- Find an opportunity
- This past weekend, I went to Orlando with my friends to go shopping at the premium outlets. I thought this would be the perfect place and opportunity to interview customers as there are shoppers all around.
- Figure out who might have an unmet need
- While we were inside the Columbia store, we noticed that there was an influx of unsatisfied customers. The reason? The store was still having a "holiday" sale with markdowns that were still having a great deal. But the only problem was that the massive store had only two changing rooms. A gigantic sports apparel store with only two changing rooms didn't make sense. It was clear that the customers' unmet need was lack of changing rooms.
- Come up with a list of questions
- Were there a lot of people/customers inside Columbia?
- Were you unsatisfied with a certain aspect of your shopping experience?
- Did you guys have to wait for a long time to have a changing room?
- How long did you guys have to wait?
- How many changing rooms were there?
- Would you be in favor of adding more changing rooms?
- Video
- What I learned from the opportunity
- I learned from this opportunity that it's not easy to satisfy all customers. The customers and employees all have different perpectives, wants, and needs that need to be fulfilled. However, in a business, even though it's sometimes hard to always fulfill this aspect, the customer should always come first.
- What I learned about interviewing customers
- To be honest, I did not particularly enjoy this exercise. Customers do not like being interrupted while they are doing their shopping, as it cuts into their time. Most people were reluctant to be interviewed, much less filmed. A lot did not want to be interviewed because of the fact that this would be uploaded on YouTube and put onto the Internet. If someone approached me and asked to take a video of me and put it online, I would not say yes. In addition, Columbia employees were reluctant to let me interview customers in the first place, but when they realized that the questions that was being asked, was putting the store in an unfavorable light. They then asked me to stop interviews and to delete the footage that I had gotten thus far. The people in my video agreed to interview again outside the store.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Interviewing Customers Number 1 (Week 4)
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Jary-
ReplyDeleteI liked that you found an opportunity through just being in a store during the weekend. I’m sorry that the people running the store made you delete your footage. For next time, I would suggest not asking people about their dissatisfactions about the store - while still in the store. I hope that next time you find more people willing to answer your questions while out of the store.
When I was interviewing people, I found it hard to pick people to walk up to and video tape. But usually most of the people I asked were totally okay with me. Here is my blog post on my interviews: http://kwallaceent.blogspot.com/2016/01/customer-interviews-no-1.html
Good questions and I hope you have better luck next time keeping your footage!
-Katherine W.
Hey Jary!
ReplyDeleteThe mall is a perfect place to conduct customer interviews because there are so many customers walking around. I also felt that it was difficult to conduct these interviews because people were uneasy about being recorded and the video or audio being put online. Due to this uneasiness, my customer responses were also rather short. Thats too bad that the Columbia employees made you delete the footage, but at least you were still able to interview the customers outside of the store. I wish you luck in future interviews!
Feel free to check out my blog post here: http://wsentrepreneurship.blogspot.com/2016/01/customer-interviews-no-1.html
Jary,
ReplyDeleteGreat use of applying something practical you have seen to this assignment! It was also incredible that you took the time to interview people who were experiencing this issue first hand. It is so unfortunate that you were not allowed to keep the footage. I would have been very interested to hear what those people had to say about the issue. I would also be interested to find out if upper management of Colombia would be interested to hear your thoughts. If you get some time, check out my post at http://mbvandepol.blogspot.com/2016/01/customer-interviews-no-1.html