Uncovering customer processes : the interactive questionnaire

Purpose: Insights about customers' processes of value creation are highly beneficial for companies striving to provide customers with added value in their processes. Customer processes (CPs) of a complex nature, like buying real estate, are highly heterogenous and comprise numerous activities. Existing data-gathering methods either overlook the variability of these processes or do not record their contents thoroughly. Drawing conclusions from analyzing such poor-quality data can result in the design of supposedly customer-centric offerings that fail to provide customers with value in their processes. This paper aims to introduce a method for gathering complex CP data of superior quality: the interactive questionnaire. Design/methodology/approach: The design of the novel method is guided by requirements derived from the literature. In a field study, the method's performance is compared with that of existing methods. Findings: The interactive questionnaire produces data quality gains by combining data gathering in large sample sizes with features enabling survey participants to interact with each other. A field study confirms that it outperforms all hitherto existing methods in terms of the quality of the obtained data. Originality/value: This study contributes to CP management literature by introducing a method capable of gathering complex CPs in sample sizes sufficiently large to accurately reflect their variability and in broad scope including activities beyond the company's perception. Having such CP data available is the precondition for a joint optimization of CPs and aligned business processes.