By Victoria Parr, Managing Director, Latitude Insights Sydney office 

At the last AMSRS conference I presented a paper on the research to develop the design of plain packaging for tobacco products (yes, that colour…… Pantone 448C). During the questions that followed, an audience member highlighted that even though the emphasis of the conference had been on new methodologies and digital data collection, most of the papers dealing with significant social or community impact had used very traditional methods, including mine.  He was questioning the tension between the ‘new’ methodologies and the need for delivery of robust and evidence based research that is required for government research.

This is an issue that I believe many in the audience of that last conference were grappling with, especially those of us that work within the social and government sphere. Our government clients are similar to commercial clients in that they too need to do everything cheaper and faster. They are also aware of that ‘new fangled’ thing called the internet, and they know that  people now have 100′s of friends and followers whose profile pictures they see on a daily basis, and who they converse with in 140 characters or less.

How our government clients differ is that the research they do is funded by all Australian taxpayers, so all of us in the community who are relevant to the problem need to be represented in the research. It is a critical part of the democratic model of government that all have chance to express their views and opinions on matters that affect them,  and that means the research we do must be representative of the population in question.

And here lies the crux of the issue.

As I said at the conference, government needs to be accountable and need to  ensure reliability of rigorous and robust research methods to achieve this. But at the same time, the world is changing and we all know that the way people are communicating is now different. We type to communicate almost as much, if not more, than we verbalise our thoughts. As AMSRS committee member Victoria Gamble gamely said when called out to take the roving microphone at the conference ‘I don’t like to speak in front of so many people, that’s why I use twitter’.

So my question is, if we don’t start to talk to people using the same way they communicate with each other, are we in fact losing some of the rigour of the research? Not only do we miss representation of the people who will not elect to do face-to-face qual, are we also not missing a vital part of capturing their views and opinions by not communicating with them in the way they are accustomed to?

Fishkin[1] wrote about deliberative democracy and public consultation under the title ‘When the People Speak’. My question is about recognizing that how people are speaking is now, in fact, different and we in the social and government side of research need to explore this issue more, both clients and suppliers alike. All methodologies, both the tried and tested and the ‘new’ have their faults. What we really need to consider as we look at each new project or problem is what method is going to really give a voice to those whose views and opinions we are trying to represent?

by Tabitha Lucas, Research Director at Latitude Insights

As a researcher part of my job is to get inside people’s heads and think about what makes them tick.

As you can imagine this is not an easy task – particularly given that more often than not people have no idea why they do what they do.

To make matters worse, it appears that people’s perceptions can be affected by things that you wouldn’t normally anticipate.

For example…

You’ve probably heard of ‘positive affirmations’ and the like?

Well today I came across an article that said that there’s actually some real (i.e. scientific) evidence that it works. But not necessarily in the way you might imagine.

Basically the crux of it was that what you SAY can actually change how you feel – even if you are lying or just being polite. Importantly I’m not just referring to positive THINKING here, the trick is that you actually need to SAY it, out loud.

The study done showed (as an example) that SAYING you are fond of someone might make you actually like that person even if you didn’t initially.

How bizarre is that?? If your mouth says it your brain could start to believe it! So much for needing to ramp up the benefits of a particular product to get people to buy it. All you need to do is somehow get them to say out loud that they like it – even if they don’t!

I’m sure it’s not that simple, but talk about turning the usual marketing model on its head. And what about us researchers? Do we now need to work out whether they like something just because they’ve faked it for so long they now genuinely believe it?

While this could lead some to throw up their hands in despair at ever achieving real insights, I just find it makes me more intrigued by people and all their seemingly paradoxical behaviours and attitudes.

I look forward to adding this little nugget into the mix.

In the meantime I’m intent on getting my children to say ‘I love broccoli’ over and over again…watch this space!

by Anna Clowry, Research Director at Latitude Insights

We often talk about the benefits of depth and breadth achieved by online research. From online surveys, to panels and communities, it’s about helping us get closer to people that other methods might miss.

From farmers in remote cattle stations, to housewives from the Gold Coast, online communities have brought people together in virtual spaces to help companies and organisations understand the bigger picture. Now anyone with an internet connection can have a say, not just those who can come and meet us face to face.

As well as who we reach, we sometimes overlook the impact of how powerful the anonymity of an online community can be. A recent project we conducted with Australians with a range of Anxiety Disorders really brought this point home.

Most of the online community members would have found it impossible or challenging to attend a focus group with a group of strangers, in an unfamiliar environment.

But more importantly, if they had, the level of intense personal detail shared would have been nothing compared to what was shared online.

We were privileged to shape and guide conversations covering extremely sensitive and challenging topics, and were thrilled when our community members fed back to us on the positive experience of sharing their thoughts, with both us and with the other community members.

The combination of a safe and anonymous discussion space, connecting with others with similar experience, and the freedom to share when and where it suited them, in as much or little detail as they liked, made the online community an ideal approach.

So, for marketers and other clients who need to understand topics that are sensitive in nature, from health care, social issues, taboo topics etc, we fully support harnessing the power of an online community.

Recently I read, with some concern, a widely discussed study of customer service amongst ten of Australian leading retailers.

The study drew very strong conclusions about service delivery amongst these retailers on the basis of four (yes four) ‘mystery’ shops conducted amongst a handful of Sydney based stores. Is this a meaningful and representative measure of service delivery within these stores that have millions of customer transactions every week?

Shouldn’t it be based on hundreds (or thousands) of ‘actual’ customers across their store network?

In Australia mystery shopping has become the most widely used measurement of customer service delivery amongst retailers, but with the customer service challenges presented by new market entrants and new customer channels should we re-think the way we measure service delivery?

Mystery shopping is certainly a valuable tool to measure compliance with operational standards, but a single store check conducted by a trained mystery shopper will never measure ‘surprise and delight’, those moments of truth that actually drives greater customer visitation, spend, and positive word of mouth.

And impacting spend is maybe not as hard as you think. I’ve attended many recent retail conferences where I’ve seen innovative in-store design, theatre and technology, but a lot can be said for delivering good old fashioned customer care. But you need to measure it at a store level.

Dave Griffin is a shopper and retail specialist at Latitude Insights. He can be contacted on: (03) 9571 1199. Latitude Insights were recently awarded Target’s supplier of the year 2012 in the professional services category.

It’s not often that I agree with Gerry Harvey, chairman of retailer Harvey Norman, but this time I think he has got a fair case. In a recent study, Choice magazine used ‘shadow shoppers’ to gauge customer service across 10 of Australia’s largest and most well known retailers. Harvey Norman (along with a number of the other stores) performed rather poorly. The issue that Gerry has is that these findings were based on just four individual store visits. I can see his point.

With almost 200 stores across Australia, visiting a sample of only four stores in the Sydney area can hardly be described as statistically significant when it comes to reporting the data collected by Choice in this study. It’s like describing Van Gogh as a terrible painter based on seeing only one of his paintings. I’m sure like Gerry, there are some very unhappy store managers whose stores reputations have been tarnished by this very broad brush stroke.

While mystery shopping is an established tool used to gain a ‘true’ representation of an in store experience, it does have its limitations, especially for large retailers such as those focused on in the Choice study. To truly understand the store experience of an Australia wide retailer you have to visit a large number of stores, something that this study failed to do. Visiting a large number of stores takes a lot of time, effort and in the end money. Successfully adopting an Australia wide mystery shopper program is not an easy process. It’s a one way process that involves a lot of legwork. So why not turn the tables and let actual customers have their own say?

Thanks in part to social media becoming part of the fabric of our lives, we are increasingly able to have two way dialogue with companies. As customers we are wanting to have our say and retailers just need to be willing to listen.

An online customer experience program (CEP) which can recognise potentially every customer Australia wide is an extremely powerful tool, more so than a mystery shop which by its very nature is limited to only a few in store interactions.

Simply by providing an online customer feedback form on the base of a receipt, or on flyers / signage in store, a CEP provides a collection device than can gather the statistically significant thoughts and opinions of thousands of customers anywhere and at any time.

While Gerry believes that customer service is a fantastic across his stores, I’m sure that a CEP would be able to tell him exactly what his customers think.

Having recently joined Latitude Insights and the market research industry as a whole, I was quite interested to hear about something called an “online community”.   I had never learned about “online communities” at uni (certainly not in enough depth for me to remember learning about them anyway!).

Nonetheless, as I learnt more about them, one of the things that stood out to me was this concept that “engagement” and other intrinsic rewards can be much more valuable to members than monetary rewards.

I’ll admit that I was a little sceptical at first to think that people could truly appreciate intrinsic rewards, especially in an increasingly price-conscious world… that was, until I actually experienced an online community for myself!  As I began to invite individuals to various communities, I expected every second person to ask me, “sooo….what are the ‘rewards’ for this research?” (A polite way of saying “show me the money PA-LEASE!!”).   Whilst this is an essential question for some, overall, this question is rarely asked. It is more common to get comments such as, “I’m really looking forward to this discussion, I think it will be very interesting!”

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The press has stopped for Encyclopaedia Britannica as it paves its future in digital. Following the footsteps of Wikipedia, the Britannica will now only offer online compilations of its publication.

How is it that Wikipedia (which relies on the collaboration of hundreds of authors working for free, nothing, zilch) is able to topple a 244-year-old publication like Britannica?

At last year’s AMSRS National Conference, using Wikipedia as an example, I spoke about the intrinsic reward that people get from online communities. Intrinsic rewards are non-monetary rewards – such as feelings of belonging or working towards a greater cause.

These same intrinsic rewards can be nurtured in Insights Communities. Wikipedia is evidence that by letting go of control and allowing members to ‘own’ their online environments, we are able to bring people together in collaboration. In your Insights Community, if you can create these feelings of self worth, acceptance and contributing to something bigger, you’ll find less need for extrinsic, monetary based incentives.