Advertise on podcast: Predicting People

Welcome to Dectech’s podcast, Predicting People! In this fifteenth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, explore how seemingly small changes to a digital journey can produce staggering commercial outcomes. So what makes customers click, buy, or walk away? From optimising an entire purchase journey to redesigning a single consent screen, they discuss the dangers of “sludges”, the balance between short-term sales and long-term trust, and share insights from Dectech’s previous work, where a redesigned consent screen drove improvements in customer sign-up rates. They suggest that businesses should continuously evaluate and improve their digital journeys to sustain a competitive advantage in today’s market.

In our fourteenth episode, Dectech's founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, tackle one pressing question: is AI about to disrupt traditional market research? They discuss three possible ways AI could be influencing the industry, including the rise of AI bots affecting survey responses, the increasing use of large language models as synthetic research participants or “digital twins,” and the emergence of AI-powered interviewers that might, in time, reduce reliance on human qualitative researchers. Drawing on academic literature, real-world case studies, and over two decades of hands-on experience at Dectech, Henry and Nick weigh the promise and the pitfalls of each development. They consider the commercial pressures encouraging rapid adoption of AI, and speculate on what the next wave of AI could mean for how businesses understand their customers.

In our thirteenth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, dive into the critical question of product suitability - or as they prefer to put it, how to delight customers by offering the right products. In particular, they explore the many ways product ranges can go wrong, from dominated and missing options to the asymmetry of information between sellers and buyers. They also discuss how human psychology, including the instability of our own preferences, makes choosing the "right" product far more difficult than it appears. Drawing on cognitive science literature and years of practical experience, Henry and Nick uncover why aligning products with customer needs is commercially essential. They outline how thoughtful product design and clearer communication can help steer people towards choices they will actually be satisfied with, even in a world where none of us quite knows what we want.

In our twelfth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the many nuanced challenges of data science. They explore five common, but often overlooked, pitfalls - from missing causes to spurious correlations. In a world where data science is of rapidly increasing interest to businesses, addressing these issues is highly relevant to avoid flawed data-driven decisions. Drawing on scientific principles and many years of practical experience, Henry and Nick present recommendations to help businesses gain more reliable insights from their data. They discuss how rigorous techniques, such as randomised controlled trials, can avoid false conclusions and improve the validity of outcomes.

In our eleventh episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the vast field of consumer decision making. In particular, they talk about why people buy the products they do and explore how advertising, brand perceptions, cognitive biases and flexible preferences influence our purchasing behaviour.  The insights discussed suggest that consumer decision making can be surprisingly simple, and despite large global spending on advertising, consumers may not hold such deep brand perceptions as we may assume. Rather than having stable brand images, consumers seem to react to specific events and post-rationalise their choices and preferences. Using examples from the cognitive science literature, Nick and Henry highlight the importance of testing real behaviour and experimentation beyond self-report to inform marketing strategies and our understanding of our customers.

In our tenth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss New Year's resolutions. Drawing on their own experiences and insights from the cognitive science literature, they propose strategies that can help you to set effective resolutions and stick to them.  The episode explores interesting studies on factors that influence the effectiveness of behavioural change, from implementation intentions to specific actions and how ego depletion and social commitment can impact your likelihood of success. Nick and Henry illustrate why some resolutions are easier to achieve than others, and consider the steps you could take to successfully achieve your goals.

In this ninth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss algorithms and whether they are able to outperform expert advice. Their conversation draws on a variety of commercial examples and traces the development of algorithms across multiple fields.  The episode explores a couple interesting Dectech case studies, from the world of credit underwriting to football scouting. These examples illustrate the key reasons why algorithms often outperform expert predictions, as identified in existing research. Finally, they consider scenarios where expert judgment still holds value and provide insights into the future of algorithmic decision-making.

In this eighth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the Nudge Movement. Specifically, they explore how the rise of Nudging in Behavioural Science has led to many policy problems being framed in individual rather than systemic terms. This is known as adopting an i-frame rather than an s-frame. The approach puts the focus on an individual’s behaviour rather than the systems/rules within which they operate.  Considering an influential paper that Nick himself wrote on the topic, they discuss whether individual-level solutions like nudges have overplayed their hand. The episode references interesting case studies, from the paper and Dectech’s own research, in areas like carbon emissions and retirement savings. Nick and Henry also address what this means for not just government policy, but the commercial world around it.

In this seventh episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the topic of trust. Specifically, they explore the intuitive sense we all have of who we do or don’t trust and how it can perhaps be explained. The episode also addresses why we need trust as a society and how businesses can earn and keep it, with reference to interesting Behavioural Science experiments such as the Ultimatum Games, the ABC trust framework we created for companies and our own experience of building trust with brands.

In the sixth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss how AI is influencing financial services. Specifically, they consider whether AI can help to comply with the new Consumer Duty rules, and with protecting consumers. They explore what banking activities are being augmented by AI, what role AI can play in meeting the new Consumer Duty requirements, and they give an outlook on future developments in AI and its applications.

In the fifth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the new Consumer Duty rules by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which come into effect this month. They broadly answer three key questions: how Consumer Duty came about, what the psychology behind Consumer Duty is, and what this now means for the financial service industry in practice. They also give an outlook on future trends in Consumer Duty and ethics in companies, that are spreading to sectors beyond financial services.

In the fourth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the currently high levels of inflation. They broadly answer three key questions: how economists measure inflation, how it is perceived by the wider population, and what is its effect on businesses?  Specifically, this episode explores the psychology of inflation using a Behavioural Science lense. Among the topics discussed are: how measures of inflation relate to price perceptions, how consumers recognise inflation via different reference prices, and how businesses can adjust their prices in a way that is acceptable to customers.

In the third episode, we were delighted to have Ash Schofield, CEO of giffgaff, joining our director Dr Benny Cheung to discuss data-driven decision-making and its role in business. Specifically, this episode explores whether there are too many marketers waiting for the perfect data to make decisions. Among the topics discussed are: data-driven decision obstacles, different decision types and their relationship with data, the role of technology, analysis paralysis and personal experience with data-driven decision-making in giffgaff.

In the second episode we were delighted to be joined by Georgina White and Philippa Rose, who spoke to us about the BT Insights Team, the challenges they face in proposition design and how Behavioural Science can provide solutions.

In the first episode we were delighted to be joined by Dr Lizzy Lubczanski, who spoke to us about applying behavioural science research and applications in her role as a Behavioural Research Manager at Swiss Re.