Consistency and quality are key drivers in customer satisfaction and loyalty. This is quite obvious, but the fact is that many times they don’t move in the same direction.  Some companies offer high quality products, but the quality of the customer experience when acquiring or consuming the product is a hit or miss. Other companies are very consistent at providing mediocre products and bad experiences. This is why I don’t completely agree with Charles Blakeman when he says that the lack of a consistent customer experience is the reason why customers don’t buy your product. I think product quality matters, maybe more in some product categories than others and more for some customers segments than for others.

 I do agree that companies should have a customer satisfaction process in place that creates a consistent and good experience for all customers. However, a “good” experience is likely to mean different things to different customer segments, hence the need to tailor the process based on customer segmentation.

Most importantly, a customer satisfaction process should be anchored in a customer satisfaction measurement system that provides customer insights by monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to the customer experience and the products and services offered by the company. KPIs can include different metrics based on data collected from customer transactions (internal data) and self-reported data (customer satisfaction surveys, interviews). Some of the most common KPIs are:

• Customer retention (tenure, repeated purchases, etc.) and churn (inactives, cancelled, etc.)
• Self-reported levels of customer satisfaction
• Likelihood to recommend the product and services to others
• Likelihood to continuing patronizing the brand or defect to competitor alternatives
• Performance evaluations of the company’s products and services
• Perceptions about the company and key competitors

Each of these KPIs can be customized for different teams in the organization and combined through a key driver analysis model that can tell us each team’s contribution to the company’s efforts in providing the optimal customer experience. This approach would allow the company to pinpoint where problems arise and find a solution to fix them.

To learn more about our customer satisfaction and loyalty research service visit Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research.

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Marketing researchers are in the business of gathering data, analyzing and providing insights, which marketers, in turn, should use to develop marketing and branding strategies. However, sometimes marketers feel disappointed, when results from branding research show insights that were pretty obvious. They feel they wasted money in branding research, expressing their disappointment by saying aloud “I didn’t need to do research to know that.” My question is always: Why didn’t you act on such obvious insights? The answers are often:

• I wasn’t sure
• Too obvious, there must be something more to it

In a recent article about how insights can be used to build strong brands  by Notre Dame Marketing Professor Carol Phillips, she argues that we should not reject an insight just because it seems obvious. Before we put it aside, we must first ask:

• Does it reveal something about the target?
• Does it relate to the category driver?
• Does it capture how consumers want to feel?
• Does it speak to an enduring value?
• Does it challenge the brand to act in new ways?

I totally agree with Professor Phillips when she says that if you can answer yes to some or most of these questions, chances are you have an insight for building a powerful brand.

Conversely, I think these questions can be used not only to spot relevant insights (pun intended) to help build a brand, but also to assess the quality of the branding research provided. These questions should guide the research design and the analytical approach of any branding research endeavor to be able to obtain actionable insights, obvious or not. A branding research study that can’t answer yes to at least one of these questions is totally useless. Isn’t it obvious?

To learn more about our consumer data service visit Consumer Shopping Behavior Insights. To request consumer shopping behavior data and insights don’t hesitate to contact us.

I often meet entrepreneurs who have started, or are starting, a new business and who ask me what type of market research they should conduct. Some are inventors who have come up with a gadget they love, but don’t know if there is market for it. Others have launched products and services and soon realize they need to re-think product features, benefits, advertising and the customer experience.

Regardless of whether your customers are consumers or business decision makers, at Relevant Insights we always recommend assuming a customer-centric market research approach in alignment with our clients’ business objectives. This is based on two basic principles:

• Learn how to connect with your target customer by getting a 360 degree view of his behaviors, experiences, knowledge and emotions.




• Have a clear idea of what you want the customer to think and do regarding the company’s brand and products having in mind the ultimate business goals: acquire and retain customers.

A market research plan based on these two principles would include four key areas of research, which become relevant depending on the internal knowledge available inside the company in connection with the lifecycle of the product. These four areas are:

• Awareness: As a Cuban saying goes “the baby who doesn’t cry, doesn’t eat,” we have to let the market know about our products and services if we want buyers.




• Targeting: Businesses usually are more successful if they are able to define early on who their target customers are, and which customer segments have the highest profit potential. 




• Acquisition: Without customers any business is bound to fail, so we need to know how we can attract new customers through appealing product benefits, the right pricing model, and effective marketing programs.




• Retention: Generating repeat purchases from current customers is the most cost-efficient path to business growth, so a retention strategy is a must for any business that wants to thrive.

There are many research questions that can be asked within each of these area depending on the stage a product, brand or company is at. Below are some of the questions that should be in the short list of any business that wants to succeed.  

Find the answers to these questions and you will learn how to connect with your target customers and be light years ahead of your competition.

To learn more about our consumer data service visit Consumer Shopping Behavior Insights. To request consumer shopping behavior data and insights don’t hesitate to contact us.