In a constantly evolving marketplace with digitally native consumers, for companies to be truly successful, they need to provide products and services that match up extremely well with what large numbers of consumers perceive as their needs at that time. As businesses vie with each other to gain the larger slice of the pie, they must be on top of the game every step of the way. They must consistently improve upon existing products and while offering innovative ones to keep their customers coming back for more and also increase the bottom line.
To do this, it is important to have a deep understanding of the pulse of the consumer – their expectations, when to target them and what is most likely to resonate with them. Improvements and innovations are possible only when businesses are able to recognize emerging market trends and, more importantly, listen to the feedback their customers are providing. This places the customer at the centre of everything that businesses do.
Customer experience (CX) has emerged as a key differentiating factor in beating out the competition. Gartner, in its Customer Experience in Marketing Survey, reported that more the 66 percent of marketers competed primarily on the basis of customer experience. And in two years’ time, this number is expected to grow to a whopping 81 percent.
So, how can companies gain better insights? One of the most widely used tools to recognize and understand customer feedback is surveys. They have stood the test of time and serve as a vital tool, to elicit useful feedback from customers. However, surveys are only as effective as their design. They must be strategically crafted and structured well with the right set of questions. Effective surveys provide us with a plethora of information, which if comprehended/analysed properly, hold the key to deep-dive consumer insights and behaviour.
In terms of understanding your prevailing audience, survey analytics can help put together the following pieces of the puzzle:
- Key reason(s) for a consumer to select your product/service
- How you are viewed versus the competition
- Challenges addressed by your product/service (or uniqueness associated with it)
- Rationale behind selection of your product/service
How can you design an effective survey?
The first step for effective primary research should be a thorough understanding of the problem at hand, while keeping an end goal or a clear objective in mind. A primary research generally comprises of the following components:
- Research design
- Research instrument (design and preparation)
- Sampling and data collection
- Analysis of survey data
The analysis of survey data should culminate with effective visualization to communicate the results with relevant stakeholders to help them effectively execute the right business decisions to aid consumer loyalty. Further analysis of the data could also throw light on areas related to:
- Establishing strategy
- Setting targets
- Identifying new opportunities
Data-driven surveys for deep-dive insights
Being data-oriented, surveys/primary research are perfect tools to understand things at a micro level of business. If the goal is to spot the big picture (i.e., by looking through both lenses – micro and macro aspects), then surveys would tend to be a piece-meal approach. In those cases, survey insights, topped up with a pinch of secondary research, will provide the birds-eye view.
Combining survey insights and survey analytics with secondary research will enable a consultative solution that covers a broad range of the spectrum. Secondary analysis can be tailor-made based on the product lifecycle or to suit the client’s needs.
Let us take an example – consider a product (with a global scope) in the initial stages of its growth cycle. The above-mentioned approach (of using both primary and secondary research), will open the following areas for engagement with the client:
1. In terms of primary research
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) analysis with separate focus on members and trailers (if any)
- Text analytics (for open-ended comments) to reflect on various themes being discussed
2. In terms of secondary research
- Analysis of business growth (versus important macro-economic factors)
- Market sizing
- Competitor profiling
- New market entry strategies
- SWOT analysis
The rationale behind this approach i.e. survey analytics, is to extend the scope of engagement with the client. As the line between traditional market research and survey analytics is blurred, it becomes important to include secondary research and other consulting practices along with survey data analytics offerings.
By this, we do not mean that analytics firms should provide market research as another core offering. However, they can integrate market research as a part of the offering for projects that have a high future potential in terms of engagement, consulting opportunities, and revenue. By integrating market research into your offerings, you are adding extra value to the services you provide to the client – thus, enhancing the customer experience of clients.
Get a 360-degree view of the consumer
Survey data analytics can help deliver more deep-dive insights into the consumer decision making process and provide an understanding of the customer journey at a more granular level. Capturing such detailed information at this level has been possible due to the digital transformation in the past few years which was not possible before. LatentView Analytics helps you gain an advantage when it comes to the customer journey. To know more about LatentView’s end-to-end custom analytics solutions, please write into: marketing@latentview.com
