The automation takeover? How to co-exist with robots

DWG Admin on December 17, 2018

Automation has moved into the world of qualitative research, and it’s safe to say it’s here to stay. For years now, robots have threatened the jobs of quantitative researchers only, but now that the latest technology has crept into the world of qual, is your job at stake? Will robots, one day, replace the role of humans in qualitative research? Lucky for you, the answer is no. Robots are simply working with humans to better the insight for our clients, and for now, they are happily co-existing.

Even luckier for you, robots are not only making your job easier, but they are even highlighting your value as a researcher. But before we get into the good stuff, let’s quickly review where we are with automation in qualitative research.Robots are already quite possibly more involved than you might imagine they are in qualitative projects. Robots are perfectly capable of acting as the interviewer, the ethnographer, and even the prober during the data collection stage. But it doesn’t stop there. They are also able to analyse the data in real time and create usable reports, even with recommendations. Better yet, they can do this much, much faster than a human – saving 80% of the time it takes humans to analyse the data and come out with a report.

So where do you, the researcher, stand in this new era?This technology is continuously advancing, so how can you make sure you’re marked safe during the automation takeover? Here are a few tips to help qualitative researchers not only survive, but thrive, in this new era of automation.

Take advantage its weaknesses. Automation has a lot of weaknesses, and these weaknesses highlight your skills as researchers. The reports created by robots can only go so far, and humans are left to put forward their creativity and expertise to connect the dots fully, and also read between the lines. Humans are programmed (for lack of a better word choice) to understand the context, the emotions, and even sarcasm, far better than a robot. The latest technology helps researchers get to the ‘what’ quickly and accurately, but it takes the researcher to truly understand the ‘why’.
Practice empathy. You’re able to truly empathize with the client from start to finish. After all, in the end it’s a human to human job. Robots are just there to speed up the process. You have the consultancy power. You’re able to identify the specific problem unique to each client, which is critical in forming the research design. Then, you can take the data and work out the bigger picture. This bigger picture is used to create an optimized strategy for the client.
Let your expertise shine. You need to know when to automate, and when to think. Automation speeds up the process of qualitative research, automating the mundane and tedious tasks, to empower the researcher with more time to be creative and use their unique skill set – the stuff that really matters. And that’s the true, deep insight that ultimately meets the client’s objective and takes the insight to another level.

It’s time to embrace the future of automation, because if you don’t, you won’t make it in this new era. You need to be the person who is actively looking for new technology, for more efficient ways to do things, while simultaneously strengthening your own skills that can’t be automated.

Our final tip in thriving in an automated world is to avoid being first, unless you’re prepared to fail more than a few times. The most successful brands, like Apple and Google, most often aren’t the first to try out the latest technology. They instead follow in the footsteps of the guys who take the risk. So, we at L&E, rely on our trusted technology partners who are embracing the latest technology, and have a proven track record of success. If you don’t want to get left behind, stick with us. Check out the latest technology used by our partners in qualitative research in our emerging methods and technology white paper here.

The power of video

DWG Admin on December 12, 2018

When it comes to inspiring actionable insight, video is the most engaging and convincing platform.

Hands down, video takes the win for the ultimate storytelling medium. And it’s only becoming more popular, and more powerful. More than 500 million hours of videos are consumed on YouTube each day, and nearly half of people watch over an hour of video on Facebook or YouTube every week.

If you’re looking for another wild statistic, more video content has been uploaded online within the past 30 days than the major US TV networks have produced within the past 30 years.

No surprise then that marketers are very receptive of this explosion in video. They recognize the pure power of its engagement. Globally, over half of marketers claim that video produces the best ROI compared to other types of content, and social video generates 12000% more shares than text and images combined.

So it’s clear that we need to be taking full advantage of this powerful medium in our world of qual. Video has improved the traditional and valuable ‘go to’ methods of qualitative research, such as focus groups and in-depth interviews. High quality, 360° cameras capture the genuine emotions and reactions from participants in focus groups and in-depth interviews. Live streaming in HD even allows stakeholders to clearly view the research as it is taking place, from anywhere in the world. This is a big benefit to qualitative research as it involves the entire team, without the costs of travel and time.

Once analyzed and formatted to share as a deliverable, video provides the best platform for telling stories about the data, to truly engage stakeholders and power real action to make informative business decisions. But the big concern for many qualitative researchers, is the scale and intricacy of the data that video can produce. This video output needs to be analysed fast, and at scale, in order to find the story among the data. Fortunately, the technology behind video analytics and transcription services is able to translate the genuine human behavior portrayed in video into actionable insight, with speech, actions, and sentiment. Video analytics platforms extract the information relevant to the study objectives. Then algorithms analyze the content to structure the data so that it becomes quick and easy to search through. This suite of collaborative tools helps to identify keywords and themes through sound, sight and text, and help the researcher to find the story. It’s also easy to clip key videos and consumer quotes to share the story with the stakeholders.

Video research has been powering a range of methodologies in both qualitative and quantitative research, from ethnography, to ad testing, to product innovation focus groups and customer experience surveys. Brands can use video to collect customer feedback from the start of the ideation process, and they can carry it through into the testing stage. That way brands can understand how real customers will react to the new concept or product before it is launched. Since videos are able to achieve up to six times the insight compared to a free text question, video insight allows brands to quickly separate the successful innovations from the failures.

The technology backing video analytics and transcription services provided by L&E and its partners, such as LivingLens and Focus Forward, can put the stakeholders in the room with their consumers so they can truly understand their needs. In turn, video insight engages stakeholders in a way that powers insight to drive business decisions.

6 Steps to Perfect Qual Series: Step 6 – Maintaining Client Relationships | New White Paper from L&E

DWG Admin on December 6, 2018

6 Steps to Perfect Qual

White Paper Download

Step 6: Maintaining Client Relationships

A good marketing strategy is paramount in building client relationships, from generating new business to encouraging former clients to use your services again. So, how can you use your resources to effectively nurture your leads?

The final white paper of our series explains the importance of building trusting relationships between your company and clients.

Download this white paper to discover:

The importance of maintaining client relationships and impact on business
How to build impactful marketing strategies using email and social media
How to create engaging thought-leadership content to demonstrate industry expertise

To continue reading, download our latest white paper, 6 Steps to Perfect Qual, by clicking here.

Renee’s Takeaways – Get the scoop on L&E’s Final Webinar of 2018!

DWG Admin on December 4, 2018

Webinar Series Summary

6 Steps to Perfect Qual: Step 6 – Maintaining Client Relationships – Webinar held on November 14, 2018

In this webinar in our series, we focused on Maintaining Client Relationships. We had the opportunity to chat with three panelists who are beyond experts on this topic. First up, Megan Nerz. Megan has been in the research business for about 35 years, and during that time, founded MLN Research, a small qualitative house with 5 moderators/researchers. Megan’s background is in psychology and applied communications research. Next is Sherry Behnke, Consumer Insights Manager with Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Sherry has been in a number of roles at Kimberly-Clark, including R&E, business process work, project management, and has had many interactions with business clients and vendors worldwide. Last, and certainly not least, we had Merrill Dubrow, President/CEO of M/A/R/C Research. In the research industry for about 38 years, M/A/R/C is one of the older market research companies in the industry. Merrill has been on a number of insights association boards, and is frequently a presenter at industry conferences around the country.

In this webinar, we focused on Q&A based around Maintaining Client Relationships, and real life experiences from our panelists to help researchers learn how to improve and maintain relationships with their existing clients, and also ways to get a foot in the door for some new ones!

Here’s what our panelists had to say!

We started by asking our panelists what they might do to make it easy for their clients to work with them.

Do exceptional work, and always strive to exceed their expectations
Really try to understand your clients. Not only should you ask “why didn’t we win this project?” but also “why DID we win this project, what did we do right?”
The key is to see your clients as partners on a journey. Constant communication and responsiveness.
Listen, ask a lot of questions, show a true interest. Check in so your clients don’t have to track you down.

Since partnership has been a buzz word this year, even on some of our other webinars, we asked our panelists if they used a guide or a road map to ensure that all of their client’s needs are being met.

Really pay attention to what those needs are, and most important, always make your client feel like they are #1!!
Make them feel like you are truly partners on a journey, holding hands along the way
Have a debrief or work session after the project has executed. Discuss the insights that have come out of the work. Address the strategic decisions to be made. This helps clients feel a sense of control over the research when it’s discussed and laid out in the open. Everyone walks away with the same information.
M/A/R/C incorporated a tool called the AcuMax Index. It’s a 3-minute personality profile tool that clients (if they are willing) and employees go through, and it works as a guide to help them better understand where their clients are coming from, and also helps align the best team from M/A/R/C to work with certain clients.

Next, coming from client’s perspective, we asked Sherry to give us an example of a process that a partner has used that stood out to her.

Finding that perfect balance of how much to communicate, the timing, and what method is crucial. It makes a client feel that you are really listening

In every webinar, we like to include some do’s and don’ts from our experts. One thing you should always do when working with your clients, and one thing you should never do.

DO always take responsibility for anything that might go wrong
DON’T nickel and dime your clients
DO always make your client feel like they are your #1 priority
DON’T ever let them see you sweat
DO always be realistic about project feasibility
DON’T treat our project, and what you’re doing for us like it’s a service

Since technology always comes up one way or another, we asked our panelists if there is anything they are taking advantage of technology wise that assists them with their client relationships.

Online panels, online communities, give us access to consumers that we were not able to access before, opening up new possibilities in the way we work with our clients.
Social media, text, video meetings, open so many doors now in communication that we were not able to incorporate 10 years ago.

We then asked about working with our international clients, and how that might differ from working with clients here in the states.

Pay attention to their culture, and things that are important to them, that might not be as important to our American clients
Keep them up-to-date on what’s happening in the US. For example, understanding millennial parents, or trends and cultures that we’re seeing
Build trust! Working with different cultures can be difficult, so do whatever you can to make it convenient for them.

Knowing that companies can have several different departments and layers, we asked our panelists what you can do to break into different departments, or even a new company.

Know the products that the potential client works on, know the competition for those products, know the landscape. Do your homework!
Do a 45 second video on why the client should chose you for a project, or choose to work with you in general. It makes it personal, humanizes the process.
Stay in touch, even if you’ve never worked with them. Stay top of mind, find relevant thing to share with them that they might find interesting, such as something going on in their industry

We hope you found this summary to be helpful! If you didn’t register for this webinar you can listen to this webinar in its entirety, or download a free, transcribed version by clicking here.

Be on the lookout for our next webinar, which will be in February 2019. If you can’t wait until then, you can always view our on-demand webinars. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you can keep up with what is happening at L&E!

Until next year!

Your Research Design Engineer at L&E,

Renee Wyckoff

Webinar | 6 Steps to Perfect Qual- Step 6: Maintaining Client Relationships

DWG Admin on November 29, 2018

FREE ON-DEMAND L&E WEBINAR

On November 14th, 2018, L&E hosted our final webinar in our webinar series for 2018. The topic was maintaining client relationships.

Guest Speakers:

Sherry Behnke, Consumer Insights Manager, Kimberly-Clark
Megan Nerz, Market Research Consultant/Owner of MLN Research
Merrill Dubrow, President/CEO, M/A/R/C Research

Maintaining client relationships and nurturing leads may seem time consuming, but for consultants and corporate researchers it’s a vital resource in building trust between your company and clients (both new and old). This is especially important when you’ve finished a project with a client; it’s your chance to remind them that your service is valuable enough to use again and again.

In this webinar you’ll learn how to:

Create meaningful client relationships to encourage repeat business
Create engaging thought-leadership content to demonstrate industry expertise

Get rid of the sales pitch: use your qualitative skills to win new business

DWG Admin on November 13, 2018

As qualitative researchers it’s our job to understand and interpret people, to find out their thoughts and feelings, and to understand why they do the things they do. Although often overlooked, this ability to relate with people and understand them is also essential to business development and dare we say it, sales. Potential clients don’t necessarily want a generic business pitch from you, and instead want to know that you understand their business needs and care about solving their problems. There are plenty of ways to connect with and nurture a new business lead without a pitch and luckily for you, these are all innate in the skill set of a qualitative researcher.

Listen and empathize

Sometimes, the best way to communicate that you care is simply by listening. Paying attention to your potential client’s needs helps to show your dedication to helping them and will help you prove that you understand them in the long run. The information that you gain by listening will give you a head-start in a competitive pitch, as you can target your offering to their specific needs and increase your relevancy to their business.

Be curious and open-minded

As qualitative researchers you should always be driven to find the deepest insights. This is no different when meeting and interacting with a new business lead. Your curious mind should lead you to ask lots of questions, to get to the root of a problem and figure out how you can help them best. Like listening, asking questions will show your interest in their problems and will therefore indicate that you care.

Thought leadership

Thought leadership is as important for generating business leads as it is for nurturing them. Establishing your expertise in your field is an easy way for you to initially attract potential clients and build their trust as they gain confidence in your proficiency. There are multiple simple ways to portray thought leadership. Writing blogs for your website and creating downloadable whitepapers and e-books on topics that are relevant to your industry will show that you are a leader in your field and are committed to the overall success of the industry, rather than just your own financial gain. Thought leadership can also be achieved through content marketing, PR and presentations at conferences.

Context

Although as qualitative researchers you’re part of the market research industry, it’s also important to show a potential client your knowledge of the wider business context that is relevant to them. While proving qualitative research skills and abilities is obviously essential for gaining new business, you can stand out from competitors by asserting your knowledge specific to their field that will show you understand their business needs in context.

Collaboration

While qualitative researchers collaborate all the time, it is also a crucial term to consider when interacting with a new business lead. Collaboration implies working together as equals to achieve a goal. This implies that you gain equally from the relationship and are therefore equally as invested in the results. You can read more about using the right terminology to describe your relationship with a client in our previous blog.

Generating new business is important for any company to survive and thrive, so it’s easy to get caught up in the process and forget the humanity of the people behind the business you’re trying to attract. Exhibiting your knowledge and expertise and indicating your genuine care for the company’s business needs is a far more attractive offer than a generic business pitch which does little to personalize their experience of your offering. As qualitative researchers you’re not strangers to human interaction, so use your innate qual skills to get the best out of your business development.

Partners not vendors

DWG Admin on November 8, 2018

When interacting with clients it’s important to use the right terminology to describe the relationship you have with them. Using the wrong word risks devaluing the work you do together, making the valuable contributions you bring seem unimportant. Describing yourself as a ‘supplier’ or ‘vendor’ can be interpreted to have this effect.

Recent articles on Quirk’s have highlighted this debate. Brooks Deaton, Senior Director at Consumer Insights at NASCAR, recently wrote: ‘“Vendor” feels cheap. It reminds me of a baseball game where I’m buying a hot dog and, more than likely, a beer. It is a transaction that doesn’t require much thought and represents something generic in exchange for money.’ From the agency side, Isabelle Albanese, President at Consumer Truth wrote: ‘I don’t supply – I contribute. And my contributions are considered to be a valuable part of the relationship, unique and constructive.’

Terms such as ‘vendor’ imply speed and ease and while these aren’t necessarily bad qualities, it’s questionable as to whether these are the most important things you want to get across to potential clients. What about the meaningful work you do to add value to their business and your relationship with them? Is that not something you want to illustrate up front, before mentioning how fast your work is? Terms such as ‘partner’, on the other hand, imply a consistently strong level of commitment that reflects hard work and honesty on both sides. It suggests a long-term effort to produce a positive impact, rather than the ‘use once, throw away’ attitude which can be deduced from ‘vendor’ or ‘supplier’. What you give to a client is worth reflecting in the name you give yourself. As Isabelle Albanese said, you ‘contribute’ to your clients to add value to the research process, so why degrade your contributions with a demeaning title?

Your aim as a qualitative researcher is to understand people, and a term such as ‘vendor’ does not imply any level of comprehension either of consumers and customers or of your clients as a business or as individuals. It does not imply that you’ve given up any time to appreciate their offering. As Brooks said, ‘vendor’ and ‘supplier’ imply sales, and a cheap, quick and easy transaction at that. We have written previously [insert link] about why you should get rid of the business pitch and gain new business through thought leadership, and relating to people through honest and approachable conversation. Referring to yourself as a partner and collaborating with a client as a partnership is essential for this.

Finally, Brooks Deaton said in his Quirk’s article that when he sees agencies describing themselves as ‘vendors’ he believes it cheapens the valuable work they do. That this terminology is ultimately off putting to the clients it’s meant to attract raises a clear problem. Calling yourself a ‘partner’ will emphasize the confidence you have in your company’s ability. It’s not worth risking losing new business prospects before they’ve even fully checked out your offering, simply because you’ve chosen the wrong word to describe yourself.

IDG Overview – L&E Tech Partner On-Demand Webinar Series

DWG Admin on November 2, 2018

Following our webinar on emerging technologies within qualitative research we wanted to share our on-demand webinars and highlights of each of our technology partners. We are continuing on with Informed Decisions Group (IDG) and Renee Wyckoff’s (our Research Design Engineer) summary of how they offer the virtual wall, a portable system that you can take almost anywhere in the world to create an in-store experience.

Informed Decisions Group’s (IDG) Virtual Aisle is a truly remarkable interactive market research tool! The Virtual Aisle is portable and can be shipped and set up anywhere in the world for researchers to create a life sized, in-store experience anywhere they like! Using eye-tracking in conjunction with qualitative interviews, IDG can extract immediate insights from shoppers’ interactions with the aisle.

With the integration of quantitative data, from mobile eye-tracking, and qualitative insights from follow up interviews and shop-a-longs, shelf and packaging decisions can be made quickly and effectively.

Some of the featured of IDG’s Virtual Aisle –

6 x 10 foot portable screens for life sized, scaled projections
Ability to project high resolution images that are 4x HD and up to 9.8 mega pixels
Rear projection to eliminate shadows
Ability to simultaneously test design options and easily modify stimuli
Faster results than in-market testing
Identify lead design options to test in further quantitative research or in-market testing

Additional features and tools, but not limited to –

Interactive Virtual Aisle
Package diagnostics with stationary eye-tracking/online webcam eye-tracking
Menu board testing & optimization
Biometric tools, mobile EEG and micro-expression coding

For a more in depth overview of IDG and their capabilities, watch our on-demand tech webinar by clicking here!

Renee’s Takeaways – Get the scoop on L&E’s Tech Webinar!

DWG Admin on October 10, 2018

Webinar Series Summary

Emerging Methods in Qualitative Research Technology Webinar – Webinar held on September 18, 2018

I have to say, this was definitely our most entertaining webinar to date! We laughed a lot, and even had one of our panelists sing briefly! In this next webinar in our series, focusing on Emerging Methods in Qual Technology, we got to spend some time with two very engaging experts in our industry. First up, Charlie Rader, Digital Insights Designer at Procter & Gamble. Then, someone a lot of us already know very well, Lenny Murphy, Executive Editor & Producer at GreenBook.

In this webinar, we focused on Q&A based around Qualitative Research Technology, how it can be applied, and technologies that are up and coming in the industry.

Here’s what our panelists had to say!

We started off coming right out of the gate with a big one. We asked our panelists, in their experiences, with all of the new technologies out there now, which has recently made the most impact on how we do research?

Online qual! We discussed how now with online, we are able to expand our reach to people that we may not have been able to reach before, due to not being in the vicinity of a facility, or in a major market.
We talked about how we get to capture those true “in the moment” experiences with respondents using an online platform.
The integration of digital, and all that entails. Such as automation for recruiting, and new ways to engage with consumers.

Next, we asked Charlie specifically, if there are any technologies that P&G is using or evaluating right now.

P&G actually built their own video analytics tool! “However, now with tech partners like LivingLens, we can use video to transform the way we talk to consumers.”
“We’re using mobile diaries. By doing this, we’re doing research that is more behaviorally based, rather than attitudinal.”

Then we asked both Charlie and Lenny if they knew of any technologies that were in their infancy right now, that they see making a big impact on qual down the road.

The use of video, while not quite in its infancy, we’re not quite tapping into the benefits of the analytics that we can get from it.
AI, and the impact that it is bringing to many qual technologies, such as being able to take mountains of unstructured data, whether its text or video, and having a machine be able to sort through that.

We also asked if there are any technologies that are just plain underutilized.

The use of mobile, and being “in the moment” with the consumer.
The use of a qual board online platform such as Aha!, or 20/20. Start small with a homework assignment or exercise, before you meet the consumer in person, to gain a deeper understanding of what they are trying to tell you.
Data management tools, such as Knowledge Hound. We can utilize information that we have learned before, so that going into primary research, we can ask more intelligent questions.

We then asked if there are any technologies on the horizon, not currently being used for qual, that could be applied in some way in the future.

AR and VR, and the reason is that they are not scalable. That will change, as the devices we all carry on us today, such as our mobile, all have the capability to leverage augmented reality.
We’re a little early in the hype cycle for AR and VR, but it’s something we need to understand better and start experimenting with.

Lastly, we asked our panelists how some of the newer technologies are changing the way we analyze data.

Definitely the AI component. It enables us to ingest and organize data more efficiently than we’ve ever been able to.
Some of the tools that make visualizing and reporting the data a bit more interesting than the long used PowerPoint, such as Prezi, and Microsoft Sway. There is so much that we respond to visually as humans, than just tables of data.

We hope you found this summary to be helpful! If you didn’t register for this webinar you can listen to this webinar in its entirety, or download a free, transcribed version by clicking here.

Be on the lookout for our next webinar, which will be November 14, 2018 at 12pm EST. If you can’t wait until then, you can always view our on-demand webinars and learn about the latest technology solutions. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you can keep up with what is happening at L&E!

Until next time!

Your Research Design Engineer at L&E,

Renee Wyckoff

Isobar Overview – L&E Tech Partner On-Demand Webinar Series

DWG Admin on October 9, 2018

Following our webinar on emerging technologies within qualitative research we wanted to share our on-demand webinars and highlights of each of our technology partners. We are continuing on with Mindsight Direct by Isobar and Renee Wyckoff’s (our Research Design Engineer) summary of how this powerful tool shows what unlocks the motivations behind every consumer choice.

MindSight Direct by Isobar is an interactive emotional market research platform that can not only tell you what consumers are saying, but how they are feeling! It can even tell you what consumers will not say, or cannot seem to put into words by measuring their emotional response. Since decisions about products and services are made based on rational and emotional drivers, we need to know both in order to turn the information collected into actionable results.

MindSight is unique in the sense that it takes advantage of the emotional discovery window by utilizing rapid response image selection. This technique gets right to the emotional experience, mere milliseconds before rational thought has a chance to pop in.

Features of Mindsight Direct
• Respondents engage in the MindSight exercise as a “sentence completion” task
• Reponses are coded into the MindSight Emotional Profice
• After images are collected, words are then collected to determine which are associated most with the images
• MindSight can be used for a variety of testing needs – category exploration, package and product testing, brand assessment, ad testing, website testing, etc.

For a more in depth overview of Mindsight Direct by Isobar and their capabilities, watch our on-demand tech webinar by clicking here!