The Client
Product owners across the business as well as sales and marketing teams at Rackspace, a company that provided web hosting services
The Problem
The research team was hired to help bring some structure and rigor to our annual customer advisory council event. Traditionally run by the marketing department, high–profile customers were invited to hear about our new product offerings and also give feedback. In the past, this feedback was not strategically collected or analyzed and it was a big opportunity to show the value the research team could add. The research team’s goal was to provide a strategic, holistic analysis of opportunities for product and service improvement.
My Role
This was one of several strategic research events I worked on at Rackspace. I collaborated with the lead researcher, product managers, and event planners to design the activities for the trade show portion of the council. Afterwards, I analyzed the data and helped to write the final report.
Timeframe
2015: 2 day event plus a week for analysis
Planning
Over the course of several days, customers participated in info–sessions, in–depth research workshops, and a "trade show" that I designed. At the trade show, they learned about the new products and participated in activities I designed to provide structured feedback. (Photo 1)
13 customers attended whose monthly spend ranged from as little as $700 up to $200k per month. They used a wide range of our product offerings.
Before the event, I met with product managers to determine what questions they had about their products and trained them how to ask open–ended, non–leading questions. Based on what they wanted to learn from customers, I created research activity stations.
I also met with our event coordinator and hotel staff to go over the room layouts and what furniture was available. I then created a floor plan for both days of the trade show. (Photo 2)
The Event
Some activities were designed to facilitate conversation around prioritizing new features. In those activities, customers ranked new features from most to least important. (Photo 4)
In other activities we were interested in learning more about how different customers used Rackspace to manage their technology needs. These activities asked users to compare and contrast current states with ideal states. (Photo 5)
I helped moderate a station where customers were given cards with different information on them and asked to put them under the channel where they would most like to receive it. (Photo 6)
I wanted the games to have a classic TV game-show feel so I used bright primary colors and bold fonts. To enhance wayfinding, each product booth had its own signature color. (Photo 7)
Data Analysis & Report
Notes
Themes
Problems & Opportunities
At the conclusion of the council, the lead researcher and I crafted a comprehensive 20 page strategic report and executive summary from the information gained through the product fair, in–depth research sessions, and statistical information on the participants. (Photo 8)
The lead researcher and I analyzed and tagged all of the observer notes and activity data from the event with key themes. Then we organized the themes into the problems and opportunities facing Rackspace. (Photo 9)
While the data analysis process drove the outline for the research report, the lead researcher created the layout for the report and the executive summaries. I filled in the details on the deep–dive pages. (Photo 10)
The final learnings were presented both in person by the lead researcher and in the report. The report was distributed to product owners, executives, and customers.
Key Takeaways
Our business stakeholders were so pleased with the depth and scope of information they were able to learn, the research team was asked to run the event again the following year.
I really enjoyed working on this project because it involved collaborating with many different people and roles across the business. I also enjoyed talking to users, figuring out what is frustrating them, and being able to share findings with my colleagues.
I enjoyed getting a high level view of the challenges facing the company and thinking about what could be done next.