Blog 6

“Customer Experience Audit & Prototype” was our main project of “Customer Insights”. First of all, I have to say that the project was really useful to apply class concepts and also to learn more about customer behaviour. Now, I am going to talk about the two main things that I learned doing this project. I could talk about more things, but I will highlight only the most interesting ones.

Firstly, I believe that the project was really useful to realize that it is crucial to understand your target audience. Generally, companies produce a product/service in order to catch the eye of a particular kind of consumer. Companies rarely use an undifferentiated strategy. In our case, we had to choose a particular “persona” at the beginning of the project. After choosing our “persona” (a girl between 13-15 years old) we tried to understand how she though, what needs she had, what interests she had, and everything related with her. Her personality and lifestyle were also important to take into consideration so as to better understand her needs and behaviours. Obviously, we had some preconceived ideas about our “persona” because all team members had been teenagers before. However, after carrying out some research, it was interesting to notice that things have changed considerably during these last few years. Consequently, we had to change some of our initial thoughts. Certainly, we made big efforts trying to understand perfectly our “persona”. From my point of view, it is vital to gain deep insights of your “persona” because if you do not understand your audience, it is not possible to offer the best option/solution for them.

Another important thing that I learned when doing the project is that qualitative research and quantitative research are different and companies need both methodologies. They are two powerful tools with different functions. As we have mentioned previously, our research was really useful to better understand our “persona”. We chose to complete the generative methodology (qualitative research) first with the hope of knowing better our “persona” and gaining some insights. Our qualitative research consisted of a photo journal. After completing the generative research, we sent out a survey to our research participants via email. Here, our aim was to validate some conclusions that we found with the photo journal. It is important to notice that companies need both of them. Carry out only a qualitative research is not coherent. Similarly, it is not coherent to carry out only a quantitative research. If companies do both, they can draw better conclusions.

After talking about my key leanings, I want to explain the experiences that I had during the process. First of all, I have to say that I usually work in teams in my university. In Spain, we usually have group projects in every class, so it was not a new thing for me. Despite of this, I have to say that it was a little bit different for me because I’m an exchange student. At the beginning it was quite difficult because of the language, but then, I become more confident and I tried to participate more. All my team-mates helped me to make up with the group. We work weekly in the project and as time went by, we became more effective. I believe that all team members contributed a lot with the project and I also think that we did a good job overall. Regarding the instructor, I have to say that it was really clear what he wanted in every stage of the project. Moreover, I think that the feedback he provided in every presentation was really useful to improve for next presentations. Finally, I think that working in groups is vital for us. Companies usually work with groups. For this reason, we have to learn to work in a group. Companies do not hire people who do not know how to work with others. They hire people with communication skills who know how to interact and work with others.