BY BROOKE NIEMIEC – CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
Yesterday, I found myself on the hunt for some emergency space blankets (random, I know) that I needed to send to school with my children. I had purchased a six-pack of the item in question last year and I knew they were around the house somewhere. The wrench in my search process was that we had moved since the last time I had needed them. I knew exactly where they were in the old house (the coat closet) and felt almost certain I had put them in the same spot in the new house. So, as one would expect, I looked in the coat closet first, but I couldn’t find them.
The next several hours included frantic searching in every random corner of the house—kitchen cabinets, the garden shed, the garage, under beds, in toys chests—but still no luck. At one point, my husband suggested giving up and ordering new ones online (an entirely reasonable request), but instead of admitting defeat, I just decided to take a break.
The next day, I made the completely ridiculous decision to look again in the coat closet—the first place I looked and the place I firmly believed they should have been. But this time, I brought a stepladder to allow me to do a more thorough search. Guess what? They were there after all. I just needed a change of view in order to see what I was looking for.
It immediately struck me that while you often hear the phrase “it’s always in the last place you look,” you never hear the phrase “it’s always in the first place you look.” And even though both of these statements are technically accurate in my particular case, the first place you look is usually chosen for good reason.
So what does this have to do with customer analytics and insight? Everything. Business leaders often have experience or intuition that give them an idea of where to start looking for customer insight, and those places are generally explored. However, you don’t always find something when you look where you think you should the first time you look for it. What can follow after a failed initial data exploration is the analytical equivalent of my frantic search around the house—wasted energy spent looking in completely illogical places with no results to show for the effort.
Too often, I see businesses decide not to pursue a line of questioning because it has been looked at before. However, it’s not always the case that there isn’t anything to be found there. A slight change in perspective (a figurative stepstool, if you will) might be enough to help you illuminate what you thought you might find in the first place. This won’t always be the case, but if you find yourself on an ongoing mission to learn something about customers that you are not having success with, it might make sense to give your first exploration another try.
As a recent example, our data science team had been building a model to predict customers’ share of wallet for one of our clients. The first model we developed resulted in a split of customers into two buckets: high share of wallet and low share of wallet. The simplicity of this model was originally dismissed as unsophisticated, so additional models were created with more buckets and more variables. After sharing these results with the client, the team collectively agreed that the added complexity wasn’t yielding a significantly better model. However, there was one variable uncovered during the recent exploration that resonated with business leaders. The decision was made to revisit the original model with the new variable—the original solution with a slight update—and everyone was happy with the results.
There are many cases where a second look at a first hypothesis might make sense, but it won’t always be a fruitful exercise. When you consider taking this approach, just keep in mind a few things:
STAY GROUNDED
Make sure the original thought is based on some fact or experience—intuition alone doesn’t count. I first looked for the space blankets in the coat closet in the new house because I kept them in the coat closet of the old house.
GET A SECOND OPINION
Ask someone else not close to the problem where they think you should start and see if they lean towards the original line of thought. Even though my husband encouraged me to give up my search, he initially agreed that he had seen them in the coat closet in the old house.
CHANGE YOUR VIEW
Don’t approach the question in exactly the same way or you will almost always get the same answer. I brought a stepladder for my second and more thorough search of the coat closet.
CONSTRAIN THE INVESTMENT
Don’t cling to the idea for too long if it’s not looking good the second time around, and keep yourself honest by setting a limit of time or resources before you reevaluate. Luckily, I found what I was looking for the second time around.
The First Place You Look
BY BROOKE NIEMIEC – CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
Yesterday, I found myself on the hunt for some emergency space blankets (random, I know) that I needed to send to school with my children. I had purchased a six-pack of the item in question last year and I knew they were around the house somewhere. The wrench in my search process was that we had moved since the last time I had needed them. I knew exactly where they were in the old house (the coat closet) and felt almost certain I had put them in the same spot in the new house. So, as one would expect, I looked in the coat closet first, but I couldn’t find them.
The next several hours included frantic searching in every random corner of the house—kitchen cabinets, the garden shed, the garage, under beds, in toys chests—but still no luck. At one point, my husband suggested giving up and ordering new ones online (an entirely reasonable request), but instead of admitting defeat, I just decided to take a break.
The next day, I made the completely ridiculous decision to look again in the coat closet—the first place I looked and the place I firmly believed they should have been. But this time, I brought a stepladder to allow me to do a more thorough search. Guess what? They were there after all. I just needed a change of view in order to see what I was looking for.
It immediately struck me that while you often hear the phrase “it’s always in the last place you look,” you never hear the phrase “it’s always in the first place you look.” And even though both of these statements are technically accurate in my particular case, the first place you look is usually chosen for good reason.
So what does this have to do with customer analytics and insight? Everything. Business leaders often have experience or intuition that give them an idea of where to start looking for customer insight, and those places are generally explored. However, you don’t always find something when you look where you think you should the first time you look for it. What can follow after a failed initial data exploration is the analytical equivalent of my frantic search around the house—wasted energy spent looking in completely illogical places with no results to show for the effort.
Too often, I see businesses decide not to pursue a line of questioning because it has been looked at before. However, it’s not always the case that there isn’t anything to be found there. A slight change in perspective (a figurative stepstool, if you will) might be enough to help you illuminate what you thought you might find in the first place. This won’t always be the case, but if you find yourself on an ongoing mission to learn something about customers that you are not having success with, it might make sense to give your first exploration another try.
As a recent example, our data science team had been building a model to predict customers’ share of wallet for one of our clients. The first model we developed resulted in a split of customers into two buckets: high share of wallet and low share of wallet. The simplicity of this model was originally dismissed as unsophisticated, so additional models were created with more buckets and more variables. After sharing these results with the client, the team collectively agreed that the added complexity wasn’t yielding a significantly better model. However, there was one variable uncovered during the recent exploration that resonated with business leaders. The decision was made to revisit the original model with the new variable—the original solution with a slight update—and everyone was happy with the results.
There are many cases where a second look at a first hypothesis might make sense, but it won’t always be a fruitful exercise. When you consider taking this approach, just keep in mind a few things:
STAY GROUNDED
Make sure the original thought is based on some fact or experience—intuition alone doesn’t count. I first looked for the space blankets in the coat closet in the new house because I kept them in the coat closet of the old house.
GET A SECOND OPINION
Ask someone else not close to the problem where they think you should start and see if they lean towards the original line of thought. Even though my husband encouraged me to give up my search, he initially agreed that he had seen them in the coat closet in the old house.
CHANGE YOUR VIEW
Don’t approach the question in exactly the same way or you will almost always get the same answer. I brought a stepladder for my second and more thorough search of the coat closet.
CONSTRAIN THE INVESTMENT
Don’t cling to the idea for too long if it’s not looking good the second time around, and keep yourself honest by setting a limit of time or resources before you reevaluate. Luckily, I found what I was looking for the second time around.
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