-party recruiters may not always get it right. They may not fully understand the criteria for the target groups or might not have the necessary experience in recruiting for customer experience research. This could result in poor recruitment and low participant engagement.
Challenges in Participant Recruitment
Recruiting the right participants for customer experience research is a challenging task. It is critical to recruit people who match the criteria for your target groups to ensure that the insights gathered are relevant and accurate.
Poor recruitment can result in low participant engagement, which can impact the quality of data collected. In turn, this increases the risk of having to redo the recruitment process and fieldwork, leading to higher costs and a longer time to complete the study.
Pre-Screening for Participant Recruitment
One way to ensure that the correct research participants are recruited is to conduct in-depth interviews (IDIs) as a form of pre-tasking and screening. IDIs can be used to identify the right participants and screen out those who do not meet the criteria for the study.
This process has been proven to be effective in ensuring maximum engagement from the participants. By screening out the participants who do not meet the criteria, researchers can ensure that the insights gathered are relevant and accurate, which is crucial for the success of the study.
In summary, participant recruitment is a critical factor in the success of customer experience research. Third-party recruiters play an important role in ensuring that the right participants are recruited, but challenges such as poor recruitment and low participant engagement can arise. To mitigate these challenges, pre-tasking and screening with in-depth interviews can be used to ensure that the correct research participants are recruited and maximum engagement is achieved.
How to Capture the Entire Customer Experience?
To conduct effective customer experience research, capturing the entire customer journey is essential. This involves breaking down the research into each stage of the customer journey, including the pre-purchase research online (digital experience), in-store experience (retail experience), and post-experience narrative and reflections from research participants.
Split the Research into Each Stage of the Customer Journey
To capture the entire customer experience, the research needs to be split into each stage of the customer journey. This allows you to gather insights into how customers interact with your brand at each stage, providing a holistic view of the customer experience.
Capture the Post-Experience Narrative and Reflections
To ensure that you capture the entire customer experience, it's crucial to gather post-experience narrative and reflections from research participants. This can be done through a final video diary or an in-depth interview (IDI) to gather insights into the customers' feelings and emotions after the experience.
Getting Insights From Your Customer Experience Video Data
Analysing video data is a crucial step in the customer experience research process. Here are some steps to help you get started:
Have a Set of Predefined Questions
To effectively analyze video data, it's important to have a set of predefined questions that you want to answer from the videos. These questions should be aligned with your research objectives and should guide your analysis.
Extract the Most Salient Information
Once you have your set of predefined questions, you can begin to extract the most salient information from each participant's video. This could be one or many pieces of information that are particularly relevant to your research objectives.
Document Issues and Positive Areas of the Customer Journey
As you review the videos, it's important to document all issues that arise during the customer experience, as well as any positive areas of the experience. This will help you to identify patterns and themes that emerge across multiple participants.
Group Insights and Build Key Themes
Once you have reviewed all of the videos and documented key issues and positive areas of the experience, you can begin to group insights from each participant and build key themes. This will help you to identify the most important areas of the customer experience that require attention and improvement. By analysing video data in a structured and systematic way, you can gain valuable insights into the customer experience and make data-driven decisions to improve it.
Creating Actionable Insights With Your Findings
When presenting the findings of customer experience research to stakeholders, it can be valuable to extract impactful clips from the participants' videos and align them with the themes that have emerged. These clips can bring the research to life, providing decision makers with different customer voices and feelings and illuminating what is happening at various stages of the customer journey.
To ensure the clips are effective, take the time to curate them well. Choose the most valuable and needed information for stakeholders, and present it in a clear and concise way. The goal is to drive immediate action, and if the insights are actionable, then the power of video can truly be realized.
By presenting video evidence alongside the emerging themes, stakeholders can gain a better understanding of the customer experience and be more likely to take action based on the insights provided. This approach can also reduce internal biases and increase stakeholder engagement with the research.
Benefits of Video Based Customer Experience Research
Video has become an increasingly popular tool in customer experience research, and for good reason. Here are some benefits of using video in customer experience research:
A Holistic View of Customer Experience
One of the main benefits of using video in customer experience research is the ability to gain a 360-degree view of the customer experience. With quantitative reports, it can be difficult to understand the customer experience from the perspective of the actual customer. However, video allows you to see the customer experience firsthand as they interact with your brand's products or services. This provides a more accurate representation of the customer experience and can help you identify pain points and areas of improvement.
Real-World Evidence
It can be challenging for decision-makers to fully understand the customer experience with written reports, especially during knowledge transfer or when there is a changeover of senior management in an organisation. Video provides real-world evidence of the customer experience, which can be more impactful than written reports. Decision-makers can see for themselves what is really going on with their customers and pick up on key insights.
In-the-Moment Experience
Another benefit of using video in customer experience research is the ability to capture the in-the-moment experience of your customers. This is especially important for understanding the emotional aspects of the customer experience.
With video, you can see the customer's facial expressions, body language, and hear their tone of voice. This can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the customer experience and can help you make improvements that address their needs and expectations.
Reduces Internal Biases
Video evidence of customer experience can significantly reduce or even eliminate internal biases because it presents the experience from the customer's perspective. By seeing the experience through the customer's eyes, you can gain a more objective view of the customer experience. This can help you avoid biases that may come from relying solely on internal reports or relying on assumptions about the customer experience.
In conclusion, video is a powerful tool for customer experience research. It allows you to gain a 360-degree view of the customer experience, provides real-world evidence, captures the in-the-moment experience of your customers, and reduces internal biases. By utilizing video in your customer experience research, you can gain deeper insights into your customers' needs, preferences, and pain points, which can ultimately lead to better customer experiences.
Let Us Support Your Next Customer Experience Research
If the above approach resonates with your research objectives, please get in touch and we can set up a call with one of our Strategists to discuss your own specific requirements.
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