In a recent article on research-live.com, market research trainer Kathryn Korostoff debates whether companies could institute pay-for-performance for research suppliers the way many have for ad agencies.  While she admits that traditional pay-for-performance can’t work because of market changes, project variability, and implementation issues, she does posit three models companies could use to ensure costs better reflect project outcomes:

1. Base plus-compensate suppliers with a base fee to cover expenses plus staff time costs that vary based on client satisfaction with the overall project.
2. Cut of savings-calculate fees based on cost savings provided by supplier innovation.
3. Right of refusal-enter into contracts that allow you to pass on research you are not satisfied with, given the understanding that the supplier can then sell this research to another party, including competitors or media outlets. Read More »

In the last couple of weeks I’ve seen two articles in the business press extolling the virtues and limitations of applying experimentation to business issues.  The first article, in the summer 2010 edition of City Journal, outlines the history of randomized experimentation and its use in criminology and sociology.  But it also goes into business uses for this technique, including specifics from Capital One, Harrah’s, and Google.  The Washington Post then picked up the topic, adding its own historic examples and business examples from Applied Predictive Technologies, including Kraft, Red Lobster, and Family Dollar Stores. While applauding the knowledge gained in these studies, the authors place more emphasis on the challenges and pitfalls of constructing valid, replicable studies of social phenomena.  Read More »

The Washington Post ran two interesting front-page articles about Millennials this past weekend.  The first profiles their dislike of the phone.  I wouldn’t have guessed it by the number of drivers I passed on the phone during this morning’s commute, but 18- to 34-year-olds’ average monthly voice minutes dropped from about 1,200 to 900 in the last two years.  As one Millennial interviewed said, “I put [answering calls] off because there’s something confrontational about someone calling you.”

The second article outlined the impact younger workers have on the workplace (particularly in the federal government; it is DC’s paper, after all).  Government personnel experts say that by 2020 about 400,000 of the 2 million federal workers will be younger than 35, and this demographic shift is creating tension and opportunity in every field.  This new generation of workers is known for seeking risks and demanding regular feedback on their work.  They are a results-driven group who push the bureaucratic status quo but are also learning to respect and learn from their more experienced peers. Read More »

As we featured in one of our most popular blog posts to date, our sister program the Customer Contact Council (CCC) recently made quite a splash in the HBR by recommending contact centers stop trying to delight customers.  To continue their ripples in the water, they have now posted an HBR blog hypothesizing that your customers would rather not talk to you at all.

Their research finds that companies believe that their customers value live service more than twice as much as they value self-service, but that customers value self-service just as much as live phone service.  The CCC wonders if this switch to self-service comes from its perceived increase in efficiency, or if it could be because customers don’t really want a relationship with most companies, and technology has finally given them the out they’ve been looking for. Read More »

Earlier this summer Jeremy Dean, a PhD candidate at University College London, posted two blogs, each containing 7 psychological techniques to boost creativity and insightfulness. 

Some of his tactics include: 

• Fast forward in time-view your task from one, ten, or one hundred years distant.  In a study, those who were asked to think of their lives one year from now developed more creative solutions than those who were thinking of tomorrow.
• Combine opposites-try ridiculous combinations on purpose.  A study of famous scientists, writers, and artists found that many think of multiple, simultaneous opposites to develop their great ideas.
• Play with word choice and categorization-tweak the language of your challenge by making the verbs more generic and using synonyms to re-categorize the issues.  Focusing on the gist of the issue rather than specifics can help you develop new ways of representing and solving it.
• Develop your own creativity-boosting activities-avoid daydreaming and other forms of passive, unconscious creativity.  Studies have shown that the problem with passive creativity is that any findings will probably remain unconscious, so you’ll never know about your terrific idea.

Read More »

The cover story in the July issue of Research magazine ponders the effect DIY online survey and analytics tools could have on the research industry.  While traditional market research suppliers focus on the limitations of DIY tools and the dangers of unfettered data collection and analysis, tool developers believe that there is an opportunity (especially for corporate Research functions) to cut costs without cutting staff.  As Dan Beltramo, CEO of DIY software supplier Vizu puts it, “I think the bigger issue is that there is too much bad research conducted by professionals who charge top dollar for it. One of the big advantages of DIY research is that less gets lost in translation between the client and the market research agent.” Read More »

According to a recent Reuters article, a few data-loving economists in key positions of the US government are pushing new metrics to provide a more clear picture of the country’s economy.  Considering that the model used to compute GDP, the US’s primary economic indicator, was created in the 1930s, many in the Treasury, the Commerce Department, and other agencies believe that the government needs a better understanding of how people work, live, and feel to make better policy decisions.

At the center of this push is Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Alan Krueger, who, before his appointment, was an academic focusing on time use studies.  He and other “Data Dogs” believe that understanding what Americans do every day and how they feel about those activities will allow them to assess economic trouble spots more quickly.  Read More »

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has worked for years to understand the impact of the “cuddle chemical” oxytocin on economic behavior.  Using sometimes controversial methods outlined in a recent Fast Company article (including a group that inhaled the chemical before viewing and reacting to PSAs), Zak has found that oxytocin, the hormone historically known to forge mother-baby bonds, stimulates general human empathy, generosity, and trust.  By changing oxytocin levels in subjects and then asking them to participate in economic experiments he has found that people with elevated levels of the hormone are more generous with individuals and also donate more money to charitable organizations. 

Zak’s  most recent study finds that social networking triggers the release of oxytocin, suggesting that online relationships can be just as real as those conducted in the “real world.”  Most notably for companies, this means social media can be key in building trust with your existing customers, indicating the perhaps companies that can connect and raise oxytocin levels will dominate in the years to come. Read More »

The July/August issue of the Harvard Business Review features an article from our sister program the Customer Contact Council: Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.  Their research shows that in the contact center, “delighting” the customer yields only marginal additional loyalty. 

They also found that customers are four times more likely to leave a service interaction with the contact center disloyal as compared to loyal, and the primary thing companies can do to mitigate this disloyalty in the service channel is to focus on reducing the effort customers must put forth to get their issues resolved. 

Read More »

According to the Washington Post, the Securities and Exchange Commission is turning to quantitative experts from non-traditional backgrounds to stay ahead of the complex, ever-changing markets that make up the US financial system.  Traditionally, the regulatory agency filled its ranks with lawyers, but new hiring requirements have brought on experts with specialized quant skills and those who have worked on Wall Street who are “hip to its tricks.”

Perhaps the most out-of-the-box hire is a Princeton-trained nuclear physicist who is currently investigating what caused the May “flash-crash” in the US market.  In the article, Gregg Berman points out that the SEC job is not that far removed from his physics experiments on Princeton’s particle accelerator: Read More »