Episode #11 - Susan Mercer - A Former Client's Perspective

Show Notes

Topics include:

• What really goes on behind the scenes when a client is scoping and approving a UX research project
• The qualities that make a consultant stand out during the selection process
• Why trust and communication are everything and what erodes them fast
• What clients wish consultants knew about proposals and pricing
• How to set consultants up for success (and what happens when you don’t)
• Susan’s transition from research director to independent consultant

View the episode chapter links for the full list of topics that were discussed.

Notable Quotes:

• "I’m looking for a thought partner—not a salesperson. Someone who’s going to help me solve a problem, not just sell me their services… If you tell me everything you can do before even asking what I need, it feels like a car salesman pitch. That’s a turnoff."
• "I like hearing a lot of questions from consultants in that first call. Curiosity is a core skill for a researcher, and I want to see it right away."
• "If the methodology and reasoning are weak but the price is high, that’s when I start to get skeptical."
• "Pairing the consultant with someone on the internal team makes a huge difference. It gives them the context, the history, and a direct line to the details."
• "Consistent communication is key. I’d rather have a little too much communication than be left wondering what’s going on."
• “I want the consultant to make me and my team look good.”
• "Start with the positive. Then present the reality—and close with a path forward. That’s how you tell a client their baby is ugly… and still keep the relationship."

Connect With Us:

• Host: Kyle Soucy | Usable Interface | Linkedin
• Guest: Susan Mercer | Perspecta Consulting & Linkedin

Links and Resources Mentioned:

• Kyle’s case study for the Viator diary study project
• Anna Kop (The UX research subcontractor Kyle hired for the Viator project)

Listener Interaction: Have questions or topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes and/or want to share an anonymous consulting story? Submit your questions and stories here: https://bit.ly/uxconsultants-question-story

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Susan Mercer

Perspecta Consulting

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Kyle Soucy: Welcome to the UX consultants lounge. I'm Kyle Soucy, founder of Usable Interface an independent UX research consultancy. You can find out more about my work and the services I offer at my website, usableinterface.com. I'll be your host here at the lounge where I'll be providing a place for UX consultants to gather, share stories, and learn more from one another.

Introducing Susan Mercer

Kyle Soucy: Today's episode is a special one. For the first time ever, I've invited a former client into the lounge. I know bold move, but don't worry, we're still on good terms. My guest is Susan Mercer, and if you've ever [00:01:00] wondered what clients really think during the hiring process, this is your episode. Susan pulls back the curtain and shares what goes on behind the scenes, how decisions are made, what builds trust, and yes, what consultants do that break that trust.

Susan has over 30 years of experience in digital tech with a career that's taken her through UI design, web production, product management, and a decade of leading UX research teams. She was most recently the director of user research at Viator, a TripAdvisor company, and has also taught grad students at Bentley, so she knows her stuff.

 And Susan has recently decided to embark on becoming an independent UX consultant herself, and we'll discuss why and what that experience has been like for her at the end of the interview. You'll hear more [00:02:00] about our history working together, including a road trip that we took together across New England and one of the biggest diary studies I've ever tackled.

I think it's a thoughtful and honest conversation, and if you are a UX consultant or someone who hires them, I think you're gonna love it. Let's dive in. Please enjoy Susan Mercer.

Susan and Kyle's history of working together

Kyle Soucy: Hi Susan. Welcome to the UX Consultants Lounge.

Susan Mercer: Thanks Kyle. I'm excited to be talking to you today.

Kyle Soucy: So this is, going to be interesting 'cause it's the first time I've had a client in the lounge and I'm just so excited to have you share your perspective on what it's like working with UX consultants.

Susan Mercer: I'm excited to talk about it too.

been a great journey with me so far. So yeah, happy to, uh, let people know what to expect.

Kyle Soucy: Great. before I dive into my list of [00:03:00] questions for you, I wanted to give everyone just a little background on our history of working together. So we've been working together, for a while. We've had two big projects together. in 20 14, 11 years ago, we first worked together on a research study for an experience design agency based in Boston called Mad Pow.

you were working there, at the time as one of their lead researchers, and I was brought on as a subcontractor to help with the study. And I just remember loving this study because we were doing, ethnographic interviews in people's homes and it involved us taking a road trip together across New England.

product that we were, actually researching, it was a medical device called an auto-injector pen. and for those that are not familiar, it's just, an injection device that enables the user to deliver a predetermined drug [00:04:00] dosage through self injection. And our study focused on people who had multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, and we had to interview them about how they use this device, and I just loved it.

Susan Mercer: I loved it too. It was great working with you, and we just learned so much, and I was so grateful for those participants to open up their homes and their hearts to share their experiences with us to help make things better for them.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, and it was a very private sensitive topic. it was very moving and it was a just a great study and it was wonderful to finally work together. 'cause we knew each other, you know, we were local in the industry. We've seen each other at events, but we never had that opportunity, so that was awesome.

Susan Mercer: It was yes.

Kyle Soucy: Then flash forward in, 2022, you were working as the director of UX research for Viator, which is a TripAdvisor company, and you hired me as a consultant to conduct a [00:05:00] diary study with Travelers. And for me, this was by far the largest diary study I had ever worked on. it was a, a six week diary study with 30 participants, and at the end of it, we ended up having over 400 diary entries and, over 1800 snippets of coded data.

it was a lot, and I, I loved how big and juicy that study was.

Susan Mercer: It definitely was. And, I really needed somebody I could trust with that study because it was so large and so important to our business. So I was really pleased to be able to work with you on that one.

Kyle Soucy: Oh, I was so grateful for it. 'cause it was just fascinating. we were, talking to people who were planning a vacation and trying to understand, you know, what impacts their decisions, what happens when issues come up. And it was interesting to talk to people as they were planning a trip and having them submit diary entries, [00:06:00] some of them daily, some weekly, and then doing these wrap up interviews.

It just generated so much data. But it was a lot of fun and I, I just really appreciated being,brought in to conduct that study.

Susan Mercer: the real environment and the real usage information that you were able to gather and bring to the table was so valuable for us, because folks inside the company often think that people come to a website and do everything all at once without realizing that there's little snippets of interaction over time

Kyle Soucy: Right, right. We got some diary, entries where people were just, waiting during their daughter's dance recital, like checking in on certain things on their phone and they would take a picture of that. And it was just all these in-between moments that they were just jumping in to do some travel planning.

Susan Mercer: Exactly. Yep.

Kyle Soucy: So that's really our history in a nutshell. And now I'd like to Ask you some questions about, what it was like, hiring consultants, and I wanna [00:07:00] divide this. So the first half is all about what UX consultants can learn from clients, and the second half will be about, what other internal directors, managers, or leaders can learn about hiring UX consultants.

Susan Mercer: Sounds like a great plan. Let's do it.

What the procurement process is like for Susan (i.e. clients)

Kyle Soucy: Alright, so the UX consultants, can you start us off by just explaining what the procurement experience is like from your side of the table?

Susan Mercer: You know, in my experience, it does depend on the size of the company. As you can imagine, Viator being part of TripAdvisor, it was fairly mature in the procurement process, But the first step is something I would do no matter where I am, that I would want to get one to two quotes, from different consultants just to get a rough cost estimate to start.

This is before I've even gotten approval for the project. So as a consultant. I need you to understand [00:08:00] that, hey, this is a potential, it's not promised yet. And I'm always upfront in my communications with that. And then I have conversations internally with the key stakeholder that needs to approve this.

in my case, it might have been the chief product officer or vp. I may have it in a verbal conversation with them to sell. This is why we need to do this project right now.this is why my team can't do it. Given our current priorities, and this is ballpark, what it might cost, any sort of verbal confirmation that I may get from them.

I always follow up an email of course, and then if needed, I may also need to go talk with finance just to say, Hey, I got so-and-so's approval, we're going to be, looking into this. I need you to hold this money and make sure that they're okay with that. Okay. After that then I [00:09:00] would, have a detailed scope discussion with a consultant to give even more information and get a more accurate, proposal and SOW.

actually just get a proposal at that point. Um, if I do get that approved, I may Talk to two different consultants. Choose one, get that final one approved from the executive sponsor, get that signed off. Then I need to work with procurement. And they will, um, one, make sure that finance approves it.

Two, what any sort of legal approval we need, at, a company this, you know, a larger company. We do need to make sure that we have a master services agreement signed And it's usually RMSA that a consultant will need to sign and agree to. That's very often non-negotiable.and then the specific work will be defined in a statement of [00:10:00] work or SOW also, we like our format, for that.

And then we can do that and get that all signed off electronically and we're good to go.

Kyle Soucy: I have so many questions. So when you mentioned at first that you, start off by just getting a rough estimate from consultants, how do you hold that number in your head? So it's just a ballpark, you go and you, give the heads up to, finance, to whoever that we might be spending roughly this amount of money.

When you go back and start doing that detailed scoping, obviously the number will probably change a bit. how does that affect things in your process, if it's over that ballpark or drastically under, how does that work?

Susan Mercer: Great question. So first off, whatever I get from consultants is the ballpark , I pad.

Kyle Soucy: Oh,

Susan Mercer: might put an additional 20% on it just to buy me a little bit of wiggle [00:11:00] room.

Kyle Soucy: That's, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah.

Susan Mercer: Yeah. And then when we come back with a more detailed, if it's gonna be above that, I may ask for two options. So, okay, let's take this original one with everything that I want in it. May I ask the consultant to say, Hey, can we get another estimate? Where can we, maybe my team do a little bit more work? If I can find that bandwidth, how can I help you bring that cost down a little bit?

And then I can go to my executive and say, Hey, what we really need is X, which is higher than what I told you before. We can do something for Y but here's what we're missing. Here's the downsides to that. Because executives always wanna know, what am I gonna get? What is it gonna cost and what's the cost of not doing it?

Kyle Soucy: So that's where I need to be [00:12:00] prepared to have that conversation with them.

Sharing the project budget

Kyle Soucy: and how do you feel about revealing the budget that's available to the consultant when you're getting that initial rough estimate or even getting into the detailed scope?

Susan Mercer: it depends if I know what the budget is,

Kyle Soucy: oh.

Susan Mercer: because sometimes I'm just asked, Hey, go find out what this is, what is it gonna cost us to do X? In which case, that's where I'm sourcing that information from the consultants. Because what I don't wanna do is say, oh, it's gonna be 25K, then go out, talk to consultants.

No, it's really gonna cost me 50 'cause then I look bad and I don't wanna underpay consultants either,

Kyle Soucy: This? Yeah, absolutely. And this is really interesting because from the consultant side, it feels, to be honest, it always feels like that is being withheld from us. Like they know, but they're not sharing. And it's interesting to [00:13:00] know that sometimes you don't know,

Susan Mercer: Yeah. And sometimes just negotiation. I wanna get the consultants viewpoint first

Kyle Soucy: Yeah.

Susan Mercer: and see what's included. And if it comes under what I was thinking, then, oh, you know what, maybe we can bump that up a little bit more, and go from there.

Kyle Soucy: And, what do you mean by that? Bump that up? include more, do more with

Susan Mercer: more work, do more with the project.

And frankly, when I work in house, I don't always keep up with what common consulting rates are.

I remember when I engaged you, you said there was 2022. I hadn't worked in consulting for, gosh, about six, seven years and prices increase over that timeframe.

 and because I've worked on both sides of the house, I wanna be fair to my consultants. I know what it's like being on that side.

Kyle Soucy: It's so refreshing. I

Getting multiple bids

Kyle Soucy: and you mentioned too that you, typically you'll get two bids. [00:14:00] Is that something that you like to do? It was that dictated by Viator that you have to get at least two.

Susan Mercer: A little bit of both. I don't recall if they dictated it. I know some companies do.sometimes they need to go up to three, but having two gives me the ability to make that decision of what I see as quality, what I see as needed, versus, money investment. Also to just sanity check to make sure I didn't happen to talk to one consultant that's overpriced or underpriced.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah.

Susan Mercer: and that way as well when I go back to get approval or talk with finance, if they start bringing up, or particularly procurement, will bring up questions as well.how do we know that this was negotiated well? Well, I have two or sometimes three if they mandated proposals and then I'm able to justify that price a little bit better.[00:15:00]

Kyle Soucy: So when you have, two or three proposals or bids, do you have to present that and if you do, to procurement or someone else? Who ultimately gets to make that final call, that decision

Susan Mercer: It's usually with me as the director, as the person hiring it. I generally don't disclose the details of any of the proposals. I may say, Hey, I chose this one. yes, it's the most expensive, but the delta is only 5K to the cheapest. This is somebody that I feel will do the job best.if it's a 25K difference, then I might need to, get somebody else involved

Kyle Soucy: And who

Susan Mercer: to give you a ballpark.

Kyle Soucy: oh, okay. All right. When you say someone else, you mean another bid, or you mean someone on the internal side?

Susan Mercer: Oh, somebody on the internal side. I might escalate to my manager or the executive to have that discussion [00:16:00] with them to discuss the pros and cons.

Kyle Soucy: Gotcha. Okay.

Qualities that influence Susan's decision when picking a consultant

Kyle Soucy: And so since you're the main decision maker, when it comes to approving, an a proposal and choosing a consultant. For you, what would you say tends to influence you the most? Is it cost, the proposed strategy, reputation, something else...

Susan Mercer: all of the above I generally only talk to, or approach consultants I know or have heard of, particularly freelancers that have a strong reputation.price will come into it, but I'm, I care more about what am I gonna get delivered? Do I feel that the quality of the deliverable is gonna be helpful to the business and to my team?

Do I feel that the timeline is appropriate? Do I feel that they've estimated things correctly? Because I care about quality deliverables on time for a reasonable [00:17:00] cost.

Kyle Soucy: And with the MSA, you said that's really non-negotiable, at least in, in the experience that you had with, um, the companies you've been at. can you talk about that a little bit more? Is there ever typically things you get pushback on or what tends to be the red lines there?

Susan Mercer: really with hiring consultants, I haven't ever had any red lines for that.where I get the red lines is when I'm working with tool vendors and large corporations, because there's a lot of clauses there for them around, data uptime, data security, things like that. That's where they get their lawyers involved. In general, it's very rare that our legal team will adjust an MSA and if it, if they do, if they insist on a custom MSA, that's a fair bit of time investment with our legal team as [00:18:00] well.

Kyle Soucy: And is that a turnoff for you when that has to happen?

Susan Mercer: Absolutely. I love the lawyers I've worked with, but it extends the time. There's a lot of back and forth that I'm always involved in the middle person communication as the in-between, and it just takes time out of my day. And most of the time I don't think there's a need for it for freelance research consultants.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, luckily from what I recall, the MSA for Viator, there was nothing that I needed to push back on. Everything seemed good. Usually, for consultants, the one thing that I hear most of us have issues with is when we're going to get paid. Some times it's something crazy, like net 90 days after the final invoice, which most people cannot swing when they're independent.

but having something more reasonable, like 30 days is definitely doable. And that's usually a point of negotiation. [00:19:00] But I think I remember it being reasonable with Viator.

Susan Mercer: Yeah, and that's also something we might be able to do in an SOW as well.

Kyle Soucy: Oh yeah. Yep.

What consultants can do to make procurement easier

Kyle Soucy: And. I'm wondering too,during this procurement process from the consultant side, things can tend to sometimes go quiet, and I was wondering, is there anything consultants can do to support you during it or to make it go more smoothly?

Susan Mercer: Good question. I think,keeping the lines of communication open is always good. Just saying, Hey, wondering where things are, is there anything I can do to help? Or any clarification you need, all of that is useful. I tend to be pretty transparent on that front. Say, you know, Hey, my meeting got postponed, that happens.

I need to do the following. So and so is on vacation this week. so I'm willing to provide that kind of timeline [00:20:00] feedback and if there is any clarification I need, I reach out pretty quickly.

Kyle Soucy: You mentioned, it sounds like you have to really do a lot of selling, um, sometimes where there's a cost difference or something, or the cost of not doing something. do you like to have anything provided from the consultant that helps you to make that argument?

Susan Mercer: good question. I'm hesitating for a second. Um, I think that could help in certain situations. but usually I know why I need this study so I know how and what the cost of not doing it is going to be. because I understand the internals and the projects and what could go wrong on the projects if we don't do the proper research.but yeah, I'd definitely be open to conversations with consultants on that

cause people often find a different perspective than I may have forgotten.

What Susan looks for when hiring a UX consultant

Kyle Soucy: And what do you look for when hiring a UX consultant? what makes a candidate [00:21:00] stand out to you?

Susan Mercer: definitely experience, definitely curiosity. I really like hearing a lot of questions from the consultants in that first call where we're just saying, Hey, let's talk. I have a potential project. Here's what I'm thinking and why. But having that conversation back and forth, asking for further clarification, um, rather than making assumptions.

I don't like when the first call I have with a consultant is all sell, sell, sell. I'm looking for a thought partner.

Kyle Soucy: I love that.

Susan Mercer: No, I, we've got, we've got a challenge or a problem to solve. How can we do it together? I think setting that tone happens in that first scoping call.

Kyle Soucy: And is that different when it's, um, when you're tapping people you know versus don't know?

Susan Mercer: yeah. I think if people that I don't know, well, [00:22:00] um, I need a little bit more of that to see their thought process, to be able to understand how much are they gonna question, how curious are they? Because as you know, uh, one of the core skills for user researchers is curiosity and probing and problem solving and problem identification.

I wanna be able to get that feeling from that consultant that they're gonna engage and really help me think through as a thought partner. As I said,

How Susan finds UX consultants

Kyle Soucy: and how do you find UX consultants to actually have that initial conversation with?

Susan Mercer: Great question. I'm fortunate enough to have worked in the research field for a long time, so I have a good network. I start with LinkedIn, who do I know that's consulting right now? What are their areas of expertise?and I reach out to them sometimes They say, Hey, I'm busy right now. Who can you [00:23:00] recommend? And if I get a recommendation from somebody that I know and trust, I'm likely to transfer some of that trust to that recommendation person, still wanna see them prove it to me, but I'm more likely to trust them than a cold, email or a called LinkedIn message.

What builds trust with a consultant and what erodes it?

Kyle Soucy: I can totally see that trust is, is just everything. It's so important when you're engaging in something,that really requires the right person. AndI wanna talk about that a little bit more. when you talk about, trust, what actions build trust during a project and what can erode it?

Susan Mercer: Good questions. I think building trust during a project, um, you know, one is the consistent communication.knowing what's going on on a weekly basis. being timely with requests for [00:24:00] information or feedback. Um, I'd rather have some over communication than under communication. That way I know what's going on, and on time or frankly, early delivery, you know, we're always pleased with early.

 and any warnings of schedule delays,sometimes recruiting takes longer than we'd planned. I know that I've been doing this for years, but that early warning about it can help me set expectations for folks internally as well.and in terms of eroding trust, I think not doing any of those things or misunderstandings that go on too long, I have had a couple situations where I've communicated something and then I hear back the next step, and that hasn't been taken into account that'll erode trust.

I think [00:25:00] with stakeholders directly without myself or a one of my team members present, until I say you can, would be another thing

Kyle Soucy: Yeah,

Susan Mercer: would erode trust for me. just because I wanna make sure I understand. How to communicate with those stakeholders and be able to manage any misunderstandings or mis knowledge, or context.and obviously any client confidentiality breaches just are no, go for me.

Kyle Soucy: definite and makes you look bad. Yeah.

Susan Mercer: Exactly.

Kyle Soucy: So communication definitely seems to be the theme here. And I was wondering when, I'm sure it varies from project to project, but do you have, an ideal amount of times you like to check in with consultants once you've brought them on board? Is it weekly or twice a [00:26:00] week?

Susan Mercer: it depends on the consultant and if I've worked with them before. If it's somebody that I fully trust and have worked with in the past, weekly might be fine, unless it's a very fast project, in which case maybe biweekly is better. so that's something I'm open to discussing when we kick off the project.

if it's somebody that I'm new working with, I want a little bit more frequent updates just to make sure if they're making any assumptions and going a little bit off track that I can minimize the amount of time before it gets corrected. And one of the techniques I like to do when I can is to, you know, particularly as a director, I was very busy.

As you can imagine. But, if you'll recall in when we did the diary study, I had one of my lead team members working with you more directly, and that way she was able to handle a lot of that more frequent communication, [00:27:00] providing the context, providing past learnings that we already knew, and all of that kind of information without taking up my time as a director.

So that enabled me to be fully trustworthy of a weekly communication.

Kyle Soucy: I see. Yeah, and that worked out really well. I liked having that pairing where I was just paired with someone on your team.

Susan Mercer: I saw that worked really well, and that's something I plan to, you know, would love to do in the future if that need comes up again.

How Susan's team responded to bringing in a UX consultant

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, I was curious, when you hired me, how did your team respond to bringing in a UX consultant?

Susan Mercer: That's a great question too. the team was very busy on strategic stuff already, and we just didn't have the bandwidth for this. But we were very excited about getting a diary study. So they responded very well. they saw the need for the diary study. They knew how much time it would take. I had [00:28:00] them embedded with their own teams, uh, product teams, and they were very busy with those product and design teams.

So they understood the need to bring somebody else in

And there wasn't any resentment on this one. I think this time it was just, Hey, I wanna know what's, what's going on, what's she doing? This sounds fun. Um, I wish I could do it. But they understood the rationale.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Yeah. Because it was such a cool project.

Susan Mercer: Yeah.

What proposal format Susan prefers

Kyle Soucy: And I was wondering too,going back when you were talking about proposals and, them being like the SOW has to be in, in your format. When consultants send proposals, do you prefer a certain format?

whether it's word docs or slides?

Susan Mercer: I do prefer word docs for proposals. I think that gives a bit more room to be fully descriptive of the services, and detail out all [00:29:00] the deliverables, the pricing, et cetera. I rarely need to present that to anyone If,one of my. Approvers wanted to see it. I can just screen share the document and scroll through it, and that's fine.

and I don't, I think for most proposals for research, there isn't a need for huge visuals like a presentation would provide.

Kyle Soucy: Okay, and what about the length of the proposal?

Susan Mercer: I tend to think about two, maybe three pages, unless it's a very large study.usually the types of things I'll outsource are small enough that it should be able to fit in three-ish pages. Four maybe for a big one, but I don't need a novel.

Kyle Soucy: That's good to know. Okay. And is there anything you look for first when you open a proposal? do you go right to the price or,

Susan Mercer: [00:30:00] I tend, I think because I'm a researcher at heart, I tend to look at, what's the methodology? Yeah, there's the background, the fluff, all of that good stuff. Setting the context. Yeah, I get it. But, okay, what's your understanding of my problem or my challenge that I'm trying to face in the context?

And then what's the proposal for the method and why? And then I tend to look at the timeline and then I look at the price.

Kyle Soucy: that's, it's really helpful just to have that kind of, you know, I appreciate you being candid about how you look at it. 'cause we always wonder, what, what does matter the most to you in a proposal and what do you look for first? So that's great to know.

Susan Mercer: Sometimes I look at the price, but without the context of do you understand the challenge and how do you wanna address it, and how are you breaking that down the price doesn't really make sense.

Kyle Soucy: Right. Right. That's [00:31:00] good to hear that's realized. Yeah.

Susan Mercer: Yeah. Yeah.

What makes a consultant's pricing feel justified?

Kyle Soucy: And what makes a consultant's pricing feel justified and worthwhile to you?

Susan Mercer: I think a lot of it comes with experience and case studies and,knowledge of different research methods, how well they've understood the problem and discussed how they, justify the approach. All of that comes into play for me.if those tend to be weak and the price is very high, that's when I'm a little skeptical.

Kyle Soucy: you mentioned case studies and I was wondering is that something that you prefer to have the consultant, verbally discuss or do you want that included in the proposal or maybe a link to it in another conversation?

Susan Mercer: I tend to like that in a conversation or a follow-up email if you've got some case studies [00:32:00] that are public or wanna talk about some that aren't as public. Um, just that helps me build that trust with that particular consultant.If you've done a project similar to what I'm looking for, that just makes it even more valuable to me.

and I understand you can't always share the details of that or outcomes, all of that, or even the client, but being able to discuss that in a conversation is helpful to me

What Susan wishes more consultants understood about the sales process

Kyle Soucy: Okay. And what do you wish more consultants understood about the selection process?

Susan Mercer: that it can take a little bit of time

Kyle Soucy: yeah.

Susan Mercer: and, the fact that I do need to often get multiple quotes, and that I might not select you this time, but that doesn't mean I won't next time.and yeah, that, that full process to get the final check mark, go ahead and spend this money, can take some time, [00:33:00] can be delayed due to vacations or somebody's too busy.

 And I do, think consultants should know that I value people asking me questions in that scoping call to better understand what my needs are and what my context and situation is. Because the more you understand, the better you're gonna be able to propose the right thing, the right approach

Kyle Soucy: Absolutely. I loved how you mentioned before that you don't, you want minimal selling during that

Susan Mercer: Yeah. Minimal selling. Build my confidence in you.but don't come across as a, you know, a salesperson. I know you're selling, but I want you to be confident in describing yourself and your abilities.

What turns Susan off during the sales process

Kyle Soucy: Can you describe what your turnoffs are like when you hear selling? What does that sound like to you?

Susan Mercer: Oh, I've done this for so and so and so and so, and I've done this, and I've done that, [00:34:00] and oh, I've got the perfect solution for you. How do you know it's a perfect solution if you haven't really understood my challenge and what I need? Those sorts of things tend to turn me off. Too much of the, um, not enthusiasm, but all of those perfect words, makes me think of a car salesman.

Kyle Soucy: Absolutely, and that's the worst. nobody wants to be the icky car salesman. hopefully. Hopefully they don't. Yeah, and I love how you mentioned confidence that you want to see some of that, and that's a fine line, right? what does confidence look like to you versus coming on too strong?

Susan Mercer: Good question. I think, well, getting back to your last question, I think another thing that turns me off is when consultants come to the conversation to tell me everything they can do, and you should hire me because I'm good at this, I'm good at this. I've done this, I've done that [00:35:00] before they even understand what I'm looking for. So I like that consultative sell

And then being confident to come back and ask questions, well, tell me more about, about what you're looking for. Why is this the challenge you're facing right now? Why is this the problem to solve? What are you gonna do with this information? How is this gonna help you in the business? To me, that demonstrates confidence that you're willing to challenge me appropriately and respectfully.

Kyle Soucy:

Kyle's concerns about giving away valuable strategic advice

Kyle Soucy: there's something interesting here. so I love that we're having this conversation because there's no pressure of a job here. Like I can kind of lay it all out there for you,

What I worry about as a consultant that's pitching, or just having a discussion, you know, about a project.

a lot of times we talk about how in our proposals, we suggest strategies, we propose, some methodologies and you can take [00:36:00] that and shop that around.and that's part of the, what you're purchasing really is just how would we go about this? What's the strategy we would choose?

And we can come up with something that's really great that works within your budget and ultimately for whatever reason, you're not gonna choose us. And it's always a bummer. It's oh man, they got some good strategy for nothing. And I, we kind of accept that, that's just what sometimes how it works.

But sometimes it's oh man, I know they're shopping this around. Or you don't know how much you should reveal. but you also wanna make sure that you ask those right questions that you care about and say, have you thought about this? Perhaps this is a better approach, without giving away too much, I don't know what your reaction is to that.

Susan Mercer: I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. but I'll tell you as a researcher turned director, I would appreciate that, you know, I know you're asking for this. Have you thought about why?

Kyle Soucy: Mm-hmm.

Susan Mercer: This other [00:37:00] thing and I may have, and I may come back with, yeah, we thought about that, but because of this other information that I hadn't shared yet that might not be right.

Or I'm perfectly willing to say, oh, that's an interesting perspective. And then I might come back and ask, could you give me two proposals for each and see how that turns out? Or why don't you think through that and we can have another call before you write official proposal. Something like that.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah.

Susan Mercer: that's just me.

I'm open to being questioned and challenged. I don't think every client will likely be in that boat though.

Kyle Soucy: But no, that's something I definitely appreciated working together.

Susan Mercer: Yeah.

Bringing on subcontractors

Kyle Soucy: for the diary study that you hired me to conduct, the scope was so large that I needed to bring on another independent researcher as a subcontractor. And I'll give a quick shout out, to Anna Kopp, who was [00:38:00] wonderful.

Her company is Blue Umbrella and she's based in Toronto. So if anyone needs a great researcher, she's amazing. but from your perspective, how did that feel, as the client? Was there anything you needed to know or understand about the subcontractor to feel confident in this, setup?

Susan Mercer: I think because we had a history of a good relationship, I fully trusted your judgment. If this was my first time working with you, I probably would've wanted a call with Anna as well.

Kyle Soucy: Okay. Yeah,

Susan Mercer: just to make sure, just a sanity check. Um. Yeah, it worked out great. The two of you did a fantastic job.

Kyle Soucy: yeah, I'm always curious about that. the idea that this is, somebody else, another independent consultant that is, working on my project, is any of that confusing for the client perspective? Is it understood [00:39:00] that this is, someone who's not technically an employee?

Susan Mercer: from my standpoint, I completely understood it. I think because I had that history of working at Mad Pow at the design agency where we would subontract folks as we needed it. I knew that was clear and I believe you. You communicated it well too as I recall. So I think just being upfront, and saying, Hey, happy to do it under one umbrella.

I've worked with this person before, but she's not an employee of mine. I think is perfectly fine.

How Susan views the job of the consultant

Kyle Soucy: Alright, so before we switch over to more of the questions that would probably benefit, people that would hire consultants, I'm curious, from your perspective, how do you view the job of the consultant?

Susan Mercer: I'm hiring you to do some work, so I need you to gain my confidence in you upfront as we've been talking about, and I [00:40:00] need you to deliver the agreed upon work. and while you're doing that, communicate frequently, because we have our specific business context and we have related past research insights that I wanna make sure that you get and can take advantage of.

I always want to review deliverables from consultants, particularly with that lens. How is this gonna land with our stakeholders related to everything that's going on from a business and a strategy perspective, as well as how it, may resonate with or contradict past research.

And if there's contradictions, I need to be able to explain that myself.And as I mentioned earlier, just communicating progress and escalating issues is needed. But I think the real job you're doing that often goes unspoken, is to make me and my team look good to [00:41:00] my boss, to our stakeholders

as part of that, I need you to deliver the honest and objective truth to me and my team as appropriate, and let us determine how to message and communicate those issues to stakeholders. Because at the end of the day, if somebody undercuts us and says something to a stakeholder, we don't look so good.

Kyle Soucy: right.

Susan Mercer: come through us, let us figure out how to message and communicate.

There may be some stakeholders, I'm okay letting you talk to directly, but otherwise I may wanna be present in that conversation or have my team member present.

Kyle Soucy: This is super interesting because I hear from a lot of different consultants that, we, we are really brought on,to reveal the truth sometimes the ugly truth, that it's hard for internal, people to reveal. and it's our job as hard as it is to sometimes have those tough conversations.

And

how do [00:42:00] you feel consultants should handle tough findings or sensitive feedback? what's that right balance between honesty and diplomacy?

Susan Mercer: That's a good question. And what I always did when I was a consultant is. First off, I got the best compliment I've ever received from a coworker who said, you can tell a client that their baby is ugly and get away with it. Because what I do is I say, Hey, here's objectively, here's what we're seeing.

Start with the positive. Then move to the not so good. this is the reality, and when it comes to the recommendations, this is how we can make it better. That's always been my formula, being objective, letting the data, the quotes, the videos, speak for themselves, and then closing with, here's our recommended path forward to improve [00:43:00] this. And that has done me well, both as a consultant and internally, to be able to deliver bad news to the business. Because at the end of the day, we do need to hear that bad news. ' cause how else are we gonna get better?

Kyle Soucy: And when you talked about reviewing the deliverables, so possibly that bad news could be in that final report that has to get shared. what is your ideal review process? is it hands-on feedback or more high level checkpoints?

Susan Mercer: I like the high level checkpoints. as soon as you're seeing the bad news, let's chat so I can figure out, okay, how do we want to position this? when you've got a draft deliverable, as soon as you're comfortable having me look at it, the sooner we can make adjustments as needed. And then obviously just the final, just a sanity check, but I don't wanna leave the big stuff to that final review because by then we [00:44:00] usually have a stakeholders, meeting scheduled.

And I don't wanna leave too little time to figure out how to address it before that presentation or meeting or whatever.

Kyle Soucy: you don't wanna be learning these insights for the first time with the stakeholders in that presentation.

Susan Mercer: or the night before? No.

How Susan sets consultants up for success

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. Yep. Makes sense. so now for, you know, the managers directors out there that, that might be hiring folks, how do you ensure consultants are set up for success after they're hired?

Susan Mercer: Yeah, definitely what we talked about earlier, about pairing them with someone on my team or, if I had the bandwidth planning to work with them closely. really making sure that the consultant has a full understanding of the business context, past research stakeholder needs, any expectations you have for them, ensure that the [00:45:00] consultant gets their questions, answers more quickly.

then I may be able to, which is why I often involve that team member, and make sure that my team member is closer to the research as well, so that they can understand the details enough to know how to use it and answer questions after the engagement. That's important too. Because we can't just take something and drop it.

We have to carry it forward. So the better we understand it, the more successful the end result will be.

Kyle Soucy: Right now you mentioned, the internal person that you assign to the consultant. What qualities do you look for in that person that you select? Are they more of a peer, a coordinator, a domain expert?

Susan Mercer: Oh, I think somebody that can do all of those.

somebody that understands the business enough. So I had somebody, who worked with you, who had been with me for four years. I wouldn't have assigned [00:46:00] somebody brand new to the business. but she knew the business context, she knew the problem space that you were addressing.

So that really helped. She could provide you the relevant information and then be that sanity check of, okay, how is this sitting with what we know? Is it filling in the blanks? What contradictions are there, if any, how do we navigate that if there are contradictions?and she was senior enough to be able to, just trust you as well and not have to dive in and be involved all the time.

Kyle Soucy: Internal politics is something that, that we typically are spared from, you know, uh, but I would imagine others who are thinking of bringing consultants on might be curious to know when you tag someone on your team to, to do this, to pair with a consultant and, answer their questions or whatever.

Is it typically looked at as, okay, you're adding to my list of [00:47:00] responsibilities. is there an issue there or is it more, have you found that most are just willing and excited to be a part of that?

Susan Mercer: I always talk with them and say, Hey, I'd like you to do this. What kind of time commitment do you think it's gonna take? How does that work with your current workload? Do I need to shuffle some of your priorities? Do you have the bandwidth to do this or not?and sometimes I may have a couple of possibilities of my internal team members.

One may be swamped and can't do it, so maybe I go for the other one. or figure out, you know, use my ability as a director to reshuffle what they're working on. Can we maybe transfer something that's a little bit, more defined to somebody more junior for you to mentor as well to give you time to work with the consultant?

Making sure the consultant's work isn't lost after they leave

Kyle Soucy: I think it's really wise that to pair someone, with the consultant as you [00:48:00] mentioned, so that the work is not lost after the consultant leaves. 'cause there's nothing worse than that. and is there anything else you would recommend to other UX managers to ensure internal teams can just run with the findings once the consultant steps away?

Susan Mercer: Yeah, just getting that biggest knowledge and then advocating with it like we do with all of our research, making sure we're sharing it with the right stakeholders, making sure it goes into our repository, that it's findable, that anyone can access it. And one of the things we always put in our repository is who to contact.

So yes, this is an external consultant deliverable, but hey, go ask so and so for the questions on this one.

Getting the consultant the information they need

Kyle Soucy: And have you found any shortcuts or artifacts that are especially helpful for ramping up a consultant quickly?

Susan Mercer: I think one of the things we started doing, late in my tenure at [00:49:00] Viator, because we had a lot of disparate research and we didn't have a strong repository at the time, we created some short insight documents. About particular topics. For example, we got reviews on all of our travel experiences, and you can imagine reviews are important to people booking an experience.

So what we did is we just created a couple of page Google Doc that had the summary of, Hey, here's all the studies where we got insights about reviews, here's some of the findings, the links, the high level. And to summarize that kind of document about everything we know about this, is very useful to provide to a consultant if you have something like that.

Kyle Soucy: I imagine AI might be possibly helpful in that regard, assuming it's not incorrect and that's not hallucinating.

Susan Mercer: Yeah, I think if we had a research [00:50:00] repository or an AI tool at the time, that would've made it a lot easier to do. Um, my recommendation with AI whenever you're having it do summaries, is to make sure it cite its sources

Kyle Soucy: Yep.

Susan Mercer: so you can go back and make sure Yes, that's correct if you need to.

Lessons learned from hiring consultants

Kyle Soucy: And what would you say are some lessons learned from hiring outside help? Is there anything you would do differently now?

Susan Mercer: I think more collaboration, um, as we've talked about between the internal team and the consultant, as well as between the consultant and internal stakeholders.I think getting the stakeholders involved a little bit more with the consultant would give the consultant some of that context they need directly as well as allowing the stakeholders to understand that this source, this consultant coming to [00:51:00] us and doing research for us is trustworthy.

And just getting that trust established there, that they can transfer the trust they put in our team to this particular consultant.and I think also it just helps them better understand, The process and the deliverables so they can take it forward and use it in their work better. For example, with the diary study we did , we did have to educate our stakeholders a little bit more on what is a diary study and why is this important and how do you use this information? Because for many of them, it was their first time encountering a diary study. And I think over my years of working in leadership, I've realized that for research, oftentimes workshops are better than written reports. So these days I would be even open to conducting a workshop with stakeholders.

Here's some of the data, you know, [00:52:00] bring in the most useful data points. How would you organize it? What are the insights that are important to you and why, to help us pull that together.

Kyle Soucy: Can you say more about that? So what do you think hits better with a workshop versus the report?

I think getting the product managers are the key stakeholders for this. Getting them to engage in the actual data and understanding what we're learning. Maybe not everything because we did such a large diary study, but the key insights with a few specific quotes or video clips. I think the more that they can engage with that, the more they understand it, and the more they actually take it on board, and actually think about how they can leverage it. Granted, it isn't always easy to get workshops scheduled, particularly in a large, fast moving organization.Yeah. Yeah. But I [00:53:00] agree definitely that workshops are so much more actionable at times. Or you can see the data play with it a little bit. Are there any specific workshop formats or activities you've seen work especially well?

Susan Mercer: I immediately go to white boarding on Miro or whatever tool you have, to have,quotes or images or even video clips you can do these days, short, cut to just one particular point.and yeah, showing that and allowing them to sticky, noted affinity, map it, all of that.

Susan's advice to other UX leaders thinking about hiring consultants

Kyle Soucy: Okay. Andto put a, a, a bow on this section of the interview, what advice would you give to another UX leader who is hesitant about allocating budget to a consultant?

Susan Mercer: yeah, I think at the right times, bringing consultants in can be very [00:54:00] beneficial. And what I consider those right times are when you have way too much important strategic work that your team can get done well in the time allowed.but being mindful as to how to augment, I really do as I mentioned, love that pairing with a team member who knows the domain.

I think that will give you a lot of success and maybe try smaller. If you haven't done outsourcing before, start with a smaller, non-complicated, well-defined study as your first one, so that you can. Maybe save the more complex stuff for your team. Get a consultant to do a usability study or a card sorting study that's a little bit more defined that you can practice working with an external consultant yourself and see what, how you like that process and what you can learn from that process before diving into a [00:55:00] big diary study like we did together.

How do you know when you just need temporary help vs permanent?

Kyle Soucy: Yeah. Now this is interesting 'cause this brings up another question I have. Sofrom the client side, you've got an abundance of, KPIs or something else that you're trying to hit. You've got a lot of initiatives, only so much staff and you wanna augment that.

How do you know when this is the ideal point to bring someone in for temporary help versus adding to the fixed cost of your team? and at what point do you say, okay, consultant's great, but we could use this extra help all the time.

Susan Mercer: Yeah. A lot of it depends on how you know, well, what, first off, just the context. What's the financial context right now? Is this even feasible for me to be able to get a head count? Oftentimes I need to justify that, what are you gonna get for this head count? And I may not be able to justify a full-time headcount because there's a [00:56:00] lot of overhead with full-time. So do I think this extra demand is likely to be long-term? oh, they just added three new product managers to who I need to support. I am likely gonna need a new FTE for long term? Or is it, hey, this is just peak season for research because we're gearing up to start, really pushing forward on a few strategic initiatives.

We just need to get all the research done. Now, the strategic research done in the next three to six months, but the rest of the year is gonna be a little slower, then that's a better time to bring in a consultant.

Susan's new endeavor into independent consulting

Kyle Soucy: I see. All right, before we wrap up, I know you're now making the leap into independent UX consulting and I wonder if you could just fill us in a little bit about that. What inspired that decision?

Susan Mercer: As I've mentioned before, I have spent half of my career [00:57:00] in consulting. And I decided now's the time for me to venture out. so I'm starting Perspecta Consulting, really helping co helping companies understand their products and customers from multiple perspectives and plotting the best path forward for them.

So really helping them with research and strategy. and specifically I've learned so much about some of these AI tools out here now, understanding what they're good at and where they still need human assistance. So educating with that. helping teams select the right tools in adjusting their processes in the right way, or if they've been asked to do an AI project so many AI projects are not. Meeting their potential and quote, failing. a lot of the companies out there, HBR, and Wall Street Journal are predicting between, I think it's 50 to 85% of these AI [00:58:00] product projects are failing. So how can we work together early in this stage to figure out what's the best match between AI capabilities and user needs so that we can end up helping you build something that has a much higher likelihood of being very successful for both the users and the business.

Kyle Soucy: And has anything surprised you so far in the process of setting up your business,naming it, branding ? ?

Susan Mercer: it's been harder than I thought it would be, but I'm also very fortunate. I have a large network of folks who have been providing me with good advice. So I'm at the stage in my life where I'm listening to all the advice and figuring out what makes sense for me. I now have that wisdom to know what value I bring to what kind of company for what kind of tasks, and I'm excited to focus on that.

Kyle Soucy: I'm excited for you. It [00:59:00] sounds great. And I'm wondering, how has your experience as someone who's hired consultants, shaped how you are approaching becoming one yourself?

Susan Mercer: Oh, great question. I think, really when it comes to the sales process, I'm a consultative seller, you know, Hey, what are you facing? What's going on with you? What's keeping you up at night? I.

what do you need help with? What don't you know?you know what? I can help you with some of this, and I'm a big helper.

That's the way I like to view the world. I like to help people and if I don't know how to help you, but I understand your problem, I may know people in my network I can recommend that you talk to,

Kyle Soucy: Mm-hmm.

Susan Mercer: and I just feel like if you give to the universe, the universe gives back to you

Kyle Soucy: Oh, definitely. Definitely.I think this is fantastic. I think it would be very full circle of our relationship if we actually end [01:00:00] up working together again, but as independent consultants this time,

Susan Mercer: I like that idea.

Kyle Soucy: Yeah.

we'll have to make that happen. for the listeners, where can people find you and learn more about your new business

Susan Mercer: Yeah, I'm still setting everything up, so the best way right now is to find me on LinkedIn. I'm Susan A. Mercer on LinkedIn.

Kyle Soucy: I'll be sure to include that link in the show notes. And Susan, thank you so much for joining me today. It was just incredibly valuable to hear your perspective, not just as someone who's hired UX Consultants, but now as someone stepping into that role yourself. And I know our listeners, whether they're consultants or UX leaders, are going to take a lot away from this in what you've shared.

Susan Mercer: Great. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a, a really fun conversation.

Kyle Soucy: Oh, so happy come back anytime and just thank you so much for being part of the UX Consultants lounge.

Susan Mercer: Thank [01:01:00] you.

Kyle Soucy: All right. That wraps up this episode. Thanks for joining me. So do you have a topic or a question that you would like us to explore on a future episode of the UX consultants lounge? Perhaps there's an anonymous consulting story you want to submit.

If so, click on the link in the show notes to submit your story or question from the podcast website. Until next time, keep that consultancy going. I can't wait to have you back in the lounge for our next episode.

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