Jot Thought

We’ve been dabbling with Twitter lately and the verdict is still out in terms of it’s overall value.  There are definitely times when it seems like more of a distraction than a valuable tool.  There are also times when it’s just unavailable for long stretched.

But the other day, I came across a curiously powerful use for Twitter - better understanding customer needs, and especially, the language they use when expressing those needs.  I posted on our Paybackable blog about the specific example of where we foudn this useful, but the crux of it is that you can use a great little tool called Tweetscan to search the public timeline.  On a lark, I typed in “expense reports” and got a ton of posts (aka tweets) from everyday people complaining about doing expense reports.  I did it again this morning and the consistency in language is impressive.  You can check out my blog post about the insights this generated for us.  If you want to quickly see the results of the search, try it yourself.

No, this isn’t the most groundbreaking breakthrough in customer insight gathering, but still a nice little addition to the arsenal.

One of the easiest ways to get feedback on your web application is to use screensharing technology to watch folks attempt to use your site. Many of the top web conferencing applications can be used for this purpose, and they usually offer free trial accounts. You set up a time for your session and get a meeting ID and a conference number. The user will need to go to the site, enter the meeting id number, download a small applet (usually java) and then have “presenter” status moved to them. From that point on, you can see your subjects using your site while talking to them. It’s particularly useful for larger teams, as multiple people can join in the “meeting” from anyplace with an internet connection. Basically, there’s no reason the entire development team can’t sit and watch from their machines.

Until recently, my favorite was GotoMeeting from Citrix. It was much simpler to use than WebEx or even worse, Gatherplace.net. However, we just uncovered a serious limitation while doing some usability with one of our clients. Gotomeeting doesn’t allow Macs to act as hosts - meaning a user with a Mac can’t share his or her desktop with the team. This renders the tool useless for this kind of research.

Fortunately, we gave Adobe’s Acrobat Connect a try and not only did it work flawlessly, but it was even easier to use than Citrix and it uses a Flash plugin rather than a java applet. They offer a 14-day trial, which should be plenty of time to run a study and determine if it works for your purposes.

In case anyone from the above companies happen to see this, I think the entire market is missing an opportunity to repackage these online meeting solutions for research purposes. It’s a classic case where a technology designed to solve one problem ends up being very useful in solving another problem. Call it a great “unintended” use! Either way, it would be great to see one or all of these providers offer a simpler solution with a more cost-effective pricing model for this type of service.

You have a project, either for your own firm or for a client, and you’d like to talk to some prospective customers (hopefully this happens all the time:-) How do you find good people to talk to? It’s not always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes you’ll want to use a research/recruiting firm, but there are many cases where it’s better to dig in and do it yourself. Here are some reasons for bootstrapping:

1. It can be cheaper. Research firms can charge upwards of $150 per person just for the recruit, plus incentive.

2. Higher confidence prospects. Sometimes even the best screeners result in bad recruits. Rather than spend the time clarifying your needs with the recruiter, get on the phone and do it yourself. You can probably identify a good or bad candidate within the first 5 minutes.

3. You’re the one building a relationship with the customer. It comes across more genuine when prospects are talking with the actual person who is looking for help. Plus, you have the opportunity to start what could be an ongoing relationship. For example, you’re likely going to want to invite people to preview your application - why not get some early potential beta customers?

To give you an example, we tackled just such a challenge with one of our clients, a brand new startup looking to launch a new social platform targeting a specific, but widely demonstrated online behavior. In one week’s time, we identified, recruited and completed 25 interviews with great people. Here’s what we did:

1. Described the type of people we wanted to talk to, then identified several sites where such users might already be.

2. Went to those sites to track down contact information. With the Web 2.0 evolution, tons of people have email addresses and phone numbers listed. When they didn’t, many sites provide submission forms to contact members. In addition, tons of people have other online profiles, either through their own web sites or pages on MySpace and LinkedIn.
3. Sent emails or submitted forms to upwards of 100 people, promising a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate for a 30 minute interview. We kept the emails personable but professional and honest. We referenced the evidence of their online behavior that we appreciated and explained why we wanted to talk to them.

4. Followed up with each person who responded, conducted the interviews, and promptly sent them their gift certificates when done.

Not only did we get great information to help our client build a better application, but most of the people we interviewed wanted to be invited into the Alpha program.