Brigitte Auriacombe and Joonas Rokka discuss the value of Emylon Business School’s longstanding research partnership with Club Med – for students, academics and the renowned holiday company
Pedagogy in Business Schools, and company issues and practices are inseparable topics. Research is grounded on data coming from the ‘real’ world of practice, meaning companies, markets and consumers. In return, research must contribute to advance knowledge that is applicable to the world of practice.
Research is also meant to enrich education in Business Schools and ensure that students acquire up-to-date knowledge that they can then contribute towards diffusing in the world of practice once they move into it. Yet, as we know, gaps can appear between principles and reality, or between theory and practice.
On one side, the ambition of research to develop valid knowledge that is applicable to multiple contexts might sometimes appear too theoretical to managers and students. On the other side, companies might be reluctant to cooperate with researchers for reasons of confidentiality. After all, why should they be concerned about advancing knowledge beyond their own company? Thus, developing concrete cooperation between research and business might not be as simple in practice as it appears to be in theory.
Step by step, through a highly cooperative and trusting relationship, Emlyon Business School’s Lifestyle Research Centre has had the opportunity to develop what we believe to be a win-win partnership with holiday company, Club Med, from which Emlyon students also benefit.
Exploring customer experience topics
Every year, Club Med’s ‘Products and Services’ team (in charge of defining the Club Med offering) identifies a topic related to consumer experience on which they need to gain an in-depth understanding. This topic may, for instance, relate to how a specific group of customers experience holidays at Club Med (for example families, or first-time customers); or how a specific moment in the customer journey impacts the lived experience of customers (for example, the moment of arrival, daily sports activities or evening parties); or how a specific aspect of the offering impacts customers’ experience (for example: interactions with service workers).
The choice of the topic to be explored is always geared by the necessity to define or redefine a part of the Club Med offering in the light of evolving customer needs within an increasingly international customer base that is now substantially different from the original French-Belgian customer base which characterised Club Med up until the beginning of the 21st century. Whatever the specific area of investigation, topics always relate to decisions that Club Med executives must make about the company’s offering and/or the way it is implemented.
From this point, we design the research questions and plan the ethnographic fieldwork to be carried out. We also select a group of 10-20 students from Emlyon’s International Hospitality Management Programme (IHM) which we then train in ethnographic methods, so that they too can join the fieldwork, which is run in one or more of Club Med’s resorts.
The principle of ethnography is to study a phenomenon from the perspective of the participants. The goal is to understand the point of view of those involved in the situation in question. For that, one must ‘immerse’ in the field. This means being where the phenomenon happens – ethnographic data is collected in this ‘natural context’ – accessing it from the participant’s point of view.
‘Becoming’ Club Med customers
The research for Club Med is conducted undercover and our objective is to immerse ourselves in the field and ‘become’ customers of Club Med to deliver a customer perspective to Club Med. We use introspection to study our own experience which is of course also informed by our observations of other consumers (participant observation). We record our data through extensive reflexive fieldnotes, in which customers and employees are systematically anonymised. Once we have collected and analysed the data, we present the key findings to Club Med headquarters together with some recommendations regarding the Club Med offering and its implementation.
As all topics studied relate to customer experience, we can use the same methods to collect data each year, allowing it to be accumulated throughout the years. The potential validity of any research project is increased through the development of this remarkable set of cumulated data, collected in different contexts (country, season, occupancy…). Currently, we are working on three projects based on this data, with the goal of publishing the findings in top academic journals:
1Affective atmospheres and how they build up and break down as well as how they create customer experience.
2How service workers can be energised by customer interactions and how they can develop a passion for their work.
3How family identities are reinforced or threatened through holiday practices.
The value of an ethnographic approach
Ethnographic methods are seldom used in the business world, which most often turns to quantitative surveys when the need to develop consumer insight surfaces. Qualitative methods are often considered as less ‘valid’ and are often limited to interviews or focus groups. Yet an ethnographic approach can be as valuable to companies as it is to researchers.
In the context of the Club Med partnership, ethnographic research has two assets which the company’s top management value. The first is a sense of reality in the findings. This sense derives from the fact that all the data is collected in a ‘natural context’, and that it is extensively described in the fieldnotes, making the observations ‘come to life’. The second is that ethnographic methods enable us to study some very subtle aspects of consumer experience, aspects which are pre-cognitive and that customers would not easily be able to talk about and elaborate on, especially in interviews which are run out of context.
We observed this phenomenon when we researched atmosphere at Club Med. ‘Esprit Club Med’ (Club Med spirit) is an expression that is commonly used by employees and customers when they want to emphasise Club Med’s uniqueness. Yet although the expression is frequently referred to, it is never elaborated on beyond some very
short descriptions.
Nevertheless, by immersing in the field and by becoming customers and observing those around us, it became evident that the affective atmosphere was strongly impacting our experience as well as that of others, and that it took a complex combination of elements to build it up or to break it down. Ethnographic findings prove to be powerful ‘eye openers’ for top managers
at Club Med.
International village phenomenon
For Emlyon’s Lifestyle Research Centre, Club Med offers a unique empirical field of research which enables us to address research questions which are meaningful and applicable beyond the specific context of Club Med.
A Club Med resort – commonly called a ‘village’ – is a closed space, meaning that during a weekly stay (the standard duration of a customer stay), very few customers go outside the ‘village’, and almost none will be there just for a lunch or dinner. This is a consequence of the all-inclusive package provided by Club Med: it comprises a very broad range of activities and sports which are often the primary reason why customers come. Going outside the village would mean missing out.
As for outside customers, they can’t join in an activity or meal because all the services are bundled in one all-inclusive package and are not billed separately. The very friendly and relaxed sociality which exists at Club Med favours the development of a micro-society which emerges and dissolves in a week’s time. This phenomenon is well described by Nadine, a General Manager of a Club Med resort (also called ‘Chef de Village’ in Club Med language) who we met through our fieldwork: ‘This week there are Russians, Canadians, Israelis, British, and French… and the goal is that at the end of the week, they all come together in one group.’
This is a privileged context in which to study lifestyle-related questions in an international setting, and to observe how the phenomenon evolves as the week unfolds, making the considerable dataset we have been able to develop a remarkable resource for research. From an academic research perspective, Club Med is not so much the subject under scrutiny, it is the context where the phenomenon is studied and the research findings are not specific to the context, they apply beyond.
Student experience and value
Participating in ethnographic fieldwork is a transformative experience for students. To successfully practice ethnographic methods, students must learn to decentre themselves to experience a phenomenon from a specific perspective – in this case, that of the customer. Changing perspective requires many qualities that, as a general rule, Business Schools do not emphasise in particular.
To begin with, students must have strong observation and listening skills. They must increase their attention to detail and develop their capacity to identify small changes or shifts in their affective states as well as in the environment. Juliette, a student who joined in the fieldwork explains this really well: ‘I found ethnographic research fascinating. It taught me to pay more attention to what I could feel in a situation where I used to focus only on facts, and to go to greater depths in my observation.’
Finally, they must learn to identify their specific biases and preferences so that they can break free from them and be able to access other’s subjective judgements.
Beyond the transformative side of ethnographic research, we believe that participating in this work will be a long-term asset for students in their future careers. First, it should help them focus their attention on customers to find sources of inspiration, instead of focusing on competitors as most companies do. Despite all the talk about ‘customer centricity’ very few companies practice its principles.
It should also help ensure that students don’t take common assertions on customer expectations for granted such as ‘customers want personalisation’ and make them question what customers really want. For example, Sara, another student told us: ‘There is no doubt that joining this fieldwork taught me to observe instead of judge. It is always so much easier to rely on prejudiced and preconceived ideas. It was a real challenge and I learnt to turn my back on these stereotypes to observe what was going on under my eyes and think beyond commonly accepted ideas.’ Lastly, it equips students with a sound and rigorous method to address the question of what customers are looking for.
More Business Schools should be looking to engage in this type of mutually beneficial, ongoing research partnership. Learning ethnographic research methods benefits students greatly, as they can then use this new customer-centric, real-life perspective of research in a business context.
It also offers academics real-life datasets that can be used for wider dissemination of findings and access to key business issues that can be tackled exclusively at the source. Businesses, meanwhile, get unrivalled insights from some of the world’s best researchers in their field.
Brigitte Auriacombe is a Professor at Emlyon Business School and member of its Lifestyle Research Centre. She runs the School’s Club Med partnership, organising the ethnographic fieldwork, and is in charge of an executive programme which will look to improve the Club Med customer experience.
Joonas Rokka is a Professor at Emlyon Business School and the Director of its Lifestyle Research Centre. His research focuses on consumer experience, lifestyles, branding, and creative visual methods.
