Category Archives: Customer Research Methods

Virtual Customer Environments (VCE)

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

 “Web labs” go beyond customer advisory groups Customer engagement methods has been the topic that has generated the most discussion on this blog to date. Traditional market research methods — such as multiple-choice surveys, focus groups, employee suggestions, etc. — … Continue reading →

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Marketing 2.0

Posted on June 26, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

A couple weeks ago the blog Marketing 2.0 offerred “15 suggestions that take advantage of the innovative opportunities that Web 2.0 offers for marketing.”  Seven of the 15 suggestions tie into the themes about involving users that are often discussed on … Continue reading →

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Why do you use focus groups?

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

As has been noted in several postings on this blog, there is overwhelming evidence that focus groups and brainstorming actually: Reduce the number of ideas generated, and Eliminate the “outliers” — the most creative ideas compared to 1:1 techniques that … Continue reading →

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“The customer is the company”

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

 Hi-tech t-shirts There is a fascinating article in the June issue of Inc. magazine about Threadless. Threadless lets customers design t-shirts over the Internet, then takes a vote on the best designs which are then offered for sale. Potential customers … Continue reading →

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Focus Groups, Brainstorming, and Freddy

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

Why won’t they die? A reader made this comment on an earlier post about group-think efforts: At a conference I recently attended, we had several brainstorming sessions devoted to finding ways to improve the grant we were all on. An … Continue reading →

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“Gating” Ideation?

Posted on May 20, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

  Don’t fence me in… In this month’s issue of Visions magazine the owners of the stage-gate(R) trademark take a look at ideation. They conducted a survey to find the most used and most effective customer research methods. Few details are … Continue reading →

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Expert moderators and Focus Groups

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

It is not square! Several readers have pointed out that I seem negative on Focus groups. They are correct and there are two primary reasons: In a former role we were innovating with the help of customer input. We hired … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer Research Methods, Ideation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

“Keep the Customer at the center”

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

Customer immersion at P&G: “Living it” and “Working it” “We have figured out how to keep the consumer at the center of all our decisions,” Lafley writes. “As a result we don’t go far wrong.” Before, P&G would rely heavily … Continue reading →

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Many Crummy Trials BEAT Deep Thinking: Discussion

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

 Two related posts in the last month have generated a fair amount of interest: “Many Crummy Trials BEAT Deep Thinking” (4/20) “the cost of trying is lower than the cost of analyzing.” (4/1) — An executive in charge of online … Continue reading →

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Beta Culture at Nokia — now in BusinessWeek

Posted on May 3, 2008 by Gary R Schirr

Two weeks after this blog ran a piece (see April 17 below) on the Beta Culture at Nokia, BusinessWeek wrote an article on their efforts. Nokia has had incredible success with Beta Testing and pre-Beta Testing of products and ideas … Continue reading →

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