The quality improvement customers didn't want

Is investing in new technology always the right choice for a company and its customers? Allan Moulter, the CEO of Quality Care, isn't sure he wants to invest in the computerized reception system that consultant Jack Zadow has outlined for him. But in this HBR case study, the argument Zadow makes is impossible to ignore. Quality Care's rivals have invested in similar systems or are planning to do so. The new system promises to take care of routine busywork, freeing staff up for other interactions with patients. It seems as if the competition hasn't even cut staff and is counting on increased customer retention to pay for the investment. And yet, Quality Care's surveys of its own customers show that they prefer the human touch when checking in. How would customers feel if the first ?person? they met when they came in the door turned out to be a machine? Moulter prides himself on his responsiveness to customers. And with 86% of Quality Care's customers either satisfied or completely satisfied, aren't things fine as they are? Has Moulter considered all the facets of his predicament? How will Quality Care's staff be affected by a decision one way or another? What about the costs of upgrading the system? Can Quality Care maintain its standing without going high-tech? Would customers rebel when confronted with the proposed reception area or would they appreciate the increased efficiency? Six experts weigh the costs and benefits of technology in a service industry.     

Spark innovation through empathic design

Companies are used to bringing in customers to participate in focus groups, usability laboratories, and market research surveys in order to help in the development of new products and services. And for improving products that customers know well, those tools are highly sophisticated. For example, knowledgeable customers are adept at identifying the specific scent of leather they expect in a luxury vehicle or at helping to tune the sound of a motorcycle engine to just the timbre that evokes feelings of power. But to go beyond improvements to the familiar, companies need to identify and meet needs that customers may not yet recognize. To accomplish that task, a set of techniques called empathic design can help. Rather than bring the customers to the company, empathic design calls for company representatives to watch customers using products and services in the context of their own environments. By doing so, managers can often identify unexpected uses for their products, just as the product manager of a cooking oil did when he observed a neighbor spraying the oil on the blades of a lawn mower to reduce grass buildup. They can also uncover problems that customers don't mention in surveys, as the president of Nissan Design did when he watched a couple struggling to remove the backseat of a competitor's minivan in order to transport a couch. The five-step process Dorothy Leonard and Jeffrey Rayport describe in detail is a relatively low-cost, low-risk way to identify customer needs, and it has the potential to redirect a company's existing technological capabilities toward entirely new businesses.