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Karen Cunningham

Fox School of Business
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MKTG 5601

August 6, 2019 By Karen Cunningham Leave a Comment

How Show & Tell Improves User Experience

I recently had the chance to speak with Jennifer Barton, Senior Director Product Management, and Toni Lo Sasso, Principal, User Experience, who both work for Accolade, a high-touch healthcare technology company, about the techniques they used to improve a claims interface for their internal customer service team.

To address the interface’s shortcomings, Barton and Lo Sasso started from scratch. They began by conducting interviews with the Accolade Health Assistants who rely on the system to answer claims questions for their users and to help them navigate the complex world of healthcare.

“We were looking to uncover the top pain points for Health Assistants and apply the 80/20 rule,” says Barton. The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, focuses on finding and fixing the 20 percent of causes that create 80 percent of the effect.

But getting that information isn’t always easy. “I feel like half of the job is getting people to tell us the problem without solutioning it for us,” says Lo Sasso.

“We get a lot of solutions,” she says. “People say, ‘just change this to that or that to this,’ and it’s our job to push back and say, ‘but I really want to understand your problem because your solution may not scale or your solution may not solve two or three other problems we know we have.’”

Lo Sasso says the three most important things to identify at the outset of a process improvement project are, “What problem needs to be solved, why is it a problem, and who is it affecting?”

As a user experience designer, Lo Sasso gets users to reveal problems by observing them. “I get them to show me what they’re doing,” she says. “It adds a lot of value to be able to see someone use their tools…to see what they’re doing and the shortcuts they’ve created for themselves. I always want to see it…show me what you’re talking about.”

For Barton, it’s all about asking the right questions to solicit the kind of responses you want. “There are techniques like the five whys,” she says, “where you keep going and digging deeper until you get to the actual problem.”

“It’s an art,” Barton continues, “a skill you have to hone over time to make sure you are getting to the actual problem.”

Barton asks questions like, “If you say you want to get this done, tell me the process you would normally walk through to get to that point.” She says she takes on the role of a student: “I say, ‘just teach me, you’re the expert, tell me what you think is going on here and walk me through that.’” When users start talking about what they do every day, Barton says, “They are released from responsibility of giving me a solution, and they can start to just openly and freely talk about things.”

Barton and Lo Sasso both say their version of show and tell helps them get to the real problem, while uncovering the user’s thoughts, feelings and emotions. This gives the team a complete picture of who they are designing the improvements for.

Using show and tell, Barton and Lo Sasso learn what needs to be solved, for whom it’s a problem, and why it’s a problem. They’re then ready to compare notes and start working toward a scalable solution that works for everyone.

 

Sources:

  • Koch, Richard. “The Pareto Principle: Achieving More With Less.” Process Excellence Network, 25 May 2018, www.processexcellencenetwork.com/lean-six-sigma-business-performance/interviews/the-pareto-principle-achieving-more-with-less.
  • “The UXer’s Guide to User Personas.” Justinmind, www.justinmind.com/blog/uxers-guide-to-user-personas/.

Filed Under: MIS5109, MKTG 5601 Tagged With: 80/20 rule, Pareto principle, problem solving, process improvement, process innovation improvement, root cause analysis, user experience design, ux

March 21, 2019 By Karen Cunningham Leave a Comment

Brewing Success at Burger King

In a bold move to reign supreme, Burger King introduced a new coffee subscription program on March 15, 2019. For $5 a month, customers can get one small, hot-brewed coffee every day using the BK app.

Although the king of burgers is likely aiming to convert more coffee customers from McDonald’s than Starbucks (in 2017, McDonald’s outperformed both Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts1) the brand, not one to shy from rivalry (as it did recently with KFC and McDonald’s ) roasts the java giant in its ad: Enjoy BK Café for a month for the price of a large cappuccino from Starbucks.

Yahoo Finance thinks the subscription program is a smart move for the fast food chain.

“It’s easy to see what Restaurant Brands International is thinking with this subscription. Burger King isn’t the coffee giant Starbucks is. It also isn’t as successful in the mornings as McDonald’s… Burger King may wind up subsidizing a lot of cups of coffee, but it’s highly unlikely that someone will pull into a drive-through for just a cup of coffee. The incentive for multiple visits will have them digging into Burger King’s breakfast menu.”

In addition, Burger King is counting on collecting continuous payments since research shows that people aren’t likely to cancel a subscription even if they aren’t using it.2

To measure the financial success of the program—it generates additional revenue because customers are purchasing additional items when they pick up their coffee or they use the service less than five times a month—the company will want to closely monitor key metrics that are considered critical for subscription businesses.

Here’s a graphic of the key performance indicators (KPIs) Burger King will want to monitor based on the 5 Metrics Every Subscription Business Should Measure by SAAS Metrics Co.

Determined to take the coffee crown and convert commitment phobes, a few days after announcing the BK Café subscription, BK lowered the price of its small hot coffee from $1 to 50 cents. They also enlisted rapper 50-Cent to send a promo tweet about the deal, engaging with the musician’s followers and joking that affiliation “just made cents.”

All jokes aside, the limited-time discount and the brand activation through the rapper is extending the social media buzz around the company’s coffee, and can only help to capture more coffee enthusiasts and boost subscriptions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes:

1. Hawley, Julia. “Who Are Starbucks’ Main Competitors?” Investopedia, Investopedia, 12 Mar. 2019, www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/101315/who-are-starbucks-main-competitors.asp.

2. “BK Intros $5 Per Month Coffee Subscription; Chipotle Uses Venmo Promo to Launch Rewards.” 03/18/2019, www.mediapost.com/publications/article/333288/bk-intros-5-per-month-coffee-subscription-chipot.html.

Sources:

Tobin, Ben. “Burger King Launches Coffee Subscription Service to Customers for $5 per Month.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 18 Mar. 2019, www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/03/18/burger-king-launches-coffee-subscription-service-5-per-month/3199977002/.

“Will Burger King’s $5 Coffee Trick Hurt Starbucks and McDonald’s?” Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo!, 17 Mar. 2019, finance.yahoo.com/news/burger-king-apos-5-coffee-200000342.html.

“The King Dresses like the Colonel to Promote Burger King’s Grilled Chicken.” The Drum, www.thedrum.com/news/2019/02/21/the-king-dresses-the-colonel-promote-burger-king-s-grilled-chicken.

“Burger King Hijacks MacCoin Promotion as McDonald’s Beef Continues.” The Drum, www.thedrum.com/news/2019/01/17/burger-king-hijacks-maccoin-promotion-mcdonalds-beef-continues.

Elban, Chaz. “5 Metrics That Every Subscription Business Should Measure – SaaS Metrics.” SaaS Metrics, SaaS Metrics, 8 Jan. 2019, saasmetrics.co/5-metrics-that-every-subscription-business-should-measure/.

Cooper, Gael Fashingbauer. “Pay Just $5, Get a Coffee at Burger King Every Day for a Month.” The Daily Meal, 19 Mar. 2019, www.thedailymeal.com/burger-king-five-dollar-coffee-subscription/031819.

Filed Under: MIS 5001, MKTG 5601 Tagged With: brand activation, Burger King, coffee, digital brand strategy, key performance indicator, KPIs, metrics, subscription metrics, subscription service, subscriptions

March 15, 2019 By Karen Cunningham 11 Comments

UPS Store Takes B2B Marketing Outside the Box

The UPS Store is showing business-to-business (B2B) companies what brand activation looks like on social media, and on an unexpected platform at that.

Recognizing that pictures of brown boxes and packing peanuts don’t exactly make for the type of visually stimulating posts that attract over one million users per month to Instagram, the retail arm of the world’s largest package delivery company used the photo-sharing app to showcase their customers’ unique stories.

Last year, the #TheUPSStoreCustomer campaign received multiple accolades for its use of user-generated content (UCG) “to tell their brand story in a way that feels authentic and charming.” (1)

  • 9 Standout Examples of UGC Marketing Campaigns – CrowdRiff
  • The 10 Best User-Generated Content Campaigns on Instagram
  • 7 of the Best B2B Social Media Marketing Campaigns of 2017

A blog article making a case for B2B use of Instagram, recommends that if a business is focused on brand activation — gaining affinity and inspiring consumers to act — Instagram is the place to be. “When evaluating Instagram, please eliminate the notion of B2B versus B2C. It’s all P2P (person-to-person),” the author advises.

The article, The Curious Case of B2B Marketers Avoiding Instagram, says “Brands that are successful on Instagram align their values with those of their customers and make their customers the focus.”

The franchise division’s Instagram channel feed features the unique stories of their small business customers. And it doesn’t get much more customer-centric than the company’s bio: @TheUPSStore: Here to champion America’s makers, crafters & small business doers. Celebrating all who’ve chosen a life of entrepreneurship.

Now two years old, #TheUPSStoreCustomer campaign is still innovative. According to a 2018 survey by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI)  only about 25 percent of B2B respondents use community building and audience participation to nurture their audiences.

Instagram is an ideal platform to build a sense of community and drive engagement, especially if you’re marketing to millennials. Statista, the statistics portal, reports that 62 percent of Instagram users are 24 or older. Think with Google, the tech giant’s research site, says that 89 percent of B2B researchers use the internet during the research process and that nearly half of all B2B researchers are millennials.

As adoption by older demographics rises, I expect more B2B marketers will consider featuring UCG on Instagram as a way to connect with their customers.

“This, may come as a shock, but people like to share their opinions and BE SEEN on social media. When a brand empowers them, enables their behaviors and needs, AND gives them a broader platform to showcase it, then it spreads like wildfire.” (2)

 

References:

(1)“9 Standout Examples of UGC Marketing Campaigns.” CrowdRiff, crowdriff.com/ugc-marketing-campaigns/.

(2) Anderson, Chad. “The Curious Case of B2B Marketers Avoiding Instagram.” Medium, Strategic Content Marketing, 19 May 2017, medium.com/strategic-content-marketing/first-things-first-can-we-agree-to-make-a-pact-to-stop-making-excuses-and-dismissing-why-your-b2b-78ebc11af5aa.

 

Sources:

  • “2019 B2B Content Marketing Research: It Pays to Put Audience First.” Content Marketing Institute, 11 Oct. 2018, contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/10/research-b2b-audience.
  • “7 Of the Best B2B Social Media Marketing Campaigns of 2017.” MESH Interactive Agency Blog, 2 Oct. 2018, blog.meshagency.com/7-best-b2b-social-media-marketing-campaigns-of-2017/.
  • “9 Standout Examples of UGC Marketing Campaigns.” CrowdRiff, crowdriff.com/ugc-marketing-campaigns/.
  • Anderson, Chad. “The Curious Case of B2B Marketers Avoiding Instagram.” Medium, Strategic Content Marketing, 19 May 2017, medium.com/strategic-content-marketing/first-things-first-can-we-agree-to-make-a-pact-to-stop-making-excuses-and-dismissing-why-your-b2b-78ebc11af5aa.
  • Bernazzani, Sophia. “The 10 Best User-Generated Content Campaigns on Instagram.” HubSpot Blog, blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-user-generated-content-campaigns.
  • “Global Instagram User Age & Gender Distribution 2019 | Statistic.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/248769/age-distribution-of-worldwide-instagram-users/.
  • “Instagram: Active Users 2018.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-monthly-active-instagram-users/.
  • “The Changing Face of B2B Marketing.” Google, Google, www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/the-changing-face-b2b-marketing/.

Filed Under: MKTG 5601 Tagged With: B2B, brand activation, brand engagment, business to business, Instagram, social media, The UPS Store, UCG, UCG Marketing Campaigns, UPS, user generated content

October 17, 2018 By Karen Cunningham Leave a Comment

Lifestyles Not Labels

I recently found myself struggling to build a buyer persona without any data on gender. Sure, gender is only one of long list of possible segmentation variables, I thought, but isn’t it the most critical? After all, how will I make assumptions about what my customers want and need without basic demographic data such as gender?

Then I had an AHA moment and started questioning my thinking: Is gender a critical segmentation variable? Should I be making assumptions about a customer’s wants and needs because they (use of plural pronoun very intentional here) were forced to select one of two answers during data collection? With so much data available today, why should I be making any assumptions at all?

At such pivotal time in history – with gender, diversity and inclusion part of the global dialogue – does gender even need to be part of marketing segmentation?

A South by Southwest (SXSW) conference earlier this year, assembled panelists representing a diverse spectrum of viewpoints from academia, consulting, branding, design and marketing, to discuss the impact of gender fluidity on brand engagement.

Panelist Andy Bossley, Sr. Manager for Global Marketing Campaigns at IBM, says, “Consumer behavior is now a function of personality. Whether it’s ambition, athleticism, or honesty, attributes drive purchases, not gender.”

Bossley says that brands don’t have to necessarily be gender neutral if their strategy is rooted in something that is universally true. He says, “Your products, marketing campaigns, and brand engagement should actually appeal to people on a spectrum of gender identity.”

Chelsea Hostetter, Sr. User Experience Designer at Goodpatch, who also sat on the SBSX panel in March, spoke to the importance of designing for all genders to “build more trusted relationships, glean more descriptive data.”

Hostetter says that singular dropdown menus are short-sighted and do not collect any meaningful data beyond society’s assumptions. She says, “Saying that someone is a certain gender or even a certain age doesn’t predict what they like or do not like. Asking what a person prefers, however, does.”

Just last week, I completed a health risk assessment provided by my employer; the first question asked me to select the sex assignment on my birth certificate. The second question asked me to select my gender identity.

That’s a start. There’s still a heavy reliance on binary gender roles and expectations. Like biological sex assignment, gender identity still doesn’t paint a vivid enough picture for marketers.  For example, someone who identifies as female isn’t necessarily the ideal customer for makeup products.

As panelist Bossley says, ”Smart brands will focus on universal character traits and passions.”

I look forward to witnessing this evolution from both the consumer and practitioner perspective.


Source: Yang, A.,Bossley, A., Hostetter, C. & Whalley, S. (2018, March). How Gender Fluidity Recasts Brand Engagement. Panel presented at 2018  SXSW Austin, TX. Illustration source:   “The Pronoun Project.” The Pronoun Project, thepronounproject.com/.

Filed Under: MKTG 5601 Tagged With: demographics, gender demographics, gender identity, marketing segmentation

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