Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Pricing Strategy and Revenue Optimization Summit


Darin Phillips will be speaking at the Pricing Strategy and Revenue Optimization Summit on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:30 am.  His presentation, "What About Market Segmentation? How Well Do You Know Your Customer?", will help revenue management leaders leverage the relationship between customer satisfaction and willingness to pay (WTP).  If you are in the Miami, FL area that week and you have responsibility for your organization's pricing strategy, you can register for the summit at http://www.priceandrevenuesummit.com.  Specifically, Darin will be teaching:
  • How to collect emotional customer reactions that are the foundations of customer loyalty
  • How to gain executive buy-in to the attitudinal data and the lessons for your organization
  • How to encourage ongoing attention to barriers to satisfaction that hinder your customers' willingness to pay
The summit will be held at the Hyatt Regency Miami.  It will be produced by FinanceIQ, a division of IQPC.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Emotional Incident Methodology: Theoretical Underpinnings


Social psychologists who use inductive research techniques ask the respondents to tell them what they believe, how they feel, or what they did (e.g. to capture beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors) and then the psychologist clusters the responses into categories.  Social psychologists that use deductive research techniques create lists of attributes from research and ask respondents to cluster those findings into categories.  The inductive researcher creates the categories herself.  The deductive researcher relies on the wisdom of crowds to create the categories.  However, the inductive researcher relied on the wisdom of crowds to identify the original attributes to be clustered, whereas the deductive researcher relied on her own wisdom to identify and select what research to use.  There are clear pros and cons to each research methodology.
Emotional Incident Methodology is a hybrid of both social psychology techniques.  The original factors that are to be categorized are provided by the respondents.  A separate group of people then cluster those responses.  This is actually a fairly common event in social psychology research.
In classical deductive research, the psychologist starts with a theory and a hypothesis.  Observations are used to test the hypothesis.  
In classical inductive research, the psychologist starts with observations that lead her to a hypothesis.  The hypothesis is then used to create a general theory.
Pure practitioners of both research methodologies will criticize Emotional Incident Methodology.  The deductive researchers will say that the results are invalid because the project began without a base theory or hypothesis.  (This is the criticism often made about The Big Five personality attributes, but that is the only model that has any validity when trying to predict workplace performance.)  The inductive researchers will say that the results are invalid because the project ended with a group of lay persons determining the final hypothesis and theory.  They believe that only trained experts should be making the final determination.
At the end of the day, there is a solid reason why people often say, "There are lies, damn lies, and then statistics."  Research methodologies are all flawed when it comes to measuring the human condition - we are just too complex.  Causality is impossible to prove because no research into human beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors can replicate the same results 100% of the time.  We also live in a personal bubble of perception because we individually decide which facts are true or not.  In fact, if we behave in a way that is inconsistent with our beliefs and attitudes, we simply create new beliefs to justify our attitude and behavior in that moment.  And what researcher is completely free of her own biases?  That would have to start with a complete and accurate understanding of self that no one has.  That is why triangulation is used in Emotional Incident Methodology.  Collectively, the group is less fallible than any one individual, even a trained expert.
If enough objectivity permeates the results of Emotional Incident Methodology then you will see measurable results when you apply the lessons learned.  My own findings at Royal Caribbean Cruises and Silver Hill Financial led to statistically significant results.  But I cannot claim absolute causality because there were many other variables at play within the organizations, industries, and economy.  Again, the complexity of the situation prevents the type of certainty that classic researchers demand.
Emotional Incident Methodology is a post-positivism approach that rejects the relativist idea that we cannot reach agreement because our unique life filters and biology have resulted in us having different biases.  It is a constructivist approach that relies on triangulation to gain objectivity across multiple fallible perspectives.  After all, social psychology is the study of individuals within the context of a group and no two people in any group are exactly the same in every respect, not even identical twins.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Buying Glasses Online - the customer experience


After picking over the frames available from our eye doctor, my wife and I decided that there must be a better way to get our prescriptions filled.  I decided to do a little research and found a couple of websites where online eyeglass vendors were reviewed.  Glassy Eyes was the first site that I found and it was loaded with helpful information from a guy who decided, as we did, that the mall eyeglass stores and optometrist offices were simply way too expensive for what you are getting.  The author of that website seems to focus on the more conspiratorial issues around why prices are so high, but he also provides a thorough review of many of the leading Internet eyeglass vendors so it is worth a look (http://glassyeyes.blogspot.com/). The other site, Eyeglass Retailers Reviews, seemed to be a bit more objective in their reviews of the Internet vendors.  In fact, the "old site" that is archived at http://www.eyeglassretailerreviews.com/ was the most helpful in making apples-to-apples comparisons amongst the main players.  I did not see ads or coupons on Eyeglass Retailer Reviews and I appreciated the reader forums where many disgruntled customers were helping me understand the challenges I would face ordering online.  Glassy Eyes reviewed far fewer retailers and every review includes a coupon code that reads something like "glassyeyes".  That always raises a red flag for me.

Between my wife and I we had several eyeglass prescriptions that we could fill.  We both had our regular eye checkup with an optometrist and associated prescriptions, but we also had special visits to ophthalmologists for further screening and received another prescription from there.  Finally, I was given a separate prescription for reading glasses.  With five prescriptions in hand, and a bit of online advice, we set out to find the best online retailer.  Of course, these experiences are based solely on only one or two transactions with each vendor.  Your actual experience may vary considerably (as you can read on the Eyeglass Retailer Reviews forums).

First, we needed to know our papillary distance.  That was not written on our prescriptions and the bricks and mortar eyeglass retailers are not willing to tell you what it is.  They are becoming more concerned about the online stores and don't want to make it easy for you to defect.  We found several techniques listed on the online retailer sites and tried all of them.  The results were fairly consistent so we were comfortable that we were fine with the final numbers that we submitted.  We know now to always ask for papillary distance to be included on our prescription.  The optometrist did not object when we asked for that number this year.

At a glance, here are the glasses we ended up ordering online:
Vendor
Date ordered
Date arrived
Prescription
Total Price
(includes shipping)
Discount-Eyeglasses.net 01/26/09 02/14/09

19 days
Normal Glasses
Right: -1.00, -2.00 x 092
Left: -0.75, -1.25 x 072
US$25.99
BestPriceGlasses.com
(aka Shultz Optical)
01/26/09 02/09/09

14 days
Progressives
Right: -3.25, +2.50 x 003 +2.25
Left: -2.00, +1.25 x 160 +2.25
US$52.40
SpecsOnTheNet.com 02/21/09 03/09/09

16 days
Reading Glasses
Right: -1.00, -2.00 x 092 +1.25
Left: -0.75, -1.25 x 072 +1.25
£3.99
Optical4Less.com 02/21/09 03/13/09

20 days
Reading Glasses
Right: -3.25, +2.50 x 003 +2.25
Left: -2.00, +1.25 x 160 +2.25
US$33.30
BestPriceGlasses.com
(aka Shultz Optical)
02/24/09 03/12/09

16 days
Normal Glasses
Right: -3.25, +2.50 x 003
Left: -2.00, +1.25 x 160
US$13.90
EyeBuyDirect.com 01/26/09 02/06/09

11 days
Strong Prescription Glasses*
Right: +2.50, -2.75 x 003
Left: +3.25, -4.25 x 173
US$59.66
Goggles4U.com 02/21/09 03/07/09

14 days
Strong Prescription Glasses*
Right: +2.50, -2.75 x 003
Left: +3.25, -4.25 x 173
US$55.09
EyeBuyDirect.com 03/01/09 03/12/09

11 days
Strong Prescription Sunglasses*
Right: +2.50, -2.75 x 003
Left: +3.25, -4.25 x 173
US$32.39

* My wife's prescription is very strong and many online retailers do not offer lenses with her prescription.  Those that do charged extra for high index lenses.  For example, I filled out the order form at SelectSpecs.com for my wife's glasses and they sent me an email asking if I wanted to continue with the order for an additional US$45.00 for 1.67 lenses.  I was able to easily cancel the order via email.  So even if the online form allows you to enter a strong prescription, you may be asked to spend more.  That is why her glasses were much more expensive than mine.