Qualitative | Retail | Webinar | John Gurd
In November, Continuous | Uniform and Market Measures hosted a webinar looking at Brand, Community and the Cost of Living Crisis. Knowing and growing the right audience is vital for brand success but building a loyal community takes one giant step further – the full webinar can be found here.
One element we discussed the importance of speaking to customers, particularly for new CEOs. We have all had experiences with a brand where we wish we could have given someone in charge a piece of our mind or shared a particularly memorable bit of service.
Positive or negative this real customer feedback can be transformative for a business’ direction. That is why we are huge proponents of Meet the Customer workshops.
At Market Measures, we believe this interaction should form a fundamental part of any company’s research plans. They give a unique opportunity for senior stakeholders to connect to the people they serve and spur action that can fix pain points that are really harming your business. Importantly it can also act as a way of stress-testing conflicting hypotheses within a business.
Here are our golden rules for Meet the Customer workshops…
Establish the hypothesis internally first. All the stakeholders involved need to create a north star for the workshops whether that be diving into where your brand is failing compared to competitors or establishing how to create a best-in-class customer service experience.
Speak to a breadth of customers but have a profile in mind. All research needs to be built on the fundamental of asking the right people the right questions to get the right answers – miss any of those steps and your research is set to fail. Therefore, getting recruitment right from the start is vital.
Create a structure for the discussions. Use the time wisely and although a good discussion will morph it is important to keep the end ambition in mind so time isn’t squandered. Good facilitators will make sure the talk stays on track.
Think outside the box. These sessions can be used to co-create solutions in a forum where customers can also understand the reality of what is possible from the brand’s perspective. And where stakeholders can feel more confident that initiatives will get customer buy-in.
If you think a Meet the Customer workshop is what is missing from your audience research get in touch.