Everyone seems to understand the strong correlation between employee engagement and customer engagement, but most companies do nothing to connect their employee and customer measurement systems. Beth Benjamin, writing in the Harvard Business Review, tells the story of Hulu, which found that despite customers renewing their service, many were unfamiliar with the brand. Examination of the issue revealed that some customer service representatives were overly aggressive in their pursuit of renewals in response to the high churn rates Hulu was facing.
Hulu developed an employee and customer feedback system to identify and address customer service interactions when there was a gap between perceptions of the customer and employee experience. According to Benjamin, “The affiliate system consisted of two short surveys, one sent to employees and the other to customers, immediately after a transaction. The connected system allowed for a better understanding of customers and managers could use the information to training employees, assessing whether they had the right tools and resources, hiring people with innovative ideas, and identifying leadership potential.” By connecting the two measurement systems, Hulu created a powerful feedback loop to help employees adapt their interactions with customers to rapidly changing market dynamics, as well as the impact it could have on the bottom line. Hulu reported that if the affiliate feedback system reduced churn by just 1%, the savings would generate an additional $11 million per year.
Step 3: Formulate a hypothesis
Formulating an initial hypothesis is the next logical step after having circumscribed and defined the research topic. Credibility unravels the logical relationships between variables.
To establish a hypothesis, a researcher must have specific knowledge in the field.
It is important that researchers take into account, when formulating a hypothesis, that it must be based on the research topic. Researchers can focus their efforts and commit to their goals by developing theories to guide their work.
Objectives Problem definition
Before starting your first investigation, your company must determine the learning objectives. Only then will you have a clear understanding of the issues. At the same time, it will help you determine and design the objectives in a way that will ultimately provide a workable solution.
In addition, the definition process should have the following objectives:
Research design
The next step in the research process is the research design: the research plan. This step is primarily about creating an overall plan or strategy for how to resolve the issue or problem that has been identified. The fundamental questions that are addressed in the research design are:
- Should the research environment be internally disruptive? researcher in a particular way – experimental design – or should we study the environment as it is without these disturbances?
- Decision on the number of observations to be made in each study unit.
- Should a single sample be selected from the entire population or should several samples be selected from different subgroups of the population?
- What type of sampling method should be used for the study?