Real Time Ethnography

We conducted some customer ethnographic interviews today as we continue in our design of a new experience for SAP.  We received very explicit feedback:

• Get to the point - give me the info I need right away and in a no-BS fashion
• Stay away from the SAPanese
• I want to make a decision on whether to explore further or to go away... and I want to make that decision quickly
• KEEP THE DESIGN SIMPLE
• They threw up all over the content
• Show me exactly what the components are and how much they cost
• Overall, give us a buyer's view not a technologist views of the world
• As far as the products themselves, tell us what they do right away
• Communities.. get me right into the forums and I want to see references and case studies, events calendar, and they want to be tied geographically to other users and partner offerings

BTW, the ethnographic approach provides for such a deep level of qualitative understanding.  Highly recommended.

Comments

[Steve Portigal]

1.

Congrats on the effort and the results!

Nice consistent theme there about "your view" versus "their view" - I think that's really hard to truly grok unless you hear these folks tell you that, and of course, lots of organizations reject those insights, because they don't fit the structures that make the individual comfortable.

Of course SAPanese is itself an example of SAPanese (or so I'm presuming). What would your customers call the speak that isn't in their language?

[Steve Mann]

2.

Thanx Steve...much appreciated. Yes, creating a "ME" experience that is all about the individual NOT SAP is a cornerstone of our efforts.

SAPanese is the marketing teams term for SAP jargon. Customers would call it jargon. It tends to be SAP-specific because the company has this tendency to create and use its own vocabulary AND expect that the market know instantly what we mean... a real problem.

Thanx again,
Steve

[Dennis Howlett]

3.

I'm not sure why any of this should be a surprise. Customers have longed to see this kind of information for years. Perhaps it's just that this medium allows them to have a voice which would have otherwise been denied.

[Steve Mann]

4.

You are right not a surprise. Not at all.. what is surprising is how companies like SAP DON'T listen to their customers. Especially difficult is the fact that we are an analytically driven organization and while you would think that that would make the company more amenable to this type of research - it actually looks down upon deep, qualitative research such as what's uncovered via ethnography. Thanx Dennis.

[Mike Tschudy]

5.

We folks in the Design Services Team are excited with the direction that you and your team are going in to crack the Customer Experience nut. I am looking forward to read more about how you are applying Design Thinking principles in future posts.

[Steve Mann]

6.

Thanx Mike... yes Design Thinking is at the heart of this...we're excited to collaborate with you all on this.

Steve