Just like HatchTank Hank, Amber Dowling is a consummate helpful researcher who lives for setting up your next online qualitative research study the right way - the first time! She is a HatchTank expert with a collaborative spirit. Amber lives for picking up the phone or sending a quick email back to answer a client's SOS, but more often than not, you’ll catch her jumping online when someone has a question so she can help them walk through it right in the platform. It’s no wonder she has her favorite tools on our platform, but here she shares those along with some insight about what our clients love and even can’t live without. With the help of Hank, she got this ready for you!
Steve Jobs said, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people,” That’s life at HatchTank in a nutshell, or in our case, an eggshell. What is truly unique at HatchTank, though, is how this quote applies not only to our team but also to our clients’ research teams. We become an extension of them and work together to achieve the best outcomes. We strive together to hit any goal, accomplish the objectives and find success with any type of project!
Any successful relationship depends on listening, and that’s one of the things that we do best. We not only get to work on projects and see them through to completion, but we also get to connect with so many different stakeholders, both internal and external, at the very front end. Sometimes even before someone signs on with us! We listen as clients ask each other questions in sessions, and we ask more until we feel we understand and appreciate what they’re up against.
For example, a non-profit reached out to us because they wanted to know how people used their platform for fundraising when that platform is only one element of their users’ fundraising campaign experience. The client wanted to understand all the other external touchpoints that potential fundraisers encounter as they go through their campaign, which for some is completed in just a few weeks or, for others, sometimes, a few months. We suggested ways to get the same questions to every participant but make them available to certain people at certain times, depending on where the participant is in their fundraising journey. That was something that the client didn’t even know could be done!
I love learning what a customer’s work style is and adapting to it. At a high level, the journey to a solution is the same for everyone. They have a problem that needs to be solved, and they all go through the same steps to get there. But some people take it slow, and others zip along. Either way, my job is to help them understand that the platform can taper or funnel them through at different stages. I take their cues and set the pace accordingly.
Then we get started.
The tool I love the most right now is our screen recording tool.
Everyone’s online. Shopping, browsing, gaming. But usually, the only way for a client to assess the experience was to share a screenshot for comments, which made for a really stilted encounter. There are so many nuances that most participants don’t capture in written feedback. With screen recording, you can see when something is slow to load, if images are too small, or how easy or difficult it is to change an avatar. What you get is the opportunity to see someone go through the process and narrate their experience.
The great thing is that you not only get fulsome insight, but you see how participants navigate through their digital journey in their real time, leaving behind a trail of their actual experience as a story in itself. Capturing the flow of their experience is a dynamic way to understand the customer journey, and it delivers insight-rich feedback.
This tool has been tested like crazy, with 30 members of our broader Numerator team being invited to try it. The team was asked to go to the website of a major coffee chain, order a drink online, add flavors and whipped cream, specify a size, and narrate their experience as they clicked through various beverage options. We also asked them to share if they have any questions after using the tool. Were the screen recording instructions clear? Did they have to do any troubleshooting? I think that’s the most important thing about the tool: that participants have a good experience and the end deliverable looks – and works – great for the final client.
Another tool that is a client favorite is our filtering feature.
We hear from our clients how important it is to quickly and effectively slice their data, enabling them to dig into participant responses and discover those key insights. Recently, we’ve started the process of redesigning the functionality of our platform’s response filtering tool and focused on making our filters more intuitive to use while still keeping it fast - no one wants to wait for ages for results to populate on a page when they are knee-deep in analysis.
Now it’s easy to layer multiple filters, adding and removing criteria as market research companies go along. At the same time, the platform auto-generates possible responses, letting teams know if they can cut the data a bit more - or if they need to pull back a bit. Our filtering tool continues to evolve as we test and develop the key feature, ensuring market researchers have the best experience while performing analysis.
Hank and I love our jobs. We have the freedom to take the time to explore the clients’ more pressing issues and develop a custom approach to applying our amazing tools to make every stakeholder’s experience the very best that it can be. What’s not to love?
Need expert help for your upcoming research project? Contact us today for a demo of our tech-enabled, human-supported platform!
