Choose your research adventure
Our customers are special. I know, I know, many companies say that and quite honestly, it’s true most of the time. However, I’d argue that our customers are particularly unique because of the nature of our product. RealSelf exists to help people make smarter decisions about cosmetic treatments. Since this is an area fraught with issues of stigma, privacy, self identity, and bodily risk, we have a responsibility to guide our customers in a way that respects those needs. We need to actively listen to best serve them and help them along their journey.
Though the company has been around for more than ten years, we still have a lot to learn about how people look for treatments and providers, so we learn through research. Lots and lots of research. The main methods we use to gather customer insights are: qualitative customer interviews, usability testing, surveys, A/B testing, data and analytics. We also regularly tap into our direct customer feedback given through links on the product and conduct specialized studies as needed.
Because we have several means to gather customer insights, it‘s not always clear where to start. I developed a basic flowchart to guide our company to the right research method to answer their question of the moment.
The chart begins with questions that help team members define what they are trying to learn. Are you solving the right problems? Do your ideas resonate with your audience? No matter what stage of the product development process you are in, there is always more to learn.
Generative research—When you don’t know what you don’t know
Let’s say your product is pretty good at solving customer pain points within the realm of what it currently offers. You believe there are opportunities outside the boundaries of that realm, but you have no idea how to find answers. Here are some research options that will lead you to learning more.
If you think your product is focusing on the right things but you feel like you might be missing opportunities for innovation, where do you begin? Sure, you might get a bunch of people brainstorming in a room or conduct a full design sprint, but what kinds of insights would best inform that work? Seeking out how other companies solve similar problems can trigger new ideas, which could then be winnowed down and crafted to best fit the needs of your customers.
However, adaptations of other companies’ solutions are unlikely to help your company provide unique value. By learning directly from customers, hearing what they tell you about their pain points, and listening to what they don’t tell you or perhaps have never even considered, could be the way that you discover how to delight them.
Evaluative research—When you think you know but you’re not sure
Once you have enough information to create some hypotheses, you can start iterating and learning more through your customer data. But what if few of the things you try are testing well? How can you come up with better hypotheses?
What if you have a crazy idea—something you have never tried before—and you want to see how people react to it? Or maybe you are trying to solve a complicated problem and need to better understand how people think about it. Either way, you need to get feedback on the concept. It can be tricky to make sure you are structuring the research in a way that gives you the best information. Clarifying what it is you want to learn will help you determine the next step.
Perhaps you are further down the road in your next product iteration and want to make sure you are on the right path. You already have a basic design worked out but are not sure if it makes sense to customers. Are you trying to find out what their thoughts are when they see it or determine how they will use it, or both?
You thought you had a great idea. Your test was solving a genuine customer problem, but the test wasn’t showing any improvement in metrics. What went wrong and why did it go wrong? How can you change your approach to something that might be more effective and helpful to customers?
The full chart includes all the flows above and attempts to span the range of common questions that you might encounter during product development. You can download it here.
At RealSelf, we are lucky enough to be able to work with qualitative researchers, quantitative researchers, data scientists, business intelligence, and analytics teams. Their expertise helps guide all of us to the knowledge we need to best serve our customers. But first, we need to ask the right questions.
This chart won’t answer every question, but it should help with the most common cases. It’s definitely a work in progress and will need to change as our methods change. Also, I can’t say that every path is always followed perfectly in real life. But part of the process of coming up with guidance and best practices is to start somewhere and try things out.
Do you find answers to your questions about customers in a similar way? Let us know in the comments below and best of luck in your own research adventures.
