Voices: the CMB Blog

I’ll never forget the day I proposed. Of course I was nervous, but it felt like it was meant to be.  Three months ago I proposed a brand health tracking project to a new client, and they said yes. On this Valentine’s Day I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the things that matter as you begin work with a new research partner, and the surprising parallels between client and personal relationships.  As someone who has been happily married for 17 years, it’s fun for me to look back and remember the early days of the marriage!  

1.       Take the time to really get to know your partner

Just as you would (I hope) spend time early on getting to know your significant other—their values, friends, and family, it’s critical to understand your research partners’ organizational culture. For this relationship, because we took the time to ask, we learned that our client has a very egalitarian style—soliciting and accepting input from a wide range of people.  We framed the planning and design stages with that cooperative culture in mind. Our approach would be very different in a “top down” kind of organization.

2.       Don’t be afraid to challenge your partner

Of course we want to please our partners—our significant others or our clients. But growth doesn’t come for any of us if we’re not willing to get out of our comfort zones. This is true in client relationships as well as dating or marriage. We know one of the main reasons we have such long standing relationships with our clients is our experience and willingness to challenge the status quo when we know a project or process can be improved.  One of the things our client values is our “appropriate” challenges to how they do things.  We’ve taken over an existing brand tracker, so there are inevitable trade-offs about changing things to better reflect the current world and keeping the ability to track results over time.  We told our client that we would act as if we were building the tracker from scratch and work with her to strike the right balance between usefulness and comparability.  The fact that our client not only was comfortable with this, but encouraged more of it through the planning and design phases was a great early sign that they're “our kind” of partner!

3.       Make regular communication part of the process

Communication is a topic in every relationship book ever written (look it up—OK don’t) and of course it seems obvious, but it’s just as important in your client relationships. But good communication is not a download of every idea you’ve had in excruciating detail, instead it’s about learning to say what you mean in a way that your client can use and understand. Here’s what works for this client (and many of our other clients as well):   

• Regularly scheduled weekly calls during the planning and design stage;

• A written weekly update that includes all work completed to date, a to do list with specific assignments and due dates, and an updated overall project schedule. 

Consistently checking in with your partner means you can catch problems before they start, and it keeps everyone on the same page.  

4.       When you have a conflict…and you will, talk it out

Just like in dating or marriage, you’re sure to hit a speed bump or two in your working relationship; it’s how you handle it that counts. When we originally proposed to our client we’d introduced one of our senior project managers as the lead manager on the project. Soon after, that manager was promoted to a different position so we had to shift the team around after we won; it’s rare but it happens. Our contact let me know—by phone, which was so much better than email—she was concerned about these changes right away; luckily we were able to clarify that we had an even more experienced team assigned.  Lesson: don’t let worries fester, deal with them directly and make yourself open to hearing and addressing your client’s concerns.

Finally, yes, relationships are hard (even imaginary relationships are tough, according to recent news reports!)—they take real work and nurturing to grow. But there are few things as satisfying as a true partnership.  

Mark is VP of our Retail practice. We suspect this blog isn't his lovely wife's Valentine's Day present.

Love is in the air, learn how we help Match.com track their brand health.

While the rest of us breathe a sigh of relief that the fiscal cliff threat is behind us, the MedTech industry is feeling the pain of the new medical device excise tax, a part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  While it remains to be seen whether the promised influx of patients resulting from the ACA will ultimately generate enough revenue to offset the tax, looking at the current state of US healthcare (Click on Figure 1 for Larger Version) it is painfully clear that additional tax revenue alone is not the solution; rising costs must be addressed in a meaningful way. 

Innovation to develop products, services, and systems that are more effective and efficient is critical to solving the healthcare cost problem. While the majority of MedTech organizations historically focused their sales and service efforts on their relationship with physicians, there is an increasingly vocal group, including doctors, patient advocates, and policy makers, who believe the key to healthcare innovation lies in empowering patients. Because patients ultimately make decisions about things like diet, exercise, when to seek treatment, and disease management, they have an enormous influence on the cost and the effectiveness of their own care.  In fact, some believe that 80% or more of healthcare decisions are made by patients, not medical professionals. The idea is that if we can empower people to be more informed and engaged in their care decisions, they will be the driving force behind improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system. 

Assuming the care system does evolve in a way that empowers patients, many MedTech organizations will be under increased pressure to incorporate features in their products that impact patient’s behaviors and help them make better lifestyle decisions.  For example, imagine a pacemaker that can provide a patient with information in real time through a smart phone app that will help him become more conscious of decisions about sleep, diet, and exercise.  These types of patient empowering innovations have the potential to dramatically change healthcare in the US (and worldwide).  And MedTech companies have the opportunity to drive this change; however it will require a shift in how they have traditionally learned about their markets.

As MedTech companies race to innovate, they will likely hold internal brainstorming sessions, meet with physician advisory boards, and speak to their sales and customer service groups. The problem with these approaches is that it leaves out the most critical component— the patient, the key to successful innovation.  To generate this intimate knowledge of patients, organizations need a plan—a change from how MedTech organizations traditionally approach innovation.  One that does the following:

1. Identifies what customers ultimately want and need from their healthcare.  Talk to patients living with the disease state; understand their daily struggles, and what would improve their healthfulness.

2. Prioritize what matters most to patients based on the most pressing needs of the patients; organizations should not invest time and money in trying to address each item identified by patients.  Fortunately, all wants and needs were not created equal. Instead, companies should focus on developing solutions that address those needs that are most important to healthcare consumers.  Additionally, there are likely groups of patients that have different priorities, and organizations should consider whether and how they address these different groups.

3. Translates these prioritized wants and needs into solutions.  Armed with a detailed understanding of what matters to healthcare consumers, organizations can apply their expertise to develop elegant solutions that satisfy the most critical unmet needs.

4. Establishes metrics that indicate whether the solutions they have developed are truly empowering healthcare consumers and adding value to the system.

MedTech companies face a future of great uncertainty and opportunity; however it seems clear that in the context of the Affordable Care Act and the evolving nature of today’s care model, patients are going to become increasingly important.  MedTech companies will need healthcare consumer insight programs to uncover the wants and needs of their patients and discover the addressable white space. Their intimate understanding of their patients is enabling them to pull ahead and gain a decided competitive advantage.The winners aren’t going to be those who bring solutions to market first but instead those who can translate deep insight of patients into game changing products and services. 

Andrew runs CMB’s MedTech practice and has spent the better part of the past decade helping some of the most successful MedTech companies make difficult strategic decisions.  In his free time, Andrew enjoys scrubbing into tracheotomies with clients, and running with his dog Moby.

The next time you attend a market research conference, listen very, very carefully. That dull buzzing sound you hear is the collective whine of hundreds of market researchers lamenting their inability to get a seat at the big kids' table or even just some recognition for all the value they provide.

 I know it hurts, but it’s time to do some soul searching and address the all too common ways market researchers get in their own way:

• over-reliance on statistical significance

• inability to put oneself in the business partner’s shoes

• focusing on research objectives rather than business objectives

• unwillingness to commit to a point-of-view regarding what the data means

I’m not the only one who’s picked up on these industry-wide weaknesses; witness the popularity of the mysterious Angry MR Client on Twitter and GreenBook.  There isn’t a silver bullet that will fix all of the issues facing our industry, but I am sure of this: we need to communicate better.

Over and over I hear people lament that researchers need to do a better job “telling stories.”  I agree completely, and it’s something we have prided ourselves on at CMB for the last 5-10 years.  Lucky for us, while there’s always been and always will be a “story” to tell, there are now so many more tools to help us elicit that actionable insight from the stream of data.  Say what you will about the rise of the quants but there’s much to be said about the art of data, and that can mean taking a visual approach to data—no, not a pie chart.

At CMB, we have graphic designers who, in addition to making our PowerPoint reports look great, have also designed some great infographics.  There are so many more mediums for storytelling available to us and it would be crazy not to take advantage of them.  Maybe there’ll always be an audience for the traditional PPT report/presentation, but I’ll bet there’s also an audience for an infographic, like the one below, highlighting key takeaways:

We’ve provided these for Customer Experience and Brand Tracking engagements and our clients really enjoy them. Easy to read visuals, like infographics, are a great way to socialize key takeaways across an organization where not everyone needs to go through a huge deck. 

We’ve also gotten great feedback on our Prezis – mini movies that add energy and emotion to the story.  Check out this one that we’ve dummied up to tell the story of a fictitious bank. 

ABC Bank Video from CMBinfo on Vimeo.

We’ve given these in advance of an annual presentation and the result has been increased attendance, improved engagement, and better solution-brainstorming. 

These are just two really simple examples of how you can take storytelling to the next level, engage your audience in the insight, and perhaps get that seat in the C-Suite.

Jim is Managing Director of CMB’s Financial Services practice. He enjoys sweeping historical dramas and is working on his Downton Abbey infographic.

Stephanie Kimball, our Marketing Operations Manager, created the infographic and Prezi you see here. She gets her inspiration from many places, including the 3 million Redbox movies she rents every week.

As we prepare for Super Bowl XLVII we thought we'd share, once again, Jim Garrity's tips for picking Super Bowl Squares. Originally published 4/4/2011.

Last weekend, my family and I took a trip to Charlotte, North Carolina.  We rented a car and stayed at a hotel.  Within 12 hours of arriving home I received an online survey from each company.  In both cases, the experiences were excellent and I was happy to share the details.  In one case, the survey took me about 1 ½ minutes to complete.  The other one took me about 10 minutes. For the survey that took me 1 ½ minutes, when I reached the end, I thought “Well, they asked about the key aspects of the experience and got what they needed.”  In contrast, by the time I reached the midpoint of the 10 minute survey, I was exhausted and just wanted to end the damn thing – and then when I reached the end, they asked if I wanted to answer more(!?!) questions.

In the 1 ½ minute survey I could clearly see the questions focused solely on the experience and managing the key aspects of the service –they probably have more than enough data to get deep insights since they know who I am, my travel details, and have similar data for the thousands of other travelers who are also rating the experience.

In the 10 minute survey, I could see that the company was asking for details beyond the experience, they were seeking to understand competitive positioning and future intended travel behaviors—all things that are clearly outside the scope of the service experience.  They also asked questions about very detailed aspects of the experience e.g., the mechanical condition of the car and softness of the towels.  It led me to ask: “Really?  You want me to rate this aspect of the service?  Aren’t you guys smart enough to tell these things are up to standard?” 

Here’s an example from another industry: homebuilding.  I’ve seen surveys that ask buyers to rate the window quality in the home.  Why?!?  Shouldn’t the builder know if the windows they are putting into the home are high-grade or low-grade?  Remember, we’re assessing the home purchase experience, NOT homebuyer preferences.  If you’re trying to achieve both in the same research study, you’re going to be (as Mr. Miyagi says) “like the grasshopper in the middle of the road.” 

As researchers and companies asking our valued customers for feedback, we need to be very aware of the unstated agreement for what’s in scope and out of scope for these customer experience surveys.  I’m not opposed to having surveys do “double-duty,” but we should be clear with our customers that we are doing so, AND not kill them with gruelingly long surveys.

Jeff is VP, Market Science Solutions at CMB. He always takes time for a customer experience survey, but keep it short he's very busy, he needs time to blog and occasionally tweet @McKennaJeff.

See how CMB is helping Royal Caribbean measure guest experience and improve customer satisfaction and retention. Click here.