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STORIES OF UNDERSTANDING

THE CLEAR BLUE MOMENT

A team from a large manufacturing company for juvenile products spent time exploring their customers’ journey. Their a-ha moment happened when they realized that the journey started much earlier than they had traditionally assumed. Parents begin planning purchases for products not at the moment of birth, but at the moment they find out they’re pregnant – or even before that! Mapping this out on paper allowed the team to finally address this issue.

FIRST
IMPRESSIONS

When they adopted Design Thinking, a team at a large hospital in the Netherlands decided to have a look (with their own eyes) at how people experienced visits to the hospital. They took a camera and walked the path of the patients. Besides finding out the parking garage was incredibly dark and hard to navigate, they noticed that the first thing patients saw when parking was a billboard for a fast food restaurant. Not at all what they had expected!

READ MY FILE, STUPID!

Doctors thought the biggest pain their patients felt was the long waiting lists at the doctor’s office. When a doctor asked about this pain during a patient visit, the patient said, “That doesn’t really bother me. But, next time I’m here for an appointment, please read my file beforehand. And my name is not Susan!”

GET STREET SMART

An insurance company assumed there was a huge gap in the market and formulated a great plan to position themselves in that gap. But first, they wanted to challenge this assumption. Two people were sent out on a scooter with a camera. They gathered as many responses from people on the street as they could in an hour. When the results were showed to the client, the unpolished “first reactions” of potential customers forced them to reconsider their assumptions.

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SHOPPING PARADOX

A startup wanted to build an app that would help mothers have an easier and better experience when shopping for groceries. More insights were needed in order for the founders to know exactly what to build.

They first started a dialogue with potential customers about their grocery shopping habits. They compared these conversations with what they saw while observing the group shopping for groceries.

Although the mothers were very sure about their daily shopping routines, the truth turned out to be different! When asked, all of the mothers said they shop for healthy, versatile products. However, when they got the store, most of them abandoned their shopping lists and prioritized price and offers!

Are these little white lies? No matter. What’s important is that if you’re looking for valid insights, observing is as important as asking (the right question). Don’t believe everything your customers say!

CLEANING GRANNY’S HOUSE?

Lowering the hourly rate for house cleaning was the key strategy of an elderly home care company. After visiting several grandmothers, it became clear that the value was in the attention grandmothers received, not in the clean house.

As a result, the company started giving away iPads to grandmothers instead. This enabled them to connect with their grandchildren, and it offered them services through the company’s app.

THE TRUTH IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, IF YOU JUST CHOOSE TO SEE IT.