The convergence of MR, UX and CX: why Customer Centricity is critical for brands
4 Key Takeaways from the MRS Combining CX|UX|MR 2022 Summit
How do brands create one seamless Customer Experience when different teams operate with different goals and considerably different understandings of the Consumer? This was the overarching theme that emerged from this years Market Research Societies (MRS) 2022 Conference.
It was our privilege to sponsor the Market Research Society (MRS) combining CX, UX and MR conference. If you were one of the many attendees at this year's summit, no doubt you would have identified insights from the diverse panel of speakers.
To reflect on the MRS summit, we have put together what we found to be the four key takeaways that can be adopted when you set out to design a research project with multiple stakeholders and teams at the table.
Closing the Empathy Gap between brands and customers is key
“Closing the empathy gap should be one of your main objectives”
This might go without saying, but at the forefront of any product or service design is empathy. Reaching empathy with users of your product is essential for UX researchers. Insights teams will always want to enhance their customers’ buyer journey by putting themselves in the shoes of the consumer. Having empathy for those that matter most to your brand, should be one of the main objectives for those designing the next innovative product. However, this can be a difficult task. Our team at Indeemo has seen this over the last two years during the pandemic. Across the spectrum of design and innovation, UX teams, CX Teams, and MR teams faced many obstacles reaching the consumer.
Without being able to conduct traditional qualitative methods, novel agile consumer learnings needed to be adopted. To do this, brands have begun to utilise online and digital technologies as alternatives to traditional methods of research. How has this helped to close the empathy gap? To simply put it, the use of in-home ethnography, video diaries and remote observations have given insights teams instant access to the lives and behaviours of the consumer. Understanding real human behaviour versus claimed human behaviour has become central to contextualising a piece of research. As a result of this, MR, CX, and UX teams gain a richer understanding of their customers through a deeper sense of shared empathy.
2. An embedded Research Model is critical to customer centricity
“Create an embedded research model that can stay in the organisation - continue to use it”
One of the challenges organisations face when trying to provide the best customer experience is the diverse set of research methodologies different teams have. To add to this, projects can often be conducted as stand alone pieces that might never be shared across teams.
One way of overcoming this challenge is to design an overarching research model that all teams can leverage. A model where your UX researchers can implement during the discovery phase of innovation for example. It is essential then, that you adopt an agile and iterative approach to your research. At this year's summit, it was clear that a multi-phased approach that leverages on results from previous phases need to be continuously fed back into the business and shared across the teams that require deep insights into the consumer.
3. Embracing internal stakeholders is a must for a truly customer centric corporate culture
"Stakeholders have things they already believe is true, but these biases can be turned into hypotheses to test"
During one presentation, the speakers highlighted the internal stakeholders challenge they faced during the design phase of their research. We all have our own biases. Some we are aware of, other biases, we don't even know about. Minimising the impact of bias on a piece of research should always be accounted for in the project design.
However, this may be difficult to overcome. In traditional quantitative surveys, respondents can quickly tick the same likert points just out of convenience. On the other hand, the research design might already have biases embedded in the protocol. This can come from internal stakeholders and teams who may already have their own objectives, and a perceived understanding of their customer and this might influence the design of your customer experience research piece. Insights teams can leverage this however. Build these biases into your research. Develop hypotheses, test them, and don't be afraid to challenge others with evidence based insights.
4. Find ways to bring the Consumer into the Boardroom
“We do not have a UX consumer, or a CX Consumer. We have just one consumer”
The question of how we achieve integration across themes to provide a seamless customer experience was at the forefront of this year’s summit. There is one thing all organisations and design and innovation teams have in common, and that is, there is only one customer. Whether it be the best shopping experience, the most seamless buying journey, or the slickest user experience - the human at the center of all of this matters most.
Time and time again products fail because they have not put the customer at the heart of the brand. The voice of the consumer needs to be heard. Decision makers need to better understand their customers’ the pain points by creating a culture that continuously undertakes customers experience research. Insights teams need to understand the behaviours.
Overall, we are talking about a creating a seamless Human Experience. For this to happen, the consumer needs to be at the table. How do we do this? Well, there is no straightforward recipe for this dilemma. There is no one set of practices a brand can implement.
First, we must acknowledge that we have one consumer that we want to provide the best experience for. Then we address the silos within our organisation. Experts at this year’s summit expressed concerns that there is a lack of knowledge sharing, insights sharing, and co-creation across teams. Make sure there is one team to give the best UX , the best CX and have everyone ask questions. The coming together of teams with a shared goal will and should instantly bring the consumer to the top table.
Customer centricity is critical when creating a great brand experience
The MRS Combining UX|CX|MR 2022 summit brought together the best of the best in their field. Ultimately, everyone shared the same experiences and insights to help bring these diverse teams together in an organisation. In summary, go beyond UX and CX to show a holistic experience of the product or service. Work together as one overarching insights team to become a consumer centric organisation.
At Indeemo, we work with pioneering, customer centric organisations to help them better research the holistic end to end customer journey and design better omni-channel experiences.
If you are interested in learning more about our platform and how we can help you make your organisation more customer centric, please get in touch.
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