The New Year has arrived, along with a new set of challenges for clients across multiple sectors. Insight is integral to understanding what customers want, and how to deliver value for their discretionary spend. In these increasingly competitive and straitened times, here are ten insight projects that should be considered in order to give your business the edge.
1. Use research to generate ideas and solutions
More clients are using open exploratory techniques, including video observation and communities, to identify behaviours, frustrations and opportunities for innovative solutions. Such projects are essential if a business is committed to ensuring its product/service development and innovation is aligned to delivering solutions, not products.
2. Use research to test designs and concepts
Qualitative and quantitative methods can be used to refine and improve designs and concepts, giving them greater chance of success.
3. Use research to monitor your brand alignment
The value of brand alignment is becoming increasingly realised, and more businesses are using techniques such as the Brand Alignment Monitor (BAM™) to measure the extent to which they are aligned to a clear and differentiated vision – across multiple stakeholder groups (customer, prospects, influencers, staff, etc.)
4. Use research to measure customer satisfaction
Maintaining a satisfied client or customer base is a pre-requisite to building and sustaining a successful business. Beyond generating measures of satisfaction, a customer satisfaction survey can generate actionable insight around what service elements have most influencing on driving satisfaction, advocacy and loyalty.
5. Use research to understand the customer journey
Customer needs, attitudes and expectations change as time passes, and more clients understand the importance of monitoring and understand this through quantitative and qualitative research. Such consultation allows us to understand experiences and requirements at key stages of the journey, thus maximising revenue opportunities and minimising the risk of churn.
6. Use research to test your communications
Ensuring your messages are clear, easily understood and on brand.
7. Use research to understand needs and motivations
As incomes are squeezed further in 2012, businesses need to better understand the customer’s end goals and objectives – what are they looking to get from that product, service or experience?
8. Use research to measure usage, behaviour and attitudes
How exactly are customers using your products and services versus competitors? What is the wider context for their usage – what occasions exist and how are these fulfilled? How does usage and behaviour differ across different groups, locations, and through time?
9. Use research to identify priority segments
How does the customer base / wider market segment? What unique and differentiating attitudes, needs, behaviours, motivations and traits exist? Segmentation research allows businesses to understand which discreet groups deliver the greatest value, and which show the greatest opportunity for future growth.
10. Use research to generate competitor intelligence
Research can be used to engage with your business ‘prospects’ to understand their requirements, but also to understand what your competitors do differently in order to shape acquisition strategy. Insights about the competition can allow you to make decisions on all element of your own business – pricing/discounting, product, service, innovation, communication, etc.
For more information on any of these example projects, or to request case studies, please contact Colin Auton or Richard Walker at Ci Research on +44 (0)1625 628000.
