Observing your Customer – Tool 1

So, now you’re ready to observe your customer and start understanding the Voice of the Customer.

 

Here’s an easy tool to use to get you organized.

 

I know some people don’t like using tools for every phase of the work because they feel like it’s a waste of time.  I can be in this camp at times, but this tool really helps you stay organized and get laser-like focus on whose voice your trying to understand.

 

At this point, it’s assumed you’ve already settled on a goal for your project.  That’s important because if you’re looking to retain your current customers, you want to observe those folks already in your camp.  By definition, if you’re trying to attract new customers, you have to observe consumers who are currently rejecting your offer.  Most departments outside of Marketing always want to focus on the current customers because that’s where their “pain points” are, but be strong and resist.

 

Start in the far-left column, Who.  List all of the types of customers.  In this case we used an individual consumer segmentation, but this could also be types of doctors, types of businesses, etc.  It will help you if you already know the relative size of these groups and your current market share, but it’s not required.  You can find this info out later.

 

 

 

Next, move one column to the right and ask your group ”What” each of the customers uses your product for.  This is the “job to be done.”  This list will be longer than the first column because your customer likely use your product for different jobs to be done.

 

Continue moving across the columns answering the questions, “When,” “Where,” “Why,” and “How.”  This is a great exercise as it will reveal information that you hadn’t previously thought of.  For example, in the last column, “How,” we put “Compare cost and quality.”  This made us consider how a customer would make these comparisons, so we added “Internet” to the “Where” column.  Adding “Internet” then makes you wonder about the other jobs to be done that can be performed on the internet, like drug comparisons. 

 

Done properly, you’ll construct a large “touchpoint” list that shows all the different opportunities your company has to interact with your customer.

 

The next step is for your group to prioritize the customer segment touchpoint obervations.  Start in the first column, and ask the group, “Which ‘Who’ should we go after first?”  Once you decide, move to the next columns, and decide the rest of the questions.  In the example, the first customer observation (red ovals) will be done with Young Mothers using the Internet to compare cost and quality for for Wellness visits for her children. 

 

The group can decide the second customer observation (green ovals) can be of Young Mothers again in a different cirucmstance if it chooses.  In this example, the second customer observation will be of Older Men looking to buy a large amount of a maintenance drug for a chronic disease.

 

You’ll want to identify enough customers and circumstances to be worthwhile, but avoid adding too many or your project will on its way to Scope Creep Land.

 

Once you’ve idenfied the Customer and Circumstance, your team will need to do about 10-15 observations in to watch the customer in action.

  Next week I’ll introduce a new tool to help with that part of the work.

 

Give this tool a whirl, and we’ll chat more then.

 

-Carey

A Tough Week for Innovation

Maybe it was just a bad week.  I got some bad news about my new webcam that I had installed as part of being in a test group.  Not really a bid deal, but it was one of those moments when you start to question whether innovation is really the right thing to do, or should you just give up and go back to a career working on spreadsheets?  At least with spreadsheets, the most controversial things that come up are the colors you used in a stacked bar chart, or is it really worth the time to make fun but not particularly functional macro just so you can say you did?

Here’s what happened with the webcam.  Quite by accident, I found out we had built a significant infrastructure to support webcams.  It had been started well over a year ago, and the IT team was looking for people to start testing it.  I signed up, as well as my boss at the time, because my boss lived in Miami and I’m in Jacksonville.  We thought it would be a good way to communicate since he only comes to Jacksonville once a week, and we both wanted to test the usefulness and practicality of webcams.

We never used it.  He had some technical difficulties on his end, and by the time they were sorted out, our group had reorganized and he was no longer my boss.  So, it sat there unused for another couple of months.  One day, I noticed it wasn’t working (it automatically came on when I logged in and it would show a picture of me, and that wasn’t happening.), so I called the Help Desk to report it.  They told me the vendor had made an upgrade and they were working on a patch.  They installed the patch, but the patch interfered with all kinds of drivers, and it took me more than a week to get it fixed.

In the meantime, I’ve been speaking with a new vendor and we’re arranging a kick-off meeting for a new project.  The vendor is from out of town, and the project lead suggests we do a virtual meeting with our webcams.  The project itself is supposed to be innovative, so I decide that’s a great way start the project.  So, I think I’ve got it all set, and I’m telling the Help Desk guy about this meeting with the vendor.  The Help Desk guy nonchalantly says, “Now, you know you can’t use the webcam outside of our network, right?”  Translation:  You can only use the camera to see other people in our company.

I think I said, “Whaa?” as I was trying to make sense of what he’d just said.  The Help Desk guy says, “Oh, no.  We’re not allowing the cameras to be used off the network (outside of us) because that would be too risky.”  You must be kidding me.  We created a webcam system so we could look at each other when we chat on the phone?  That’s like creating a phone system that only works to call the other employees in the company.   It has some functionality, but it’s 1% of what it could be.

The conversation ends before I say any of those things.  I know better than to argue with the Help Desk folks.  They’re not the folks that made the policies.  And even the folks that made the policies are doing what they consider to be the right things: protect the company by mitigating risk.

So, what’s the lesson?  Is it that innovation isn’t worth the trouble?  Naaah!  The lesson is patience.  All of the people involved in this story want to do cool, innovative things.  The burden is on the innovators to get them on board and move things forward. 

For example, the IT guys that got the webcam infrastructure built in the first place probably fought a ton of internal battles to get that done.  Kudos to them!  My guess is they advocated to be able to use the cameras externally, but ran into roadblocks.  I shouldn’t be upset with them.  I need to be part of the solution to find a way to move it forward.

Here’s to a better week next week.  I hope you have a good one too.

Figuring out the Unspoken Needs of the Customer – Part 2

Hi All.  Sorry I missed last week.  I was traveling during the week, and the weekend just flew by.  I’m especially sorry because I left you on the verge of revealing how to find unspoken needs. 

So, let’s get started.  It’s a little easier to figure out unspoken needs than you may been led to believe because it involves guessing, and we all like to do that.  I’ll start with an example.  Look at the picture below.  It’s the scene from a construction site at the end of a long, hot day. 

Felt like it was 107 degrees.  I was there with a sales rep, and he’s explaining the new health insurance plan these guys will have for the next year.  As you can see, it’s not ideal set-up, but that’s the way it goes, and it’s a good start for looking for unspoken needs.

For one, customers have a need to “understand my benefits.”  That one is already by us, but it takes on a new significance when you see this situation.  Most of these guys probably didn’t have access to a computer at that time, so they wouldn’t have been able to go on line and look at the plan in detail.  The need becomes situational.  “I need an easy-to-understand explanation of my options at the time of enrollment.”

Here’s the key – I’m guessing at the need.  I didn’t ask any of these guys if that was a need.  I could have, but later in the process I’m going to come back to the customer to have them validate and prioritize a large set of needs.

So, I keep doing this same thing of guessing at unspoken needs until we can’t think of any new ones.  Here’s another example from the same site visit.  Take a look at the guy in the white, collared shirt.  He’s the VP who’s flown down from Michigan to announce the new plans.  Now, notice the worker guy behind him in the camouflage hat. 

The VP is very excited about the new plan, so he’s flown down so he can see how happy he will make all of his workers.

 

When the sales rep starts explaining the new plan, the worker in the camouflage hat begins shaking his head “no” because he thinks the plan isn’t all that.  He doesn’t say anything at first – it’s all non-verbal, but, eventually, the negative comments start coming.

 

The look on VP’s face tells the whole story.  He’s crushed.  It was kinda like when you give a child a present for his birthday, and all he does is complain about it.  You want to say, “Shut up kid!  I just gave you a nice present.” 

 

Maybe the worker’s unhappiness stemmed from not understanding the new benefits, but I could see in the VP’s face that he was disappointed.  There was an unspoken need of, “I want my employees to appreciate the benefits I provide for them.” 

 

At this point, we don’t know how important any of these needs are relative to other needs, but we’ll figure that part out later.  For now, we want to keep on guessing at the needs until we can’t see any new ones.  How long that takes partly depends on how much you already know about your customers, but somewhere around 10-15 customers visits, you’ll start to see things repeating themselves.

 

Next week, we’ll talk about the tools and techniques you can use to track your findings.  In the meantime, if you want a deeper dive, take a look at this link:

 

http://www.qfdi.org/who_is_qfdi/newsletter_archive/trusting_front_line_employees.htm

 

It’s a newsletter written by QFD Red Belt(r) Glenn Mazur.  Glenn is a true master, and I’ve learned most of my innovation skills from him.  Plus, he’s a good guy

Figuring out the Unspoken Needs of the Customer – Part 1

Customers have lots of needs, and not all of them are of equal importance.  As a business, you can’t hope to satisfy every need of a customer; you want to focus on the ones that matter.  So, the question is, how do you that in an organized manner?

The Japanese invented the Kano model to describe the different levels of customer needs.  The Kano model divides Customer Needs into three categories:

Must-Be or Expected quality needs are often so basic the customer may fail to mention them – until we fail to perform them. They are basic expectations without which the product or service may cease to be of value; their absence is very dissatisfying. Further, meeting these requirements often goes unnoticed by most customers. For example, if coffee is served hot, customers barely notice it. If it’s cold or too hot, dissatisfaction occurs. Expected requirements must be fulfilled, but fulfilling them beyond what is expected does not increase satisfaction.

One-Dimensional or Desired quality is typically what we get by just asking customers what they want. These requirements satisfy (or dissatisfy) in proportion to their presence (or absence) in the product or service. Fast delivery would be a good example. The faster (or slower) the delivery, the more they like (or dislike) it.

Attractive or Exciting quality is difficult to discover. They are beyond the customer’s expectations. Their absence doesn’t dissatisfy; their presence excites. For example, if caviar and champagne were served on a flight from Detroit to Chicago, that would be exciting. If not, customers would hardly complain. These are the things that wow the customers and bring them back. Since customers are not apt to voice these requirements, it is the responsibility of the organization to explore customer problems and  opportunities to uncover such unspoken items.

These exciting requirements can shift over time, segment, or other external factors. What do we need to do (what capability) to understand invisible requirements? Get feedback to understand the level of customer satisfaction? Identify clear customer segments (and which are most important)? Need a process to understand customer’s “fuzzy voice”?

 At Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF) we use a “Voice of the Customer” hierarchy (VOC).  The VOC is created from using focus groups with these constituent groups.  It is the spoken voice of the customer. The needs expressed in the VOC are in regard to questions we ask them about our products.  It only reveals answers to the questions we ask.  It is not unique from the information that our competitors have because a customer will speak to anyone that asks and reveal the same information.

We are interested in finding the unspoken needs of the customer.  These are the needs that the customer does not reveal – wither because they are not aware of the needs or they are not confident you can solve the needs. The unspoken needs lead to Exciting innovations because outside of the typical requirements communicated by the customer.  Finding the unspoken needs also separates BCBSF from its competitors because customers will communicate their “spoken” requirements to everyone.  If BCBSF can find unspoken requirements, BCBSF can be first to market with exciting innovations.

So, how do we do it?  Next week…

The Unspoken Needs of Healthcare IT

One of the biggest goals of Innovation is understanding the needs of your customer, and, more importantly, understanding the unspoken needs of the your customer.  Unspoken needs are the ones that customers don’t tell you about either because they’re not aware of them (they’ve created work-arounds), or they don’t think you can solve them.

Take for example the WD-40 pen.  It’s kinda like the Clorox Bleach pen – you apply it in small places.  The target audience was women which was new for the WD-40 folks who had relied on the Do-It-Yourself males for years.  During research, they noticed that women would spray a squeaky door hinge and then spend the next few minutes cleaning up the overspray.  The women never mentioned the over-spray.  If they were anything like my wife, they had probably gotten used to cleaning up messes from their kids.  Cleanliness was a Big, Unspoken, Unmet need.  Long story short: the WD-40 pen has been a big success even though women had never said they wanted a pen.

 That brings me to my healthcare topic of the day – Healthcare IT.  The federal government has allocated $19 Billion for Electronic Medical Record (EMR) adoption, but I think if you asked ordinary citizens what they would personally get from that expense, they’d be hard-pressed to give you answers other than “better outcomes” or “more efficient healthcare.”  

Not that there’s anything wrong with those two answers, but what if the government communicated benefits such as:

• Not having to fill out reams of paperwork each time you go to your doctor
• Access to your kids’ immunization records on your home computer and your phone
• Daily tracking of your health status instead of an annual physical
• Doctor appointments made for you
• Quicker identification of potential disease or health change for you and for members of your family

Don’t these benefits sound more appealing than the vague generalities you’ve heard so far?

Check out this video from Microsoft about its Health Vault.  The acting is a little hokey, but it does a great job of demonstrating the benefits of Health Care IT and EMRs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXOpMTDOrxQ

The best thing about the Health Vaults is they’re free.  Google has one as well as WebMD and others.  I think the Microsoft version is furthest along, and it has a host of partners with great features.  I’m currently using Training Peaks to upload my running and swimming results.  I’ll be able to send this information to my doctors.

I’m trying an experiment with my health care info.  I requested my records from my Primary Care Physician (PCP) and my dermatologist.  I received the PCP records this week, and I’m going to take a shot at uploading them into Microsoft’s Health Vault and into WebMD’s health vault.  I’ll let you know how well it works.  The next step is to add my kids’ and my wife’s info.

My hope is that physicians, hospitals, and health insurers (like my employer) will continue to make the data available to their customers.  Do your part, and ask your providers and insurers to make their records available online.

Have a great week!

–Carey

Which customer is the most important in Health Care Reform?

The seemingly-inevitable Health Care Reform has me on pin and needles. Much of the work I focus on at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida hinges on the outcome of the federal government’s plan to change health care.

If you had asked me two years ago about the chances of ‘Individual Mandates,” ”Employer Mandates,” “Expanded Medicaid Coverage,” or “Insuring regardless of pre-existing conditions,” I would have told you the most likely outcome was “Status Quo,” or “No Change.”  Clearly, things have changed. 

Two years ago, I didn’t think things would change because everything was so good.  On the contrary, there were lots of problems.  20% uninsured in Florida, double-digit percentage price increases. employers dropping coverage for their employees, and, above all, supsect health outcomes for customers.  It’s one thing to have a high price, but it’s a totally different thing if you’re quality is only so-so.  In short, our industry is ripe for disruption, and the government is ready to disrupt.

The question that has me on pins and needles is which component of the industry is going to have his ox gored.  The quick answer is that all of the parties (insurers, hospitals, doctors, customers, pharmaceuticals, device manufacturers, etc.) are going to have their oxen gored.  The real question is who will be first and how big a change will it be?

Much of the answer will come down to who or whom the governement listens to the most.  So far, everyone is playing nice.  All of the parties are sitting in the same room, speaking politely about better outcomes for customers, and agreeing that “something” needs to be done.  The problem is that some of the needs of each of these parties contradicts with the needs of some of the other parties.

For example, if there’s a Individual Mandate and everyone has insurance, it’s likely that there will be problems with people gettting access to Primary Care Physicians (PCPs).  Once the demand goes up for PCPs, these PCPs will expect to be paid more.  fair enough, but who’s going to pay?  The government, the insurers, or the customers?

What about prescription drugs?  If everyone has insurance and no pre-existing conditions are excluded, who pays for all the Rx?  The government, the insurers, or the customers? 

Better yet, what drugs are customeers allowed to receive?  All them or only a shorter list?  And who pays?  The government, the insurers, or the customers?

The funny part about the money question is that the customer always pays.  The customer either pays directly, through higher premiums to an insurance company, or through higher taxes to the government.

So, if the customer is always paying, and you want to lower costs, how do you do it?  The currently popular answer is by using evidence-based medicine, and there’s a good bit of truth to this answer.  Here’s an amazing fact:  This week in America, there will be 17 Million Americans will go to the doctor, and 55% percent of them will receive the proper care.  Improving that percentage will significantly reduce the cost of healthcare.

The other answer to reducing costs is to reduce access to services.  Clearly, this is the unpopular answer, but, eventually, we’ll have to deal with it.  Maybe private insurers will offer products that allow no expense to be spared, but that sounds incredibly expensive.  The government almost certainly will not be able to provide “spare no expense” treatment for everyone.

The primary question still remains.  Who will the government listen to when it decides which conditions and treatments to cover?  I certainly don’t know yet.  I guess that’s the reason I’m on pins and needles.

–Carey

Who’s Your Customer. Part 2

I re-read my last blog and thought it was a bit weak because I didn’t use any examples of identifying specific customer groups that businesses target.  So,  I’ll give you the ones I see.  Tell me if you have any others.

Some groups get way more targeting than others, but that’s ife.  Not always fair.

McDonald’s: Kids.  They may have salads now, but it’s all about the kids.  I don’t know a kid under 10 years of age that doesn’t choose McDonald’s over any other fast food choice.

Hardees:  Young Men.  Some of there burgers approach 1,000 calories.  It’s like an eating an eating contest 7 days a week.  Only young, competitive men would be attracted be attracted to this brand.  I should know; I was one of them 25 years ago.

Proctor and Gamble; Women.  P&G has thousands of brands, but make no mistake – it’s all about what women think.  P&G has an online community called VocalPoint that discusses products, takes ideas, gives free samples, etc.  You have to be a woman to join.  What’s that tell you?

Pharmaceuticals; Boomers and Older.  Watch the Nightly News on any major channel (ratings skew to the older populations) and you’ll see the commercials are dominated by the pharma companies.  You can become well educated on many unpleasant conditions.

Beer:  Men.  Sports and bikinis.  Nuff said.

Best Buy:  Dads and Soccer Moms.  Best Buy does a great job of setting up the easy chairs and big-screen TVs for Dad, and they train their salespeople how to respond to the needs of a busy mom who is trying to juggle the needs of her kids.  They understand the needs of mom’s customers – her kids.  Not too heavy on the tech details for mom.  Focus on the benefits.

Airlines: The frequent flyer.  They pay more and they get more.  Never is the distinction more clear on who the preferred customer is when you look at the seats in First Class as compared to Coach.  I’d love to sit in First Class, but I’d never pay for it.  My cheapness keeps me in Coach.

That’s it for me.  Got any others?