Social science methods can be used to improve customer service. I discuss ethnography, an approach to capture social experiences in their everyday setting, such as through photography and other tools. I then describe participant observation, a method for studying people, organisations, and environments while participating in the same activity as the participants. Using an example from public health, I demonstrate how businesses and policymakers might put these methods into practice.

Summary

• ‘Ethnography’ is used in to study how people act in their everyday lives.
• ‘Visual ethnography’ are photos, videos, and other visual materials that show people’s experiences.
• I present an example of a large, COVID-19 vaccination centre.
• ‘Participant observation’ is when a researcher studies people in their everyday environment, while sharing the same experience.
• I show an example of what I observed inside a vaccination centre. I show the confusion and problems that came up. I discuss what could be improved.
• I didn’t need ethics approval to do this research. I was in a public place, and I did not interview, photograph, or collect information from other people. Other organisations might need an ethics application if they want to try something similar with their customers.

Social science methods improve customer service

Service providers often stick to processes and procedures that are familiar to their sector, however, this is not always useful to customers. Social science methods demonstrate gaps, barriers, and opportunities to improve products, programs, and customer engagement.

I deep dive into ethnography, visual ethnography, and participant observation, using a public health case study of a mass vaccination centre.

Ethnography

Ethnography is the study of people’s experiences, behaviour, and social organisation as it occurs in its everyday setting. That is, collecting data in the place in which the social phenomena occurs (not simply relying on academic literature and one-off interactions, such as surveys). This might mean temporarily living with a community, making a series of visits to an organisation, attending outdoor events, or going wherever the behaviour, situation, or group interacts.

Ethnography describes a cluster of qualitative research methods. These are a set of scientific approaches for collecting non-numerical data to understand subjective experiences, meanings, and social phenomena from the participants’ perspectives.

Ethnography primarily involves fieldwork. This usually means being embedded with participants, watching, listening, asking questions, observing the environment, and producing a rich account of human experience. It is an iterative process, where the act of conducting research will unearth new and unexpected insights that require further investigation. Ethnography is also an inductive process, meaning that the research design will evolve as data are collected (for example, new research questions, or further theoretical exploration). Data are collected through field notes, interviews, audiovisual recordings, and other ways that capture the participants’ actions and environment.

Service providers often take-for-granted the setting in which they deliver services, and may not be aware of issues that new customers face. Ethnography is a process to document the customer experience as it happens in the moment, rather than simply through post-service questionnaires that summarise impressions of the service after the fact.

Visual ethnography

Visual ethnography is a fieldwork methodology used to collect visual data to analyse social phenomena. This includes photographs, video, and other qualitative data, such as fieldwork notes.

This is ideal for studying how customers move through the service. For example, the physical space of a customer service centre, how customers operate a product, or navigating an online environment. This method also captures the layout of services, and day-to-day operations.

Visual ethnography allows us to capture visual cues and other behavioural information that impact the service experience. This may be posters on walls, or buttons on an app, as well as the colour scheme, messages, and so on.

In sum, visual ethnography can be used to analyse whether the infrastructure, design, and communications meet the customer’s needs.

Visual Ethnography of Lockdown

Visual ethnography of vaccination

I previously conducted a visual ethnography of a mass vaccination centre in Sydney, over July to August 2021. This was the first rollout of vaccines at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the time, I focused on the behavioural cues used to guide patients who attended the centre to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. This includes signs, information pamphlets, and other materials. I assessed how instructions were delivered by clinicians and other staff, how the physical space was managed (e.g. line up process and waiting areas), and how this customer experience affected the current and potential future behaviour of patients. I used behavioural science to make recommendations on how the customer experience might be improved.  

I used visual ethnography to take photos and short videos of my experience in line while I waited to be vaccinated, and post-vaccination. I did not directly film other people or staff. I did not record audio, personal data, or any other material that would be identifying. I used these data to sketch a customer experience map (more on this in a future post).

My results are detailed elsewhere. Here, I will focus on how ethnography and insights on behavioural biases may be used to improve customer experience in other settings.

The photos below show the long lines around the block, which made instructions hard to follow, as well as the multiple waiting areas, and dense information handed to patients.

Participant observation

Participant observation involves watching people interacting with other groups, objects, a physical environment, and texts in their everyday setting (that is, outside of a lab), while doing the same activities. In other words, spending time immersed in the participants’ world (doing fieldwork), and documenting what is happening. This method provides an ‘insider’s perspective’ that might ‘otherwise be inaccessible.’ The researcher may collect additional data through interviews or artefacts.

Researchers can assume various roles to carry out this analysis, from a complete participant who joins in and records all activities, to complete observer (someone who watches, but does not join).

In the mass vaccination centre, I was the former, as I attended a public clinic and received the COVID-19 vaccination, and documented my experience every step of the way.

The vaccination centre had lengthy delays. Its instructions, procedures, and layout made for a poor customer experience. Some of the behavioural observations I made are summarised in Table 1 below.

Participant observation methods enabled me to document environmental, physical, and emotional details that are not easily captured through routine customer surveys. Lining up for two hours in the rain, taking in the confusion and frustration of other patients, and the ambience in the waiting areas are all bodily experiences that may be harder to recall later.

Participant observation also unearths operational and procedural problems that experts, staff, and detailed planning often miss. For example, I had a leg injury. The COVID-19 vaccination requires two visits, six weeks apart. My first visit resulted in prolonged complications due to the long periods spent on my feet, with no place to sit. I subsequently attended a physiotherapist to deal with the aggravated injury, who told me to speak to the vaccination centre about my condition next time.

During my second vaccination, the staff, though well-meaning, did not know how to accommodate me. While I was moved inside quicker, I still had to stand for 15 minutes, aggravating my injury further. Later, I learned that this could have been avoided, but the staff outside did not know.

In practice, this meant that, even after six weeks, accessibility was not well communicated to personnel (likely due to the high volume of patients and turnover of casual staff).

Because staff and other service providers have a different experience, greater familiarity with operational goals and systems, and higher autonomy to adapt their environment, they miss details that may significantly impact customer satisfaction, and even inadvertantly harm their customers.

Table 1: Example of behavioural barriers and opportunities from participant observation

Barrier	Opportunity
Time-intensive (e.g. long periods lining up and waiting)	Simplify processes
Inadequate information, instructions, and signs	Target information and use behavioural principles. (E.g. Use social norms to encourage compliance with rules)
Confusing process and details (e.g. different instructions for different vaccination brands)	Reduce ambiguity
Poor accessibility for disabled people	Enhance accessibility
Low visibility of support for First Peoples and migrants	Improve cultural safety and inclusion

Ethics

As I conducted my observations in a public place, and did not collect data on other people, I did not need ethics clearance for this study. According to The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, my research falls under ‘negligible risk research,’ as there is no foreseeable risk of harm or discomfort to others.

However, if a business, community group, or government organisation wanted to collect data about their customers using ethnography, participant observation, and customer journey mapping, this might require an informed consent process (such as signs that the research is taking place, and a way to opt out), or, potentially, an ethics application. For requirements and exemptions, see Sections 5.1.10 to 5.1.14 of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research.

How you can use this in your work

• Use ethnography to capture customer experiences in rich detail. Discover new insights on how space, signs, movement, and time impact your customers.
• Visual ethnography helps you document novel information. Do your posters, pamphlets, and instructions help or hinder comprehension? Is the line-up system and other processes reinforcing best practice, or frustrating and hurting your customers?
• Participant observation puts you in the shoes of your customer. Is your communication useful or confusing? Are staff adequately prepared? Do vulnerable people and minorities feel welcome in this environment?