MARKET RESEARCH AND IDENTIFYING CUSTOMER NEEDS

K.BALAJI

Market Research

• The planning, collection and analysis of data relevant to marketing decision making and the communication of the results of this analysis to management.

Why it should be done

• To improve the quality of the decision making• Trace problems• Focus on keeping existing customers• Understand changes in marketplace

Market research process

• Define the research problem• Develop the research plan• Collect data• Analyze the data• Report findings

Identifying customer needs

• However your product or the service is good, no one will buy it if they don’t need it

• Knowing and understanding customer needs is at the center of every successful business

10 methods for identifying customer needs

• Analyzing with existing data• Interviewing stakeholders• Mapping the customer process• Mapping customer journey• Conducting follow me research• Interviewing customers• Conducting voice of customer surveys• Analyzing the competition• Analyzing the cause and effects• Recoding feedback from customers

Analyzing with existing datas

• It is easier to collect and analysis the existing datas

• Review past surveys, customer interviews and customer call logs.

• This process does not need more funding if the data is already collected.

Interviewing stakeholders

Interviewing stakeholders

• When you don’t have the existing data start with the sales and support teams

• They know the product and the customers.• They also have a list f feature requests, bug

reports and enhancements – straight from the customer mouth.

• Combine this to generate list of requirements.

Mapping the customer process

Mapping the customer process

• Let us ride in a normal taxi company where you have to wait to reach the dispatcher and also waited for a car to be dispatched and also hope that the driver would find you.

• But if you ride in uber call taxi you can open your

Mapping customer journey

Mapping customer journey

• A customer journey is a visualization of the process a customer goes through when engaging with a product or service.

• It’s a document meant to unify fragmented efforts and identify points of friction and opportunities for improvement.

• It is about the innovation that comes from fixing the pain.

Conducting ‘follow me home” research

• It literally means following a customer from home to work.

• You follow a customer to her workplace, spending the day watching her do her job.

• You observe process pain points ad then look for opportunities for improvement.

• This step took time and sometimes led to failure and frustration.

Interviewing customers

Interviewing customers

• Go directly to the source and ask customers about what problems they have and what features they want.

• Even when customers cant articulate their needs clearly, you can often gain insights that lead to successful innovations.

Conducting voice of customer surveys

Conducting voice of customer surveys

• This survey collect data from email or from a pop-up on a website, about the attitudes and expectations of existing or prospective customers.

• Use a mix of open and closed ended questions to produce the most useful data.

• This survey yields to identify customer goals, challenges, problems and attitudes and recommend for improvement.

Analyzing your competition

Analyzing your competition

• Consider using firms that might present a more objective face to customers who engage with your organization and its competition.

• Consider using SWOT rule : Identify your competitor's strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.

• Don’t just look at your competition in the same industry, but other industries as well.

Analyzing cause and effect

Analyzing cause and effect

• Not only positive thinking, negative thinking can also solve problems more effectively.

• Through observations, surveys and other data sources you can find the symptoms for the root cause problems.

• Task failures, errors and long task times are the usual symptoms of problems.

Recording experiences thorough diary studies

• Ask participants to record problems, frustrations, positive experiences or thoughts at intervals throughout a day, week or even a year.

• This can be low tech, with customers writing their experiences and thoughts down on paper and mailing it in, or high tech in which you can send text messages or emailed surveys to customers at particular intervals

References :http://www.dummies.com/business/customers/10-methods-for-identifying-customer-needs/

Thank you