A major competitive advantage of successful companies is their ability form deep, enduring customer bond through a powerful brand image or a personal relationship. They understand that investing in research to forge a strong connection with customers will unlock the secrets to building a business with superior products and services, a secure revenue base, and enhanced opportunities for growth. They know their relentless focus on customers drives a highly positive return on investment (ROI):    

5 Drivers of ROI from Customer Research

1. Better Decision-making

Customer thinking will be infused into your decision making process. This direct, unbiased and balanced feedback from customers will lead to more informed, better quality decision-making.

2. Revenue Growth

Customer research will typically uncover numerous new cross-selling revenue opportunities, ideas for new products and services and enhancements to key business processes.

3. Insulates Customers from Competitors

A customer research program will enable you to anticipate and resolve issues before they get out of control and you lose a customer. In the process, you will enhance overall customer satisfaction, deepen relationships and protect your customer base from competitive threats.

4. Provides a Forward-looking (Predictive) Indicator of your Business

Unlike revenue and other financial measures that are “backward-looking” indicators of business performance, customer feedback provides a “forward-looking” or predictive indicator of your future business stability. Low or declining levels of customer satisfaction provide an early warning signal of a potential decline in business even though current revenue is healthy. 

5. Sends a Clear Message to Customers That You Care About What They Think

The simple act of soliciting their feedback lets customers know that their opinions count and that your firm cares enough to invest time and resources in listening to them.

Colin Wahl, Founder & CEO

The research process begins with two questions, where do you want to go? And how will you get there? You will need to clearly articulate what information you would like to obtain from your customers and how you plan to use that information to advance your business.

 Defining the Vision

 Thinking backwards is usually the best way to begin to define the vision for your survey.  Think deeply about the end result of the research process…what charts and information would you like to see? What data and information will be on each of the charts? How will the charts be labeled? What business decisions would you like to make from the resulting charts?  What demographic information will you need (e.g., gender, information, location, etc). You need to know how you’ll want to use and segment the data so you can determine what should be included in the survey questions. Go through each survey question and ask yourself two questions. What business insight will the answer to this question provide? What business decision(s) will the answer to this question help me make? If you can’t relate the answer to a meaningful insight or business decision, then get rid of the question. Survey real estate is precious, so each and every question has to “earn the right” to be in the survey.

Suggestion:

Take out a piece of paper and sketch the charts you would like to see at the END of the survey process, be sure to label the axis of any graphs and headings, sub-headings where appropriate. Going through this process will help you derive the proper questions, anticipate data breakouts and ensure your survey program is structured to capture the appropriate information. 

Colin Wahl, Founder & CEO

Today is Election Day in the United States.  One key tenant of Democracy is that it acts as a great equalizer by transferring power from a centralized government to the masses.  In a similar manner, online research can be a Great Equalizer for thousands of companies large and small.  

Online Research significantly reduces the cost of research by replacing expensive telephone, face-to-face, and direct mailed research with Internet-based surveys distributed by email.  This means that proprietary research that used to be prohibitively expensive for all but the largest, most well funded companies is now available to the masses.  This opens up critical research not only to small and mid-sized companies, but also to many departments of large-sized companies that previously had all their research requirements centrally controlled.

While powerful, Online Research is not a panacea and it still requires “professional help” to ensure you are designing, deploying and analyzing high quality research.  One watch out with any research is that having “bad information” is worse than having no information at all.  This is because when you have no information, you know you are shooting in the dark and can plan accordingly.  But with bad information you develop a false sense of confidence.  You think you are aiming in the right direction, but you’re not.  So, you can end up wasting a lot of resources shooting in the wrong direction.

If you haven’t already looked into the capabilities of Online Research, now is a good time to elect to do so.  It has high reach, relatively low cost and the flexibility to conduct deep dive research or quick response feedback.  As such, there is no longer a good excuse for any company to make critical business decisions without getting critical feedback.  How ever you choose to use it, Online Research is a Great Equalizer.  

Rick Thompson

Executive Vice President

Welcome to the Client Opinions Blog, Market Headlights and Insights.  This blog will discuss the important role market research plays in providing: 1) a “forward looking” view into business, that is Headlights, and  2) a “deeper looking” view into the key drivers of growth and profitability, that is Insights. 

Business leaders and executives typically have extensive business intelligence (BI) that provides reporting on sales, revenue, profits for the previous month, quarter and year.  These “Tail Lights” provide great detail about what has happened in the past and can help an organization determine where problems are and what parts of the business need attention.  However, looking in the rear view mirror does not help determine the best path forward. 

To chart the best path forward, business leaders need Headlights and Insights.  Well designed market research provides Headlights into where the market is headed and what new trends are emerging that may alter the industry landscape.  Capturing quantitative and qualitative information on customer insights can transform an organization from making decisions based on incomplete and anecdotal information to one that supports a “fact-based” decision-making process. 

One of the most significant impacts of the Internet is its potential to “level the playing field” for Market Research.  Traditionally, well designed, high quality market research studies were affordable only to the largest companies with big budgets and market research departments.  Online market research fundamentally changes the game and enables companies of every size to develop and field market research that will help them make sound business deicisons regarding every aspect of their business.  Today, there is no longer an excuse for any company to make important decisions about their brand image, product strategy, pricing programs, custmer service, partner program, website, or any other aspect of their business without guiding those decisions with well designed market research.

Here at Market Headlights and Insights we will have an ongoing discussion about how every company can increase their success rate and build their business by making high quality, affordable online market research a central part of their decision-making process.

Rick Thompson, Executive Vice President