Femme de Carriere carries a line by designer Sandra Angelozzi, a name I have not seen elsewhere.  So when I stumbled across an article about Sandra titled “Designer Research” in Vue, the magazine published by the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (June, 2010), I was intrigued.  I loved the idea that a fashion designer actually does consumer research.  I read the article with a great deal of interest.  I really wanted to understand whether Sandra’s research is the basis for the uniqueness of her designs, and her obvious success. 

While research professionals might consider most of the research that Sandra does informal and anecdotal, (described as “pounding the pavement” in the article), there is no question she is close to her customers.  She listens to the women who wear her designs – clearly connects with them deeply – and obviously understands them on a level that allows her to mesh their needs and desires with the direction the market is heading.  She is both disciplined and relentless about staying close to the customer, tracking trends, and monitoring sales results.

Sandra “gets” me.  I’m always impressed with what I see in store.  Now I’m impressed by how it all comes together.  Kind of confirms my faith that good things follow when one stays close to the customer.

 In today’s Monday Morning Manager, Harvey Schachter suggests that sometimes the results of employee soundings, such as low or dramatically decreasing performance, satisfaction and engagement scores, among other indicators, could signal future troubles for the organization.  Changes in employee satisfaction or dissatisfaction over time could well indicate that problems exist and that management has work to do in addressing emerging issues before they become potentially gigantic failures.  And the flip side applies as well.  When employee satisfaction research is conducted on a regular basis, it helps employers identify areas of potential improvement that, importantly, could lead to enhanced productivity, streamlined processes, a better workplace experience, and improved customer satisfaction. 

 An unbiased, independent third party researcher can contribute to making employee satisfaction research successful by ensuring the appropriate methodology is used, determining the right questions to ask, managing the process, analysing and interpreting the findings, and assuring employees of complete confidentiality.  Most importantly of all, however, management must be committed to listening to the findings, acting on them, and demonstrating to employees that the organization is taking action to address what it has learned.

 Here’s the link to today’s Monday Morning Manager:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/managing/morning-manager/mistake-proof-your-company/article1651717/?cid=art-rail-morningmanagerblog

Martin argues that “if our understanding of customers is based entirely on quantitiative analysis, we will have a shallow rather than a deep relationship with them”, and that while quantitative analysis with a large statistically significant sample size is considered “rigorous”, there are tradeoffs involved.  One of these is using our langauage to craft multiple choice questions as opposed to the respondent’s and, in the process, risking that the meanings we attribute to terms like “reputation”, “service” and “purchase decision” are not the same as those the respondent may ascribe.  According to Martin, when we let the customer use her own voice/words/vocabulary, we have at least the potential to gain a deeper understanding of our customers.  We agree.

Qualitative research isn’t easy.  It is open to judgement and interpretation.  And sometimes it’s tempting to dismiss what we have heard because the sample size isn’t statistically significant – after all not everything we hear from customers is glowing!  But there is nothing more powerful than hearing the customer talk about a product or service (or a competitor’s product) in her own words.  And there is incredible value in having the conversation – in following the twists and turns it may take – to uncover the insights that are waiting for those who are willing to invest in asking the right questions and really listening to the answers.

Martin’s blog post is intriguing and worthy of a read:

http://blogs.hbr.org/martin/2010/03/the-secret-to-meaningful-custo.html