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Dovetail is a tool for customer research. We used it for a thematic analysis of our Clutch reviews to better understand the value proposition behind our rating.
Clutch has become very popular in the B2B markets because of its credible client reviews. At Clutch, clients have two options to submit a review. They can fill out an online form, or they can interview with a Clutch representative. The latter has a more significant weight in ratings, and it’s the only method to submit a review for projects over $25,000.
Since the number of reviews and their constant increase play an essential role in the Clutch ranking algorithm, companies try to get new reviews as often as possible. This drives Clutch’s growth but also makes the ratings somewhat overwhelming. When you check categories like web development, hundreds of companies rated 4.8 and above. They all blend into one giant pool of highly rated companies.
Even for the rated company, the rating becomes just a number after a while. Looking at our profile with a 4.9 rating from 32 reviews, we could hardly get some insight by reading individual reviews. By the time we were looking at the fifth review, we could not remember the points of the first four anymore.
We needed a method to help us process the reviews, which, as we mentioned, are user interviews. Enter thematic analysis.
Thematic analysis is a UX method that helps find patterns in qualitative data like user interviews.
You start by gathering the data in textual form and then tag relevant statements. Patterns or themes emerge based on the frequency of tags (often called codes).
You can do thematic analysis manually or by using one of the unique tools available: a traditional tool like NVivo or a modern SaaS alternative like Dovetail.
In this article, we look at how thematic analysis is done in Dovetail by going through each step.
You start with a project page where you define your goals, hypotheses, and plan.
Our goals for this project were:
We hypothesized that clients perceive us differently than we perceive ourselves. While client reviews may be slightly biased (for example, satisfied clients may be more likely to take the time to do a review than unsatisfied clients), we can still find a few interesting insights in them.
Next, we collected the data. In this case, we just copied our Clutch reviews as new data entries.
In a typical research project, you might have recorded video interviews. One of the significant features of Dovetail is that it transcribes the interviews for you.
When our data is ready, we can start creating tags (codes) and highlighting and tagging the content.
This is a back-and-forth process – it’s best to create tag categories and use the same color for each category.
Highlight is a comprehensive list of all highlights you have made in the text.
Charts provide you with a visual representation of the themes in your thematic analysis.
Finally, Insights allow you to process themes and draw conclusions from them.
Each insight has a page where you can write your claims and support them by adding evidence from the users’ data.
You can publish and share your insights with anyone with a link, even with unlogged users. This is a convenient way to share insights with your stakeholders.
Thematic analysis of our Clutch reviews provided us with insights we wouldn’t be able to get otherwise, especially for any set of more than 5 or 10 reviews
Based on the frequency of tags, we can say that our strongest suits are:
However, there is a catch: The questions asked in Clutch interviews can dictate tag frequency. If each interview asks about project management, every reviewer will talk about project management.
So, instead of focusing on the overall results too much, let’s look at some specific insights.
We have known for a long time that transparency is our strong value proposition. We are transparent about the project’s current state, potential issues, etc. However, one thing we noticed in the reviews is the importance of transparency in both directions – not only from Xfive towards the client but also from the client towards Xfive. We can call that a transparency culture.
The more you can tell them upfront, the smoother your process will be. My advice is to treat them as a partner, tell them what you want to achieve, and give them as much context as you have about the work.
Be open to asking them for solutions to your problem because they may come up with something different than you suggested.
Project management is our strongest suit, as tags related to it were the most frequent. However, this is not something we emphasized adequately in our communication with potential clients.
On the rare occasion that a timely delivery isn’t possible, quick and proactive updates always help prevent the issue from escalating to the point of a project delay.
She explains every detail of the project from the beginning and is available for calls whenever we need her; in fact, she often suggests them herself.
Some of our clients praise our ability to understand them immediately during the engagement process, which helps us win their projects.
The difference with Xfive is that they understood what was needed pretty much immediately.
Their ability to understand what I’m thinking is the biggest differentiator between them and a generic vendor.
Contrary to a common concern, time zone differences can work in a client’s favor – while we are offline, the client can review completed work or submit new work for us.
They had the added benefit of being in a different timezone and we could design during the day and they could do the front-end development overnight. This reduced our project timelines and increased our responsiveness.
This works not only because now two teams are working on the project 16 hours a day but also because different time zones place a natural barrier to the distractions of a hyperactive hive mind, a concept described by Cal Newport in his book A World Without Email.
The soft skills that our clients value most, according to tag frequency, are:
Interpersonally, they are also outstanding. The team camaraderie between our firms is higher than you might expect. They are sincere, high-integrity individuals, and we enjoy working with them.
Their team was always responsive and willing to go over any developments or issues. They were consistently engaged and always ready to help, which really stood out.
When they say they’re going to do something, they do it.
Based on the insights from the reviews, we could synthesize our findings in the following manifesto about clients’ needs:
Finally, we could start reworking the Why us section, which is used on our website and in other materials.
The previous Why us was:
There were some good points, but we wanted to redo them to reflect our findings from the thematic analysis. This is what the new Why us looks like:
Thematic analysis is a simple yet powerful method for analyzing data from qualitative user research. While you can do thematic analysis manually, Dovetail takes the process to the next level and makes it a quick and convenient experience. It’s one of the best SaaS products I’ve tried recently, straightforward and usable.
As we’ve just shown, thematic analysis can provide insights from various places. Clutch is successful because it is useful both for vendors and clients. Doing a thematic analysis of our Clutch reviews in Dovetail allowed us to extract an extra layer of value out of Clutch: We now understand our clients better, and we can use that understanding to improve our value proposition.
