Questioning the Consumer

The article Spark Innovation Through Empathic Design makes a good point—“customers are so accustomed to current conditions that they don’t think to ask for a new solution”. Therefore, it states that questioning them isn’t as effective as observing them in their everyday life with the product. This may be true is some cases, but it is sometimes difficult to know what the person is thinking or what the situation may be. I think that questions after observing are imperative in certain situations when the outside world needs to know exactly why the consumer did what they did. HEB, for example, conducts marketing research by having researchers follow customers around for their typical shopping experience. When certain behaviors arise, the researcher takes note and then asks the consumer why they did what they did. For example, a customer picks up several loaves of bread and looks at the labels of each. She sets each one down before finally making her final decision. If someone was merely observing this behavior, they could have several ideas as to why the behavior occurred such as calorie count or the number of fat grams. If someone actually asked her why, then she could state that she was comparing the grams of fiber in each. This could help the store decide to carry more breads with high fiber or bread companies could consider making more high fiber products. This technique could be used with several types of products and could give designers more insight into what kind of product would best fit the needs of the consumer. While people might not be able to form new solutions on their own, they could maybe be given some options and be questioned right after the observation and problem situations take place. Some people don’t really think about their problems until they arise and they are often forgotten afterwards. With the example in class, someone could have observed the walkie talkie being stuck in the boy’s pocket. Rather than making and spending tons of money on a product that they think may work (the glove), they could have instead asked the boy what he thought would have been more convenient while giving him suggestions and options. They could have realized that the boy would have preferred to have a bike clip to hold his walkie talkie on. This could save organizations both time and money while producing a product that consumers would actually use. One problem that researchers always have to be cautious of, however, is that some consumers sometimes tell people what they want to hear. This is why the questions must be focused on options of further products rather than on the current product. If researchers make it apparent that they want innovation and change to better serve the consumer and their problems, customers would be more willing to answer their questions for their future change. If consumers are only asked after creating a new product, they want to spare hurt feelings most of the time.

Apple Affecting Other Brands

Apple’s Ipod is untouched by competitors in the cost-benefit model as they compete both in the “red ocean” as well as form their own “blue ocean”. Other companies are becoming aware of Apple’s competitive advantage so they are making ways to form their own blue oceans through the Apple name. One brand in particular, Nike, has come up with products that correspond with Ipod such as sports arm bands that fit the Ipod. On a much larger scale, the Nike + Ipod sports kit was designed as well as appropriate shoes that can hold the product which also increases sales for the company’s shoe department. Although the sports kit is a Nike product, it is highly associated with the Ipod since that is the only source of its use. Runners can not only track their mileage and calories burnt on the Nano while they run, but they can also log into iTunes and nikeplus.com to evaluate their performance on the computer. These are only a portion of the many features it provides. The reviews at http://store.apple.com generally state that they love the product and price but were dissatisfied with the battery life. With their $30 product, they have positioned themselves much lower on the price end than Ipod did in their market. They don’t really have any competitors yet unless you count mere pedometers which only contain just a very small fraction of what the sports kit can do. Other running shoe companies, like Asics, could possibly try to find a way to compete by focusing on the problems, but they would have to have a contract with Ipod or another competitor. They could find ways to incorporate more features and longer battery life at maybe even a higher price. Some people enjoy bringing their phones while running so they could look at making a device that works with phones. They could even try to make more shoes that fit the device and compete more within the shoe department. If other brands start coming in, Nike could try to dominate the market much like Ipod and continue making new products that are increasingly adding value and price while decreasing the price of the old product. The Nike + is overall increasing Ipods image while people are becoming more active and health conscious. However, they need to be cautious that brands such as Nike don’t give them a bad rap because mere association of products could bring negative thoughts about their own brand. Therefore, they should really push Nike to form even better products that meet the needs of the consumers such as making battery life longer.

A Victim of Feature Fatigue

Like many consumers in today’s ever changing world of technology, I hate to admit that I have as well fallen victim of feature fatigue. When in dire need of a new cell phone, I went to the Cingular store in hopes of just finding a phone that gets the job done—calling people. However, the salesperson, kept talking up Nokia’s N75 and the price was too comparable to simpler phones. Why pay $30 less for a phone that has much less use when I could get a phone, camera, music player, and more for an asking price that was so hard to pass up? The phone was extremely confusing with so many different features, and I realized that I didn’t use about 95% of them. Things that were supposed to be simple, such as putting it on silent mode and setting the alarm, were a much longer process. Also, because of the many features, the phone supplied low battery life. When my phone broke, I asked the insurance company if they could instead send me a cheaper phone to replace it. They could not help me with this so I ended up just taking my friends old Samsung which is much easier to use.

As the article stated, companies really need to tap into not only what customers say they want and think they want before they buy the product, but also what they want after the purchase and use of the product. As we have previously learned in the class, it is not always good to ask customers what they want because sometimes they don’t even know. Instead, companies should learn from past mistakes in this instance and realize that the majority prefer easier to use products with less features. Making this assumption can help the return rate of products, future purchases, and word-of-mouth. Building simpler products is also key in product development. The product should be able to easily and fully carry out the demands of what it was initially meant to do. The article also suggests that decision aids should be used to help consumers decide on a product that is right for them. In my case, the salesperson talked me into getting a more complicated phone which later caused negative word of mouth and a halt to repeat purchases of the brand in general. Instead, salespeople could be trained to better serve a consumer’s needs or perhaps a computer could be placed in the stores with a list of special features. While consumers click on the features they want in a phone, the search engine narrows down the specific phones that match the priorities to increase customer satisfaction.

While companies should focus on either decreasing product features or meeting consumers’ needs, they should also find better ways to compensate customers if they are unhappy with the product. This would not help them with that product line specifically, but it may save some negative word of mouth from spreading and keep customers more loyal to the brand.

Brainstorming--Good or Bad?

The article “Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box”, suggests that brainstorming destroys the ability for people to think and work together. In situations where there are about 20 people, the leader intimidates them, and they are afraid to state ideas that may seem silly. Also, just a few of the “ring-leaders” tend to take control of the entire session. Since no one is forced to answer, participants often produce no insight. Why then, did brainstorming work in our class the day we came up with new dimensions for a cell phone? Here is why:

The professor represents the boss/leader of the organization. He proposed the question to the class and asked us all to collaborate in small groups to come up with as many ideas as possible. He made it clear that any and all answers are acceptable no matter how silly they may seem. Since we were able to discuss in small groups at first, our ideas to be presented were stimulated in less formal conversations with our peers which made it less intimidating to present rather than throwing our answers out in front of everyone right off the bat. When it was time to share our ideas individually, our professor relieved the tension by allowing us to pass if we needed to continue thinking since our ideas may flourish from other ideas. Since everyone in the class was encouraged to speak, it was not capable for only a few people to dominate the session. Also, it always helps when there is that one person in the group who throws an “off the wall” suggestion (i.e. pepper spray). This gives everyone more ease at mentioning their ideas. After the entire group shared their “outside of the box” ideas, we were each asked to follow up on the ideas and suggest which ones seemed most impossible or unrealistic in order to narrow out our options.

The article also states that specific questions should be asked in order to set boundaries that correspond to the goals and constraints of the session. This technique was tried in class but was not carried out in the same manner as the previous session so the results were not as great. Therefore, companies should design specific questions and then allow their employees to brainstorm the way that we did in class. First, have the leader ask the specific question, and give the employees time to discuss ideas in small groups to stimulate thinking. Then highly encourage each person to state their personal idea no matter how crazy they may think it is. It would also help the company if there is at least one person who isn’t afraid to throw something wild out so that others feel more relaxed with their ideas. After everyone answers the specific question, the group then reviews the ideas by asking each person to state which answers were highly unlikely or needed to be touched upon. If it was carried out in this way, company's should not neglect brainstorming because it was proved highly effective in our class.