CUSTOMER RESEARCH
Defining a problem
Research led to 40% increase in adoption
The Problem
McKinsey had created a new platform that was fine-tuned to enable its consulting teams to collaborate and manage their files, and had started a pilot in a few offices. Initially it was up to the teams to switch from their current solution, under the assumption that the new option would be an attractive upgrade. As it happened, the vast majority of teams chose not to migrate. The team urgently needed to understand the reasons and make corrections.
Project at a glance
-
I was the sole researcher
-
The team included a product manager and adoption specialist
-
The project unfolded over about 4 weeks
The Solution
Research was clearly needed, but even before getting feedback on the product itself, we needed some insight into what consulting teams heard about it, if anything, and what they thought about whether it was worth trying. We pulled a list of the people in offices that had received communications, and made cold calls for likely users, expanding our sample until we had contacted enough people who had any memory of the communication and could provide meaningful feedback.
Deep Dive
This project was pure discovery research, in that we had no leading hypothesis to focus the work. All we had was the research question: what were the main reasons teams weren't adopting the new product?
​
We were trying to understand the story behind our underlying quantitative data, and the only way to get that, at least in this case, was to conduct interviews using an open-ended script, starting with our main question and probing more details based on the response. The main challenge being to find the right people to talk to, which was challenging. Since we didn't have a list of any sort, since we had no users, we had to fall back on a broader recruiting approach, reaching out to consulting team members who would be likely to adopt based on their job title.​​
​
This approach of "cold calling" didn't yield a high response rate, not surprisingly, but fortunately, in situations where I have very little information, even a few interviews makes a big difference in the understanding of the problem. And based on that understanding, I could refine the recruiting approach and the interview script.
​
I did end up interviewing a half dozen consultants within a short time. Even after talking to a few I had a basic understanding of the landscape, and the following conversations filled in more details. A picture was already emerging that would help the team respond.
​
Ultimately, the problem turned out to be multi-faceted. There seemed to be a weak value proposition. Adoption was driven in part by forces akin to a network effect. And there was issue of when in a high-pressure environment to switch to something new. It was a complex situation, but even with a small amount of research, the team was able to understand in some detail what was going on.
The Outcome
I helped the team devise solutions to each of the issues, and they were rolled out in the months after the research. Adoption shot up 40% and the platform went on to be widely adopted.
Contact me if you are looking for more detail. I can provide it privately.