[Excerpt from: Good Experience
October 24 2007
By Mark Hurst
online@ (sign up): http://goodexperience.com/signup.php]
What does Web 2.0 mean to people over 50 years old?
Put another way, what do grandparents do online? (Do they blog? Do they tag? Do they "Facebook"? )
These are important questions for Grandparents.com, a Web startup aimed at those very users. I recently worked with the company, with a team from Creative Good, to answer those questions and help the Grandparents.com team chart its way forward.
I should note that many companies face some version of "the Web 2.0 question" right now. Everyone these days seems to want to build social networking into their business. I've recently observed a number of well-established e-commerce sites change their strategy from merchandising and selling products to "connecting customers with each other"... as though buying spatulas (or whatever) gets better after you create a buddy-list of fellow spatula lovers.
Some sites should stick to what they know.
There are, of course, other sites that do benefit from these features. Chief among them are the social networking sites themselves. Facebook.com currently gets the most attention; previously it was Myspace, and before that it was Friendster (remember them)? But there are other sites, too, that make good use of linking users to each other. For example, TripAdvisor.com is a travel site focused primarily on customer reviews; booking travel is a secondary feature.
The challenge for a new company like Grandparents.com, in creating a customer experience strategy, is to discern which (if any) elements of the hyped-up Web 2.0 trend are worth investing in. That requires considering various inputs.
What sources do executives listen to? Here are a few:
- the technology press, whose job it is to report on the newest and flashiest trends, not necessarily what actually works in the long run
- bloggers, many of whom are technophiles who enjoy playing with, and writing about, Internet trends and gadgets
- investors, who often want quick results, and look to the press and bloggers to point the way
- technology conferences, which tend to invite speakers who will draw attendees from the three groups above
It's no wonder that the spatula site wants a social networking
feature: today's executives face tremendous pressure to follow the herd.
Another voice, by the way, is that of industry colleagues, who (depending on the context) can be very helpful, or in the other extreme, may indulge in one-upmanship about whose business has gotten more exposure. (The "helpful" context would be something like the Councils: http://creativegood.com/councils )
One voice not on the list, ironically enough, *can* point the way forward, both in the short term and the long term. Who is it?
The customers.
Most companies still don't conduct meaningful research with the people who they're ostensibly working for. No customers, no business; and yet the customers are often nowhere to be found when strategic decisions are made.
It's to Grandparents.com's credit that they bucked the trend. The team reached out to listen to *customers* in order to build their strategy. "The Web 2.0 question" becomes a much easier task when you have good data.
Within one day of listening labs, we found that grandparents *do* want certain features in the website, and Grandparents.com *can* have a viable business in the Web 2.0 world. The grandparents we talked to didn't say, "I want this particular feature," but their descriptions of how they relate to their grandkids, and their demonstrations of how they use the Internet, revealed what sort of site Grandparents.com should be.
Perhaps more importantly, we learned what the customers do *not* want, saving the company from making needless investments of time and money in the wrong features. For example, I won't give the store away by revealing that grandparents are not sprinting to set up blogs. Nor are they prone to tag photos and bookmarks.
If you think these are common-sense conclusions, take a look at what the press is saying. A New York Times article last month announced a new trend of Web 2.0 sites for aging users:
"Technology investors and entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and graying computer users. ... They look like Facebook - with wrinkles."
Facebook with wrinkles. Maybe that's a great investor pitch, but I didn't see anything in my direct exposure to customers that suggests it's a good strategy. I'd guess that most of the companies in that article listened to the bulleted sources above, and never invested in meaningful research with their customers.
How does your organization chart its way forward: by following the herd, or by listening to customers?