There’s often a big difference between what people say and what they actually do.

We believe observing customers in the moment and in situation through Ethnographic Research is the best way to uncover true drivers and pain points, beyond what a customer might share or recall during an interview.

By becoming part of their world for a day we can identify what’s working, what’s not working and what’s missing – and how our client’s product or service might be able to provide a new or better solution.

We’ve taken teams of our researchers and clients to consumer homes, grocery stores, nurseries, wineries, and more. Seeing consumers in action has led to many interesting discoveries and revelations.

Here are a few examples from the field:

• When studying chardonnay drinkers, a woman said she really dislikes buttery chardonnay and then pointed to a bottle of Rombauer and said that is the only one she likes to drink – yet Rombauer is known to be a particularly buttery chardonnay.
• When exploring banking habits, a participant said she’s “too busy” to visit her local bank branch, but only when observing her home life can you see she’s got two kids running around the house, a packed calendar on the fridge, and grandparents coming and going to help. Seeing this in-person vs. on the page offers a lot more context as to why she prefers to do her banking online.
• When studying gardening, instead of asking people to tell us about their garden, we went to their homes and toured their gardens with them. This allowed us to see and feel the emotion as they talked about planning for and nurturing their garden, understand why they picked certain plants for certain spots and observe things they wouldn’t think to mention like how they care for and organize their gardening tools.
• When studying a hardware device for the home, consumers had said the device was “hard to install,” but by observing people installing the device in their homes we were able to discover exactly what was hard – from opening the packaging, to ignoring the lengthy and confusing directions, to fumbling with the cords.

See for yourself.

Time spent in-person with consumers allows us to fully explore their worlds and discover things that even they may not realize they are doing.  That’s why we capture photos, videos and other artifacts along the way so you can see it for yourself. We turn these assets into lively reports and video stories that can be shared across your company to engage and immerse your broader team in the research findings.

So tell us, who do you want to get to know better?

Sarah Collins
sarahcollins@clearworks.net

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