As more successful sports and travel brands put emphasis on running a customer centric organization, there's been a growing need to monitor and measure the impact of  front line employee interactions and service.  Whether these touchpoints occur on property, remotely or both,  effective satisfaction tracking measurement should also encompass evaluation of various amenities and experiential components of a property, that can have longterm impact on customer retention and loyalty.

 

One of the great benefits of doing qualitative research is being able to develop a rapport with respondents, which in turn affords a greater window into their emotional connection (or lack thereof) with a topic, concept, or experience through non verbal cues like body language and eye contact.  This is often difficult to accomplish in any virtual exercise or through survey research alone.  Of course, one also needs to be mindful of certain inherent levels of discomfort that a face to face respondent may feel, particularly when conducting one-on-one interviews.  We typically begin each interview with some ice-breakers that often  revolve around identifying certain elements of commonality.  When working in our areas of vertical expertise such as sports, golf, and hospitality finding that common ground can often be easy to do.  However, there's a double edged sword whereby we do not want to intimidate the respondent by seeming like we know too much about the topic. That's why we concurrently use the initial moments of the interview to diffuse our expertise, and tell the respondent that their answers are the correct answers and the only ones that count.  The point is often made that, while we may think that we know what they are about to say (and that's often the case), we're going to ask what seems to be some silly questions or seek some points of clarification, because it is through that forced probing that we typically elicit the most vivid and emotional responses, that can often provide exceptional client value in framing potential marketing communications hot buttons, or product development needs.  Frankly, it's a necessity, as one needs to eliminate any moderator bias.