Listening Beyond Words: Finding the Why Behind Customer Behavior

Have you ever wondered why so many marketing research tools fail to capture what customers truly want? James Warren, CEO and founder of Share More Stories, talking with host Peter Woolfolk, has dedicated his career to solving this problem through an innovative approach that combines storytelling with artificial intelligence to reveal the "why" behind customer and employee behavior.

Warren introduces us to the SEEQ platform (Stories to Engage, Explore and Question), which takes a fundamentally different approach from traditional surveys and focus groups. While conventional research tools excel at identifying who, what, when, and where, they often miss the crucial question of why people make the decisions they do. By inviting participants to share personal stories rather than just answer predetermined questions, SEEQ creates a safe space for authentic expression that yields remarkably rich insights.

What makes this methodology particularly powerful is how it transforms qualitative experiences into measurable emotional data. The platform analyzes 55 different emotions, needs, values, and attitudes to create an "emotional map" that helps organizations understand not just what people experienced, but why it mattered and how it made them feel. For communications professionals, this represents invaluable intelligence for crafting messages that genuinely resonate.

Warren shares compelling success stories, including how Virginia Tourism Corporation used story-based insights to reimagine their approach to reaching Black travelers. By deeply understanding these travelers' experiences and then creating a campaign that authentically reflected those stories, they achieved remarkable results, increasing Black tourism to Virginia while earning industry recognition.

The interview highlights what's missing in most corporate communications today: authentic voice. Too often, PR messages are developed from the company's perspective rather than centering the voices of customers or employees. By incorporating authentic stories and emotional insights into communications strategy, brands can dramatically shorten the distance between message and audience, creating that elusive "ring of truth" that drives engagement and loyalty. Ready to make a bigger impact in your organization? Start by truly listening.

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Chapters

• 1:07 Introduction to PR Review Podcast
• 2:54 Meet James Warren of Share More Stories
• 4:44 Understanding the SEEQ Platform Methodology
• 8:53 [Ad] Real Talk About Marketing
• 9:41 (Cont.) Understanding the SEEQ Platform Methodology
• 10:29 How SEEQ Uncovers Customer Needs
• 14:55 Customer Stories as Marketing Assets
• 17:52 Challenges in Storytelling Research
• 22:25 The Missing Element in PR Storytelling
• 25:13 Closing Thoughts on Authentic Listening

Transcript

Announcer: 0:36

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, peter Woolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk: 0:56

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now, apple has ranked this podcast among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide and recently Feedspot listed this podcast as number 13 on its top 70 best public relations podcasts in the United States. So thank you to all of our guests and listeners for your continued support and, if you enjoy the podcast, please leave a review. Question are today's market research solutions providing the ample data that tells business leaders what they really need to know? Because a lot of the data misses the customer's voice and experience. Businesses miss opportunities to create significant value.

Peter Woolfolk: 1:41

My guest today has developed a program that produces rich, actionable insights into the needs and values of an underserved consumer segment, identified core experience drivers and creates campaigns that continues to exceed expectations. Experienced drivers and creates campaigns that continues to exceed expectations, drives conversion and builds loyalty through better experiences. Now they say that if you want to create incredible experiences for your employees and your customers, you have to better understand them first, and that begins with listening. So joining me today from Richmond, virginia, is James Warren. He is the CEO and founder of Share More Stories and the SEEQ program. So, james, welcome to the podcast.

James Warren: 2:25

Thank you so much for having me, Peter. I'm glad to be here.

Peter Woolfolk: 2:27

Well, let's begin by talking about exactly what is Share More Stories, what do you do? And then we'll get into what is your SEEQ program more stories.

James Warren: 2:42

Sure thing. Well, share More Stories is a we call it a human experience insights company. That means we do research into employee experience, customer experience. Sometimes we're doing community voice or stakeholder perspectives, but really the commonality in all of that is our desire to really help our clients perspectives, but really the commonality in all of that is our desire to really help our clients understand not just the opinions and beliefs and attitudes of the people that they're trying to serve, either as employees or customers, but really understand their experiences and what's driving them, as you already said. And so that's become a really, really big focus for us, and what we found was our unique methodology of storytelling and AI was perfectly suited for the growing field of employee experience, customer experience, work, and so for communication professionals, for leaders, organizational business leaders, brand leaders, it's becoming a new tool in their research toolkit when they really want to go a little bit deeper and understand the why behind people's decisions, behavior, et cetera.

Peter Woolfolk: 3:43

You know, the first question that comes to mind as I listen to you talk about this is how did you recognize that other companies were making mistakes, at least in this storytelling process? Because you know, one of the things we said is that storytelling maybe does not allow customers to respond, or you get the feelings or thought from them, or what it is they're actually looking for or missing. So how do you discover that difference or that missing component?

James Warren: 4:11

Yeah, great question. I think there's two parts of it. One is what we saw happening in the market and you know that was somewhat informed by our own core experiences when we were, as we say, on the other side of the table, when we were leading brands or communications departments or large organizations, and what we were missing in the tools and in the research that we were getting from our partners. And then the other piece is what's unique about our method itself, and you referenced it before. It's the SEEK platform, which is an acronym S-E-E-Q. It stands for Stories to Engage, explore and Question. And so when we started the company, when I started the company over 11 years ago, I really I've always had a deep belief in the power of stories to help people connect and learn and also develop better understanding of themselves. And so for me, what was really unique in the opportunity space was to say how are we?

James Warren: 5:08

In all of our hyper-attentional digital marketing, everybody was going shorter, shorter attention span, shorter content, shorter message. I felt like we were starting to miss the opportunity to connect and engage on a deeper level. I felt that as a consumer and as an organizational leader, and I also could see that and hear that in some of the company leaders we were talking to that they were starting to signal, yeah, we need to go a little bit deeper, or we're engaging our employees but it doesn't seem to be having the desired outcome. Or we're seeing, you know, maybe a softening of share on our brand in the marketplace or our message just isn't getting through, and that's because it was such a cluttered marketplace that messages that weren't authentic weren't really engaging. Of course they're going to struggle to get through. So that was kind of the big picture.

James Warren: 5:55

You know, driver behind starting the company and starting the platform. And then what we saw more specifically when we launched Seek is that you know a lot of the current research tools. Surveys are great for identifying who, what, when and where, and focus groups and other qualitative research is really good at going deeper into that and understanding how. But none of those tools really do a great job of explaining why. And I think, as a marketer or communications leader or organizational leader, if you really want to make an impact and make a difference in the mindset and in the behaviors of your audiences and your constituents, you got to understand why they do what they do in the first place. If you don't understand why I think you run the risk of shooting with your eyes closed.

Peter Woolfolk: 6:43

You know one of the things that years ago I was in sales with Xerox.

Peter Woolfolk: 6:48

I mean, obviously we didn't go into the depth that you're going in here now, but one of the things that they said at Xerox is, if you really want to know what somebody wants, ask them and they will actually tell you. One of the things that they said at Xerox is, if you really want to know what somebody wants, ask them and they will actually tell you. And I think that's in the beginning where a lot of salespeople miss it. They're selling what their product is, how nice and fuzzy and shiny it's going to be, how much you're going to like it, but they didn't take the time to ask them. This is what you really want. So I think the car manufacturers have done a great deal of that and they tell people now that we listen to you and that's how we design certain things.

James Warren: 7:25

Well, you know, peter, what you're saying is so crucial because it's like the needs ladder right. So many companies. They have their product, they understand a little bit about how people use their product, but it's a natural tendency for most of us to want to explain. They have their product, they understand a little bit about how people use their product, but it's a natural tendency for most of us to want to explain how the product works, to want to explain the features. Some marketers and sales people realize, no, I've really got to sell benefits.

James Warren: 7:48

But, even that is still somewhat surface level. That's what we know, that's what we can sell, that's what we can message, but what we're really trying to do is connect those benefits to the needs that those customers and those employees have, because that's when you get real alignment. Real satisfaction is when hey, it's not just I see this product has a benefit, it's, this benefit meets my needs. And I think that's where sometimes we miss going that extra step, and I think that's for all of you because the tools we've had don't do a great job of helping us understand people's needs. And so I think that's where SEEK is starting to gain some relevance and traction, and that's what I care about.

James Warren: 9:09

You know, as a leader, I really want to help people meet needs. I don't just want to. You know, we don't need more products that don't do anything. We need products that solve problems. We need things that make people's lives better. We need products that solve problems. We need things that make people's lives better. We need things that increase impact, and so that's the mission to be honest with you is really helping companies and company leaders deliver greater impact, and that starts with understanding those needs.

Peter Woolfolk: 9:32

Let's talk a little bit more, then, about your SEEQ program exactly. How does it drill down, if you will, to find out exactly about what the needs are, how important they are, and that sort of information Give us an overview of how that actually works.

James Warren: 9:48

Absolutely, and I'm going to go with our shorthand version. We just call it SEEK. Okay, and when I talk about SEEK, it really starts with what's the question that you know that you want to ask, like you said, if you want to know what people think, ask them. So we talk about that as being a prompt. You know a storytelling prompt and it's in our platform. It's a web-based app that you set up, a project that's focused on what you want to learn more about.

James Warren: 10:15

Now here's where one of the first big distinctions comes in from, because most of the time distinctions comes in from Because most of the time executives and leaders are really focused on asking questions that kind of validate what they know, you know what I mean.

James Warren: 10:29

We say things and ask things that are you know, even if there's a little bit of we want to learn something, it's very rooted and grounded in what we want to know more about.

James Warren: 10:37

What SEEK does is kind of flip the script and say there are people out there who, if you ask them to tell you what they're really thinking and what they're really feeling, they will.

James Warren: 10:46

But you got to ask them and you got to make it easy for them to say it, and it's probably not a 30 or 50 point questionnaire. It's probably a way that they can express themselves where they feel open and free to say what's really on their minds. And so that's the premise behind doing it as a personal story. And so we might write a prompt around if we're working with a travel brand, to that brand, to that company's either hotels or airline or destination, or it might be more general it might say tell me about your most memorable travel experience, and so consumers of that brand and even their competitors will come into the platform and they will respond to that prompt with a written story. We're adding other means like voice and video, but you'd be surprised at how much people's approach to sharing their story shifts when they start worrying about what they look like on camera.

James Warren: 11:35

So we focus on the written story and voice, because it's a lot easier to just have them focus on their experience. But we ask them things like will you remember tasting or smelling or touching or hearing? Because the senses really help them recall their story and their experience with a lot more detail. So after they write it, they submit it in the platform, they might answer just a few questions about their experience and then the participant's job is done. You know, like if we were doing the research, then they'd be done On the back end.

James Warren: 12:05

What we're doing is we turn each of those stories into emotional data. So we measure 55 different emotions, needs, values, attitudes, all different ways that help you paint sort of an emotional map. So now you not only are hearing what people are experiencing, they're telling you why it matters to them and we're showing you how it makes them feel. And particularly for folks who are, say, communicators, right, this is like gold, because now I can really tune my messaging to the tone, to the attitude, to even be like how do I hit this emotion? If that's the emotion I want to achieve, these folks are loving their experience and this is what those emotions look like. Well, I want to match that, I want to meet them where they're at, and if these are folks who are struggling in their experience with our brand, well, I need to move them from where they're at to this more positive place.

James Warren: 12:54

What does my language need to say? What does it need to feel like? What does the message or the product experience need to deliver? So it becomes really a powerful toolkit in the hands of a leader or a decision maker or a communicator, in addition to all the other things we give our, we talk a lot about how do you take action on this? How do you engage this audience or this constituent, these employees and so forth? And often what it really points back is what do you need to do differently as a leader to be successful in engaging these employees or these customers or these stakeholders? So that's how the SEEK platform works. In a nutshell. We call it engage, analyze and act, because the first act of the leader saying I want to hear your stories and active engagement, and then the analysis is what happens in the platform and then the action is what the leader is able to do with the insights that we've delivered them.

Peter Woolfolk: 13:47

You know, not too long ago I spoke to another person and they had come up with a unique way of getting supporters, and that was turning actual customers into supporters. Because, you know, rather than hiring a spokespeople or influencers, why not get people who actually use the product or service? Because, I mean, they're much more authentic as compared to paying somebody to say what you want them to say. There's a huge difference there. Have you considered anything similar to that?

James Warren: 14:18

You know that's not necessarily our focus, but that is definitely one of the uses that has come out of this platform. You know we do a lot of work in travel and tourism. We do some in financial services, we do some in energy and utility.

James Warren: 14:35

We also do some in health and wellness, right Large industries that, frankly, are pretty mature and in some cases there's a lot of opportunity to make things better and one of those things is, when you deliver a great experience, how do you help that customer or employee become an ambassador or a spokesperson for the brand? And so sometimes one of our customers in travel they ask us if we would ask participants for their permission to share their stories. And you know we have to kind of walk a fine line there because we want participants to feel like the platform is highly trustworthy, private, they can be anonymous after they register, so their data is confidential. So we really save that question until the end and we ask them hey, are you willing to hear from so-and-so company about your experience? Can they contact you or would you be willing to let them, to give them permission to share your story in communications?

James Warren: 15:36

And that is usually. That's as far as we go. And if they say yes, then we're able to put participants who raise their hand in touch with the client and we've seen some of our clients turn that into really, really actionable marketing and sort of storytelling. One of those was Virginia's for Lovers. They did that very thing where they did the research over several waves to understand critical travel experiences among black travelers and other travelers who were often underrepresented, not only in the marketing, but even in, like the travel experience and after learning deeply about those experiences. They didn't necessarily take those exact stories, but they revamped the whole messaging direction for the brand, for those audiences.

James Warren: 16:20

And they developed a campaign that was focused specifically on letting black travelers tell their stories on the company's Instagram page. The campaign took off, blew up and won some awards, met all their business objectives and really increased black travel and visitation into into Virginia.

Peter Woolfolk: 16:39

as a result, black travel and visitation into Virginia as a result. You know that brings up another question, and I think about you know, perhaps the most difficult problem you had, let's say, in times of maybe storytelling or getting people to say what it is that they really wanted from this product or service. What, perhaps, was your most difficult one, and how did you go about resolving that?

James Warren: 17:00

That's a great question one. One of the ones we've had a few we've had a few that were challenging either in terms of like the project, execution or or what the client was trying to learn was a very hard or specific question. I'll tell you one and then maybe another if we have time, but one I remember is a before we had the web-based platform, the SEEK platform, we were doing SEEK primarily in person, like workshops. So with COVID we started doing those sessions online. And then, but we had one where we were traveling to a client's sites, plants, offices around the country. We were doing, I think, a total of 10 sessions with 10 to 20 people each. So you know, a very large kind of qualitative research effort, if you will. And we walked into one place in really a rural part of the country big manufacturing facility and walked in to conduct a seek session. And you know we have a kind of a facilitation approach, right, it's a workshop. So you know you want to get people warmed up, you want to tell them what you're going to do, you want to walk them through the exercises, all of that. Well, we were doing the workshop in a manufacturing plant, right? So that particular day we were going to talk to mainly manufacturing employees and they start streaming and at the end of their shift. And so the first thing I was thinking is man, you know, getting folks at the end of their shift, I wonder how that's going to work, because they probably want to go home and I don't know if they really want to be here.

James Warren: 18:29

And one guy comes in and we had a very, at that time, very basic version of Seek. It was a website, but it was very basic. It wasn't nowhere near as robust as it is today and we, you know, kind of guide people through how to use it. So he comes in and sits down in the back of the room and just jumps on the computer and starts typing. And so at first I was like I wonder if he's doing other stuff. Then I was like, well, he's not really engaged in the workshop. So this is like awkward, because I'm trying to facilitate, he's not even participating. He's just back there just typing away. And I'm thinking what is he doing? So finally I was like, you know, he's like no, I started writing and I was like, well, okay, but we haven't even gotten to that part yet. He's like, no, I'm good and I'm thinking, but we haven't told him exactly what we're doing or why. And he came in and he told me afterward he got up about halfway through the workshop. He's like all right.

Announcer: 19:22

I'm done.

James Warren: 19:23

I'm heading out and I'm thinking, wow, that's not cool. You know, he didn't really want to participate. And then I look he had sat down in an hour and written almost 2000 words. He was on a mission. He has so much he needed to say that he wanted to get out, that he had never been able to say in all of his years working in that company.

James Warren: 19:54

And while that was hard because some of the things we heard in those stories and in other stories are really really difficult and painful and you have to have a little bit of you have to have empathy and you also have to put on your, your sort of researcher's mind so you can analyze with empathy. That one, that one was tough because it it it sort of stressed me in a sense that I was like you know what are we doing here? But then on the flip side, the learning was extraordinary and in fact it changed how we started facilitating workshops after that, both because of COVID and because of that person's experience. It was so rich and deep and it really stuck with me.

James Warren: 20:31

So that was one. I've got others for sure, but that's definitely one that was just challenging but ultimately really, really insightful and beneficial.

Peter Woolfolk: 20:40

Well, we all know that storytelling is an important part of public relations in terms of getting people to buy in and understand what the product and or services are. And you know we're addressing your needs. We're addressing your needs. How about talking briefly about how what might be missing in most storytelling, that PR people might be missing when they're trying to convince? Others that this is what we really do here.

James Warren: 21:05

Yeah, I think it's. I think it's voice, voice of employee, voice of customer. I think so often you know, when we're developing the communications of the messaging or you're delivering it, you're the PR person, you're the corporate comms person. I think so often we develop our communication strategy and our messaging from the perspective of this is the company's positions, this is the brand, this is the story we're trying to tell and therefore this is what our messaging looks like coming out of that and all of that makes logical sense. But if we haven't, in that process, centered the voice of if it's customer, if it's marketplace driven, centered the voice of the customer, then I would even question the brand strategy in the first place. Because brand strategies that don't really really resonate the voice of the customer, especially if they're new or they're a shift or it's a legacy brand that you're reinventing it's really hard to tell that story in a way that says to people this is relevant to me, this makes sense to me, you seem to know me. Otherwise, it comes across as like the brand is somebody who's distant, not related to me, doesn't understand and is just talking at me. So the voice of the customer in the messaging, in the story or the narrative is so huge for making that brand come across as authentic but also aspirational.

James Warren: 22:25

If the company's navigating crisis, to be able to say, look, we've engaged our community and our stakeholders, and not just here's what they told us, but reflecting those learnings in the messaging, in the key talking points, in the storytelling, you don't even have to say this is what they told us, you just say it and it has the impact of really drawing people in because it has the ring of truth. They say, oh, I could totally relate to that, because you're actually talking to them in the way that people are talking about their own experiences. And so that's what we when our client is a communications focused client or their desired outcome is to take these insights of these stories and help them develop a better communication strategy, a better PR strategy. That's what we really try to help them focus in on is what's the missing part of this? Whose story are you telling? Whose story do you need to be telling and how do you tell it in a way that really amplifies and resonates the voices of your target audience?

Peter Woolfolk: 23:24

that's what will shorten the distance between them hearing and responding to that message well, let me say this, james I mean this has been very, very enlightening and I'm sure that our listeners will fully appreciate exactly what it is you do and how you go about it and maybe try to transfer some of these techniques, if you will, over to what it is that they do as a matter of fact. If you want to get in touch with James as I said, he is the CEO and founder of Share More Stories and the founder of the SEEQ program have been our special guest today. Any closing remarks you might have for the audience.

James Warren: 24:02

Well, thank you so much for this opportunity to share some of what we've learned with your listeners and your audience. I really appreciate that and, you know, I would just say to anybody who is listening if you want to make a bigger impact in your organization, in your marketplace, in your community, it really does start with listening. Whether you're using these types of tools or not, everything we're talking about is really about one human interacting with another human in a much deeper, more authentic way. And start there. I guarantee you'll see better results.

Peter Woolfolk: 24:33

Well, james. Once again, thank you so much. My guest today has been James Warren. He is the CEO and founder of Share More Stories and the creator of the SEEQ program. If you have more questions, just look James up and give him a ring and I'm sure things will go well. If you've enjoyed the podcast, we'd certainly like to get a review from you, and also don't forget to tell your friends about the Public Relations Review Podcast. Thank you, and we'll see you on the next edition.

Announcer: 25:02

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.